15 Email Marketing Strategy Tips For eLearning And HR Tech Startups That Want To Scale

How Does Email Marketing Work?

According to data, the number of emails sent and received in 2024 was 347.3 billion. And this number is projected to increase even further in the following years. In fact, email marketing has a much higher ROI than SEO, content marketing, PPC, and affiliate marketing. The goal of an email marketing campaign strategy isn’t simply to make more sales but to build long-lasting, trusting customer relationships. Enforcing the best email marketing practices ensures your messages appeal to your audience’s needs and engage them with your website. Every single message you send, whether business-related or entertaining, deepens your bond with your clients. Two of the most important email marketing tips we can offer you for your strategy are attention to detail and personalization.

However, not all email marketing ideas work equally well. Actually, some might be more harmful than beneficial. To avoid getting in the spam folder, you should follow certain guidelines and not try to deceive your audience. Don’t make them feel like the only thing you want from them is their money. This will come naturally once you’ve established a real connection.

In This Guide, You Will Find…

5 Strategy Tips To Organize Your Processes

1. Get To Know Your Buyer Personas

Don’t treat your customers as just numbers on your email list. They are people with unique problems and needs. So, do your research about them and build eLearning buyer personas that summarize common pain points and demographics. One of the most successful email marketing tips we can give you is to ask recipients how they like to receive your messages. Some of them may like phone calls better than SMS messages. Also, depending on their age groups and location, you might need to use certain slang to communicate more effectively and engagingly. Even if you don’t receive all this information from the start, your surveys and feedback requests can provide you with more accurate insights.

Additionally, one of the top benefits of email marketing is that you can segment your email list. You can easily perform this task using CRM software. Think about it. You don’t want irrelevant messages to reach all your subscribers, as many of them will be fully disinterested. The more you microsegment your audience, the more targeted your messages are.

2. Set Up A Sending And Frequency Checklist

Email marketing distribution shouldn’t be too frequent. You should focus on quality over quantity since sending too many emails might have the opposite effect of what you’re hoping for and might end up overwhelming your recipients. As a result, they may unsubscribe or, even worse, send your messages to spam. So, start slow and check how your open and engagement rates are before ramping up your frequency. Additionally, the timing of your email communication is pivotal. Depending on their time zones, people read their emails at different times. For this reason, you should analyze your email marketing list and test different send times to find the best fit. For example, data shows that sending emails on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10 am and 11 am, has the highest open rates. As an extra tip, you should try sending your emails at “off” times, like 10:08 instead of 10 sharp.

3. Run A/B Tests

Iterative testing, especially A/B testing, is critical for any email marketing plan to work. You should test your subject lines, CTAs, pre-headers, and images. When you run your A/B tests, make sure you examine only one element at a time. For example, if you want to check your subject lines, add two at a time. Once you have a winner, check the next two lines. Do this until you get the best-performing one. You should do this regarding every segment of your list in order to understand what works best for each buyer persona.

Now, let’s share a few email marketing tips regarding the tone of your subject lines. You may want to test a friendly, fun line and a professional one. Maybe younger demographics and early-stage startups will appreciate entertaining subject lines, while seasoned professionals may prefer a formal tone. Lastly, your headers are a huge part of your email marketing techniques. Test various styles and versions to ensure you get as many opens as possible.

4. Decide On Your Metrics

To track, measure, and optimize your email marketing strategy, you have to decide which metrics you will track. If churn rates and monthly recurring revenue are the holy grail of customer success metrics, open rate, click-through rate, click-to-open rate, and bounce rate are crucial for your email marketing campaign strategy. To decide which metric you’ll focus on the most, you have to understand the goal of your email. For example, if you want your subscribers to read a new article you published, open rates and click-through rates are the most important. On the other hand, if you have a new offer, you want to focus mainly on click-through rates, as the more people click on your links, the higher the possibility they will purchase.

On both occasions, you can leverage collaborations with established figures in the eLearning and HR fields. Newsletter featured placements are amazing at helping you grow your audience and increase website clicks cost-effectively.

5. Clean Your Email List Regularly

Take this email marketing tip very seriously. Every time you send an email, you can see how many addresses open it. Of those who don’t open your messages, many accounts are probably abandoned and have absolutely nothing to offer you. There are two issues with that. For starters, addresses that ignore your emails for prolonged periods can harm your delivery rates and signal to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that you are sending unwanted emails. To tackle this email marketing challenge, take some time to clean your list and remove addresses that haven’t engaged with your sends for a long time.

The other issue is that when you subscribe to email marketing tools like HubSpot, your subscription rate is based on the number of recipients, among other factors. Having useless accounts only results in you paying more without getting any benefits from those emails.

