Marketers have been using Email blasts and general newsletters for years and years now. Although in the recent past, email recipients have grown more discerning, especially when it comes to marketing emails, email marketing certainly isn’t going away.
However, to succeed in your email marketing campaigns, it is essential to know how to send an email blast correctly. That’s where this article can help.
We will first explore what an email blast is. Then we will look at the things you should be careful of. Finally, you will learn how to send an email blast in a way that gets you the results you are looking for.
So, What Exactly is an Email Blast?
In simple terms, an email blast is the process of sending a single email to many contacts – usually a large number – all at once. It is a great way to reach many people without emailing each contact on the list individually.
Email blasts can take many forms. You can send single emails or even email campaigns. Even sending newsletters to your subscribers is a form of an email blast.
When done well, an email blast is a very effective way to reach your audience – either for building a relationship or marketing purposes.
We all know that email blasts are primarily used for promotional purposes. Businesses use them to announce a discount sale or a new product launch. They are also used to collect customer feedback or to send important information.
While the term “blast” may sound promotional and impersonal, it needn’t be – if done right. If you can provide value to your contacts – either through sharing information that can help them or through promoting products or services (in a non-spammy way) that help your subscribers solve their problems, then your audience will love your emails. What’s more, you will also be able to establish yourself as a leader in your marketplace.
The idea is to never exploit your audience – just to sell your products or services. Businesses that provide value flourish in the long run.
How Important is Segmentation When it Comes to Email Blasts?
If you are looking at email marketing as a long-term marketing strategy, you will need to plan (and implement) your approach carefully. That’s where list segmentation comes into the picture.
Email segmentation separates your existing contacts list into smaller groups based on specific criteria. This allows you to create more targeted email campaigns (For example – based on geography or profession). This prevents your email blasts from becoming generic, impersonal, and spammy. As per some studies, segmentation can increase conversion (and revenue) from email marketing by up to 700%.
The reason for such huge conversions is segmented email campaigns help you craft perfect messages to address the specific needs of different buyer categories (or even buyer personas) and suggest solutions for their problems.
Will a Generic (unsegmented) Email Blast Work?
Although segmentation is crucial if you are targeting specific markets or customer profiles, it may not be necessary to segment your list in some cases. There are several cases where a generic email blast can serve the purpose. It all depends on your strategy. In some situations, you may want to target your entire list to make an announcement or promote a product or service with a broader appeal.
How Will You Choose Which One To Use?
If you are wondering which is the right approach, here are a few points to consider.
Use an Email Blast:
- When you need to provide information to a large audience
- When you need to provide an update to your entire list
- If (as a part of your marketing strategy) you have not yet drilled down to segments and sub-segments. Sometimes you may not need to – ideally, your marketing needs (or strategy) will dictate if e-blasts are a good idea
- If you have a small email list. Spending time to segment small lists may not yield any significant benefits.
- If you only have a single product or service to promote to your existing customers. They may already fit into a single customer persona.
Segment You List:
- When your audience comes from various geographies (or has varied interests or professions), but you want to target only a few regions ( or interests or professions)
- If you need to send customized messages to sub-groups within your contact list
- If you have a large business with multiple products and/or services targeting multiple demographics
How to Get The Best Results From Your Email Blast
Here are some great tips and best practices that you can follow to get the most out of your email blast campaign.
1. Choose The Right Email Tool
There are several email marketing service providers out there. However, it is a good idea to look at their features (and pricing) before diving in. After signing up, you don’t want to find out that they don’t deliver all the features they promised initially or you have to pay up a lot more than you initially thought for the features you need.
Many service providers have either vague service descriptions or don’t reveal all the service conditions on their web pages. One way to ensure you know what you are getting is by talking to a service provider representative. That way, you will be able to clear all your doubts before you sign up. Who knows, you might even get a discount!
A great tool that can help you with your email marketing needs is LP Leadflow from LucidPlus. The reason why this can be a game changer is, that not only does this tool help with your email blast needs, it also integrates other marketing/ social media channels to enable you to turbocharge your marketing campaigns – all from one easy-to-use dashboard.
You can get more details on LP Leadflow here.
Anyway, back to our topic!
Here are a few features you would need to look for in your emailing tool:
High deliverability – Your emails should reach the contact’s inbox
Contact management – At the very least, can you easily upload contact lists into your tool?
Reporting features – Does your tool provide enough data/ analytics about your campaign?
Visual email editor – Can you create/ edit your email messages in your tool?
2. Use Clean/ Verified Email IDs in Your Contact Lists
Now that you have a reliable email marketing tool to do all the heavy lifting, you need to ensure you have your target audience’s clean, verified contact details.
Regularly cleaning your contact lists is a practice that can pay great dividends in the long run.
So, how exactly can you clean your contact list?
To start with, regularly look at your contacts’ activity data. Then, put some effort into re-engaging contacts who have not been showing interest for some time. If you cannot re-engage them, consider removing them from your list. Another important action is to use email verification services to check how genuine the email ids in your contact list are.
Keeping your lists clean is essential to boost boosts your sender reputation. It also reduces the wastage of valuable resources – both time and money.
3. Optimize Your Content To Meet Your Marketing/ Messaging Needs
The biggest mistake most email senders make is to keep sending random (even spammy) messages to their audience. They do it mainly because they either lack knowledge about email marketing or don’t have the time or patience to craft appropriate messages.
This can be suicidal for your business. Random or generic messages neither help your brand nor your marketing efforts. Your messages should focus on an outcome – either to deliver a specific piece of information, build a relationship with your audience, or sell/ promote a product or service. Whatever your goal is, your messages should be optimized to meet that goal.
Random messages don’t deliver value and will most likely end up creating inbox fatigue for your audience and ultimately lead them to unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam.
5. Personalize Your Emails
Whether you are doing an Email Blast or sending a few emails, personalization is a best practice that can significantly increase the effectiveness of your emails. You don’t need to put in a lot of effort to make your emails look more personal. Most email tools will have a personalization option. It can be as simple as addressing your contact by their first name. Personalization helps you to build rapport with your audience quickly.
Another point to keep in mind is to avoid (or, at the very least, reduce) using spam words in your emails. Avoiding common spam words can make your emails look much more personal and increase readability.
7. Choose The Best Time To Send Your Mails
Use the scheduling option in your email tool to choose the best time to send your email blast. You don’t want to send emails to your particular audience when they are busy at work (or sleeping or on holiday). This depends entirely on your audience segment. However, doing this right will skyrocket the success of your campaigns.
Analyze the data from your past email campaigns and determine the best time to schedule your emails to get the best open and click rates. One way to get this information is by searching on Google for the best times to send emails to _________ (industry, geography, profession, etc.).
Once you do a few email blasts, you will better know the correct timings.
Final Words – It’s All About The Strategy
The topic of Email blasts has always been a little controversial – depending on who you ask. They can also work phenomenally well or turn out to be dud – depending on how you do them. But controversies apart, they can be a very effective form of mass communication or a powerful marketing tool. Successful email marketers use a healthy mix of email blasts and targeted emails. If you follow the above tips and avoid spamming your audience, you can get great results from your email blast campaigns.
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