Your return on investment (ROI), takes into account both cost and sales. Some marketing mediums return high sales but also cost too much – others cost very little but also return low sales. Email marketing is becoming the perfect mixture of low cost and strong return, and if your business has not yet taken advantage of email marketing, you are likely overlooking a great deal of low-hanging fruit.

If your business is already using email marketing, but you don’t feel like the investment is generating much return, Shawn Khorrami has a few pointers to help you optimize your campaigns. Email marketing, when done the right way, will nearly always generate strong ROI for your business.

How Does Email Marketing Work?

When a consumer arrives on your social media page or website, they will hopefully find value and want to learn more. Even if they are not ready to buy, they can still be impressed by your message and content. As a result, they may be inclined to subscribe to an email newsletter in order to see more of the content they enjoyed. They may also want to be informed of any future promotions, giveaways, or other interesting news.

After collecting a lead’s email address, you want to begin giving them what they want: regular, relevant content that adds value to that individual’s needs or wants. The path you take to manage the lead’s email, send them content, and draw them ever closer to buying your product or service is the essence of email marketing.

To get started, it is usually best to set up the business with user-friendly email marketing software, like MailChimp, Get Response, and Sparkpost. Most of these sites are free to use for startups, and increase in price as your campaigns grow.

5 Steps to Maximizing ROI on Outbound Emails

After getting your first batch of subscribers, you shouldn’t send them just anything and everything. Recipients are inclined to overlook generic emails that look like every other marketing email. Instead, you have to set yourself apart and then track your progress.

1. Boost Subscriber Count

Shawn Khorrami firmly believes that your subscriber count should never feel large enough. In an effort to grab more subscribers, you need quality content. You can post content on your business social media pages and on your company website. On each page of your website, offer a call to action, asking readers to subscribe to your content. Build great content, and readers will want more. Add value, and they will give you something in return (if not sales, then at least their email address).

2. Segment Email Recipients

Don’t lump all your subscribers into one batch. Collect what information you can on leads, such as their location, interests, set of problems, etc. If you are using cookies and a website analytics tool to track where the leads have been on your website, you can segment your leads by the type of content/products/services they preferred on your site. Therefore, instead of having one generic email that might not interest anybody, you could have 50 emails for 50 different types of individuals that engages them on a more intimate level.

3. Create Drip Campaigns

Shawn Khorrami is a noted fan of drip campaigns, which are a series of emails sent out on a predetermined schedule. Why? Because it takes email content, turns into a story with regular installments, and then spreads those installments out over weeks and months (and sometimes years). The goal is to guide the prospect through the buyer’s journey to the point of sale.

4. Craft Compelling Subject Lines

Subject lines should catch the recipient’s attention without looking like click bait. Often, people will only look at the subject line of an email to determine if it is worth reading. Deliver value in the content of each email, and then sell that value in the subject line in a short, compelling phrase (or question).

5. Build Landing Pages to Track Conversion

If your business is using heavy analytics software well, you will be able to set up goals and track each recipient’s progress and levels of engagement. You can also build landing pages on your site that steadily increase the prospect’s commitment level to your brand over time. Shawn Khorrami states that when they are ready, they will buy.