10 Email Marketing Techniques to Build and Maintain Strong Customer Relationships

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While many companies use social media to engage audiences, email marketing still takes the top spot in maintaining regular connections with potential leads and customers.

There is barely any person without an email address. So, collecting them is now easier than ever. It is popular across generations and is an inexpensive way to maintain constant contact with a broader audience. According to Zippia, about 333.2 billion emails were sent daily worldwide in 2022.

Also, emails are the quickest way to follow up with interested leads, announce new product launches and sales, and share brand updates. You can enhance customer relationships through regular newsletters and outreach campaigns, develop loyalty via rewards, and re-engage inactive customers.

Most modern brands are leveraging email marketing to maintain customer-centric marketing. So, you must use tried and tested strategies to stay ahead of the curve.

Today’s article will discuss the 10 best tricks and techniques to up your email marketing game.

10 Email Marketing Techniques to Build and Maintain Strong Customer Relationships

Email marketing can improve customer experience, increase brand loyalty, and redirect customers to their abandoned carts. But to do that, your approach must be agile, thorough, and consistent.

Here are some techniques you should include in your email marketing strategies for the best results:

1. Personalization

The key to pursuing a potential lead to opt for your services is to make them feel valued. Therefore, personalization is one of the most important aspects of email marketing.

But when we talk about personalized emails, we don’t mean individual emails to every subscriber. Brands use customizable data to craft emails that suit the buyer’s journey.

Wix is a stellar example of personalized email marketing. They don’t start the email with “Dear valued customer.” Instead, they mention the name of the customer.

Wix is a stellar example of personalized email marketing

Make sure you craft a signup form that asks for the relevant data from the visitor. It should bring you data like the name, company, gender, and location.

While following up on the abandoned cart, consider the individual’s browser history and purchasing history. It will help you craft emails that target their needs and provide information on products they are interested in.

2. Segmentation

Email marketing will not work with a one-size-fits-all approach. Different subscribers and customers have different needs. You need methods designed to fit their unique needs.

Here, the secret to effective personalization is accurate email list segmentation. You cannot pursue your new customers, existing customers, and prospective leads with the same email template. But when you segment your database, your email marketing strategies become more targeted.

While personalized welcome emails are the way to go with new customers, old customers expect updates on product launches, sales, etc. To pursue a site visitor interested in your products, you must email them valuable content and personalized pitches describing your products.

Segmentation is also important for sharing relevant deals and information. For example, you are holding a sale or an event for a particular region. You can easily share the update with the relevant contacts if you have a demographically segmented email list. This way, you can prevent overwhelming your audience with irrelevant emails.

3. A/B testing

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is an experiment where a minimum of two versions of the same variables are used to test user experience and see which option works best.

As email marketing works best when it’s targeted. With A/B testing, you ensure your approach is successful with all your customers.

A/B testing, you ensure your approach is successful with all your customers

You must create a hypothesis for improving your campaign, set it up as an A/B test, and click send. You can choose two or more subject lines or content and send them out to different customers and leads. Then you compare results to find out what works and what doesn’t work for your audience. Like in the image below, you can test whether product images respond better or when a human interacts.

Neal Taparia, who runs Cribbage-online.net, found success in AB testing plain text emails. “We used to send graphic-based emails to our gaming users. However, when we sent plain text emails, we found that our click-through rate increased by over 26%. It turns out our users wanted something simple and straightforward to read.”

4. Automation

Sending personalized emails to a segmented list is tricky to perfect. Doing it manually is prone to human errors and mishaps. But any mistake in emailing your prospects and customers can be detrimental to your marketing efforts.

For example, misnaming a customer in a welcome email may cause them to unsubscribe from your services. Similarly, if you share an irrelevant voucher with an existing customer, they may ignore your email.

Email automation is a powerful marketing resource that lets you send the right message to the right people at the right time.

No new customer will miss out on a personalized welcome email with email automation. You can effectively nurture leads and drive sales from potential and existing customers through automated workflows. With email automation, your email marketing will become seamless and error-free.

5. Mobile Optimization

If your emails aren’t mobile-friendly, you could miss out on the opportunity to engage your subscribers. This is because people open almost half of their emails on mobile, according to Zippia.

