A review of five ways to amp up your email marketing game

Are your emails getting the response you expected? Has your open rate plateaued? If you are finding that email engagement is challenging, you are not alone. As with anything in your marketing playbook, email marketing requires thoughtful planning, monitoring, and management. Just because you send an email, does not mean that it will be read, and just because you have a list of contacts does not mean that they are interested in another addition to their inbox.

For this reason, we have put together five ways to review and improve your email marketing campaigns as follows:

1. Make a Statement from the Start – Your subject line has power; after all, it is the first thing that your contact reads. It is worth taking the time to craft a strong subject line that will get noticed and entice the reader to “open”. Some ways to do this include opening with a question, engaging with a teaser/cliffhanger, or inviting the recipient to an exclusive or limited time offer.
2. Find the Optimal Time – Timing is everything, and when it comes to sending emails certain times and days are better than others. According to Constant Contact, one of the most effective ways to find the best time to send is to segment your list into 2-3 equally sized groups and send the same copy of your email during different times of the day (morning, afternoon, and evening). You should apply this test for a few different mailings and keep track of which version gets the most engagement.
3. Verify Contacts – When did you last update your contacts lists?  Have you cleaned up the bounces and invalid addresses?  The first step to verifying your contacts is to ensure the source of your contact information is relevant to your business/industry and validated, such as the leads generated by HBW. Next, you will need to manage those contacts and update any changes in information over time.
4. Get Buy-in – Once you have new contacts, make sure you send an introduction email inviting them to future communications. In this first email, you may choose to let them know why they are receiving the email and what exciting new content is on the horizon. Keep it short, sweet and to the point to get buy-in and an official “subscriber”.
5. Create Segments – Designing emails that speak to the readers’ interests is vital to the success of any email marketing campaign. One way to customize content and to whom it is distributed is to segment your lists. If you’re still working with one large email list, now is the time to think about ways you can reach out to smaller more targeted groups. You may choose to organize your contacts based on their location, interests, and/or purchasing patterns.

By taking a little extra time to verify contacts, manage data, and customize email messaging and timing, you will be able to fine-tune your email marketing campaign so that you see more “opens” and less “unsubscribes”.

For more information on construction business marketing tips, stay connected with the HBW Blog.  To get ahead of construction activity and gain access to the latest permitting data in Florida, Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma, contact HBW for more information on construction data reports and industry leads.