There are several steps to creating a successful email campaign in MailChimp.

• Decide your campaign goals. What does success look like? What are your objectives? Sales, engagement?
• Creating a compelling offer which delivers value.
• Selecting a segment. What part of your audience will respond best to this email? It is best not to use a one-size-fits-all email.
• Specifying the sender name. Vitally important to success
• Specifying title. Vitally important to success
• Creating compelling content. Take care to craft your email.
• Scheduling email. Experiment to find the time when your email gets the most engagement
• Track metrics. And make improvements.

Clear Goal

Each email campaign should focus on just one goal. Getting customers to convert on multiple calls to action (CTA) in an email will confuse them, leading to lower conversion rates. Simplicity is key.

When setting your goal, use the SMART framework.

• Specific: Your goals should be clear and well-defined.
• Measurable: Your goals should also be quantifiable so that you can track progress and determine if you are on track.
• Achievable: Your goals must be challenging but also realistic and attainable.
• Relevant: Your goals should align with your overall business objectives and the needs of your target audience.
• Timely: Your email marketing goals should have a specific timeline so that you can stay on track and make progress toward achieving them.

Compelling offer

The information you send in your email should be tailored to your audience and offer them something useful. This could be:

• Exclusive offer
• Exclusive event
• Useful product information
• Limited-time offers.
• Seasonal or holiday promotions.
• Product launches.
• Contests and giveaways.

Everyone loves a bargain, so an incentive is a good way to get the interest of your audience.

Segment your audience

Segmentation is the organisation of email subscribers into smaller segments based on set criteria. Segmentation delivers more relevant emails to subscribers based on their geographic location, interests, purchase history, etc. Segments allow the sender to target the interests of customer groups rather than creating a one-size-fits-all message.

Examples of segmentation include:

Demographics

Demographic segments use customer information like age, gender, marital status, and job title. You can collect this data when new subscribers subscribe to receive your email marketing or later via a survey. The more information you gather during the early stage of your relationship, the more advanced your segments can be.

Geographical

Many offers will be contingent on location, so you do not want to send offers to customers who cannot act on them. For example, if you run a website that sells to multiple countries and runs a free UK shipping promotion, you cannot send this to EU customers.

Marketing preferences

You should collect marketing preferences, especially during the welcome series in preference centres and re-engagement campaigns. This is data such as the product categories, newsletters, or topics they are interested in and the frequency they would like to hear from you. Collecting customer preferences will help you ensure high campaign engagement levels.

Email Engagement

Email engagement metrics such as open rate and click-through rate are tracked automatically. That means segmenting users based on their interaction with your email marketing is straightforward. For example, you could create a VIP segment of high-spending subscribers for more frequent emails.

Behavioural

Behavioural segmentation is based on customer behaviour on your website. Segmentation options include specific page hits and frequency of visits, which help personalise your email. Use purchase history and average order value to create behavioural audience segments.

Email title

Good email titles will capture readers’ interest and encourage them to read your email. Keep titles short and place key details at the front of the sentence. This will ensure people can read your subject lines on different devices. Mailchimp recommends a maximum title length of nine words or sixty characters.

Your subject lines should be relevant, specific, and gimmick-free. Use keywords and phrases that are of interest to your segment. Be honest about the email’s contents. You do not want your email classified as Spam.

Personalising each subject line is another useful technique to help your audience feel you are talking to them directly.

Email sender

Email open rate studies have found that trusting the sender is the most important factor in whether an email is opened. Choosing an effective and consistent ‘From’ name and email address is critical.

Choose a name or title that will be recognisable to your subscribers. Normally, that will be the company name, or the product or service people have signed up to learn about.

Email Design and content

Use clear, engaging language

You should use clear, actionable language and an active voice throughout your email, subject line, and calls to action (CTAs). Motivate your audience to act. Write in the second person voice, referring to the reader as ‘You’, discussing benefits, not features.

Clear Calls to Action

Clear CTAs are essential to your email. Your audience should be encouraged to ‘View deal’, ‘Sign up’, or ‘Visit sale’ in as few words as possible.

If you are writing an HTML email, you can make your CTAs stand out by using a high-contrast button. According to research by Campaign Monitor, these have much higher click-through rates than non-button alternatives.

You should also have only one call to action in an email. The same research also found that single CTAs had a 371% better conversion rate than multiple calls to action.

Email Scheduling

When is the best time to send an email? There is no fixed rule here; the best time will differ from campaign to campaign. You need to experiment to find the best time for your audience using A/B testing.

Gather data about your audience

Google Analytics and Facebook Insights provide insights about your audience’s demographics, locations, and interests. This information will allow you to make informed assumptions about their lifestyle and when they will most likely engage with your emails.

Analyse your open rates

Review metrics from earlier campaigns. The open rate will vary depending on your industry but the average is 21% percent. See when the best performance was achieved from earlier campaigns and send your upcoming emails then.

Check out competitors

Subscribing to competitor emails will give you an idea of when they think the best time to send is. Hopefully, they have researched your industry and audience, and you can piggyback on their experience.

A/B test your email send times

It is essential to A/B test your email send times to figure out the sweet spot for your audience. By sending the same email at various times you will begin to understand the best time to reach your audience.