So, if you don’t want to alienate a sizeable chunk of your audience, optimize your emails for mobile.

Other benefits of this include:

  • Better Experience
  • Customer convenience
  • Higher open rates and CTR
  • Lower chance of being marked as spam

You need to watch your subject line to make your target email mobile-optimized. Mobile devices show just 25-30 characters of a subject line. So, wrap up the subject line in 25-30 characters. Keep your email copy concise and direct. Use relevant images and CTAs for the best possible impact.

6. Interactive content

Interactive emails are much more likely to drive interest than marketing pitches disguised as emails. So, to maximize engagement and impact, keep your email copy interactive.

Use pointed questions, quizzes, and GIFs to give it a fun look. Consider adding a countdown timer in relevant emails to create urgency and pursue the lead to grab a deal.

Take this email from Harry’s — a men’s grooming brand, as an example-

 Harry’s — a men’s grooming brand

Brand highlighting new products and features drives interest by helping the customer make an informed choice.

7. Personalized subject lines

The subject line plays the most crucial part in grabbing the attention of your prospects. Give it a touch of personalization to get more people to open your email.

Include their first names in the subject line whenever it is relevant. For example, if you share loyalty rewards with a customer named Erin, you can include a subject line that says, “Thanks for being a loyal customer, Erin!”

Similarly, a simple “Happy Birthday” or “Happy Anniversary” mention on the right day can drive you more engagement than your average pitching emails.

You can also send out emails with subject lines that concentrate on products they are interested in. Besides, brands can leverage FOMO and craft subject lines like “Only 6 items left” or “The big bonanza sale ends in three days!”

8. Customer feedback loops

Getting qualitative feedback from your customers or audience is crucial to sustaining the success of your marketing initiatives. Personalized emails are an effective way to do it if you can optimize them with customer feedback loops.

Keeping your emails simple and focused is the key to getting more feedback. Don’t add unnecessary or overwhelming images. Only include a brief and direct message with a strong and highlighted CTA button. Like Shopify, ensure you convey why you are asking for their input.

shopify Customer feedback loops

Even after you send a carefully crafted email, the user still has to provide feedback. Make sure the next steps are easy to complete. Otherwise, they will drop off in the middle, and you will get fewer insights.

9. Triggered emails

Want to make the most of a lead’s interest in your products? Use triggered emails. These are automated emails prompted when a subscriber takes a particular action.

The system sends relevant and highly personalized emails whenever a user engages in a specific behavioral pattern. Such a system also catches whenever certain changes take place within the product catalog.

Trigger emails enhance customer experience by sending out the most relevant information. The conversion rate increases because these emails can reach the shoppers when they consider a purchase. Trigger emails also reduce operational waste, saving you time and resources.

10. Thank-you and loyalty emails

Humanizing a brand is an essential part of a high-yielding marketing strategy. Regardless of industry, the customer experience you deliver must feel personal. You can create long-lasting customer relationships with your consumers with targeted thank you and loyalty emails.

reward points for loyal customers like Taco Bell

You can add a thank you note whenever someone purchases your product. Sending out reward points for loyal customers like Taco Bell will also show your gratitude and make them feel valued.

Conclusion

Even in this social-media marketing frenzy, email marketing continues to deliver results. But for that, you need a precise, methodical, and targeted strategy.

It is always best to create your email list and segment them according to your collected data. Make sure you test your approach to gauge its potential. When you settle on the structure, ensure each email is personalized and adds value to the customer’s journey.

With data-driven improvements in your email marketing strategy, you will drive a better conversion rate and build a loyal customer base in no time.

Oliver Baker
Oliver Baker is a co-founder of Intelivita, a leading Web and Mobile App Development company based in Leeds, UK. Oliver has been at the forefront of the business, expanding it globally and into new technologies including iOS and Android, AR, VR and Mobile Game applications. Oliver excels in Project Management, Leadership, Quality Assurance and Problem Solving and has qualifications with Prince2 and APM. He aims to develop his skills further through a shared interest with other leaders in the Software Markets and the Clients of Intelivita.

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