10 Successful Email Marketing Tips To Scale Your Business

1. Personalize Your Messages

One-size-fits-all email marketing campaigns aren’t going to increase your open rates or conversions. Now more than ever, B2B consumers want to feel like you understand their needs and challenges and have a viable solution. With account-based marketing tactics, you basically send individual emails and offers to every single company/account based on their pain points and past interactions with your brand. You may follow this email marketing strategy only with high-volume or high-intent clients. With the rest of your email list, you personalize using a more generalized approach. Sounds conflicting, doesn’t it? What we mean is automating certain personalization features, such as mentioning each consumer’s name at the beginning of emails and making offers based on their browsing or purchasing history. You can browse various email drip campaign examples to understand how you can automate this process.

However, to succeed in personalization, you should know when and which data to gather from your customers. Anticipating their needs and contacting them with relevant information and suggestions is also crucial. Or you can choose to collaborate with an expert partner in your field for a newsletter top featured placement so they can approach their vast audience and make you look like an appealing solution.

2. Optimize For Mobile View

Did you know that 81% of emails are opened and read on mobile devices? Optimizing your emails for mobile view must be one of the top email marketing tips right now. Think about it. What do most people do the moment they open their eyes every morning? They go on their phone, check their social media, and open their emails. Imagine someone opening your non-optimized email. What do you think they’ll do? Wait until they turn their computer on to read it there? Certainly not. They will probably toss it into the bin. So, how can you improve your emails on mobile view and get more customers?

Let’s start with subject lines. Longer ones may be viewable in desktop mode but may appear cut on mobile view. So, make them short and sweet. Also, the preheader should be equally short and descriptive. Don’t let people wonder what your message is about. Be clear and concise. Finally, don’t forget to include a large and bold CTA that is easy to see and click on.

3. Automate When Possible

Successful email marketing strategies often implement one of the top marketing industry trends, which is automation. You can’t be on your computer 24/7 monitoring customer behavior and sending them the appropriate emails. This is where automation comes into play to save you. Trigger emails, including “thank you for your purchase,” “thank you for subscribing,” and “welcome,” can be arranged beforehand. In fact, trigger emails have an average open rate of 45%, while newsletters have 40%. Not only that, but they also have a 15x higher click-through rate! Some companies even generate 20% of their revenue thanks to these automated email sequences.

Let’s check a very common example. You visit a website, add a few items to your cart, but don’t proceed to checkout. Some time later, you receive an email reminding you of these items waiting for you. Not only that, but the email offers you a 10% discount. Won’t this push you to make your purchase? This is what an automated email marketing example looks like.

What you can’t automate are exclusive email blasts. Are they worth the hassle, though? We think so! You have the opportunity to partner up with a master in your industry and leverage their audience to expand your reach.

4. Focus On Your Email Design

Targeted email marketing shouldn’t only prioritize personalization and account-based campaigns. It should also focus on making every email an accurate representation of your branding. Your emails are part of your overall online marketing strategies. This means that people should be able to identify your messages before they even see your name. To do this, ensure the color combos align with the colors of your brand and the logo appears at the top. It should also redirect to your website if someone clicks on it. Additionally, add your company details and unsubscribe information at the footer. Don’t forget to use imagery that follows the same logic as the graphics on your website.

Moreover, email design isn’t only about branding. It’s also about clarity. Recipients should understand exactly where each CTA and link will take them. And while you’re at it, why don’t you learn how to optimize a landing page for lead generation? Your landing pages may need some polishing to attract new leads and convert them into paying customers.

5. Write Subject Lines That Stick

Your email subject line is like a store’s shop window. Depending on what it shows and the emotions it conveys, people will either visit it or keep walking. According to data, 47% of recipients open emails solely based on subject lines, while 69% of them report messages as spam if the subject line is sneaky or fishy. Our first email marketing tip for your catchy email subject lines is to keep them short, at five words or less. This way, you keep them optimized for mobile view, too. Try to pique people’s curiosity without resorting to gimmicky and clickbait-y methods. You should paint an accurate portrait of your emails with just a few words and without overpromising anything. One of the worst email marketing techniques is faking your messages’ content, wishing to get more clicks and avoid getting into spam, which harms your address’s credibility.

6. Write Engaging Copy

Any successful promotional campaign requires clear, engaging, and convincing copy. We have a few valuable B2B and SaaS copywriting tips to offer you. For starters, you must find your brand voice. Figure out the tone your brand wants to have and stay loyal to it. Your stakeholders can help you understand which direction to take. Whatever tone you choose, your copy should be conversational. You don’t want to sound like a machine or like you’re writing a brochure. Your audience needs to feel like they are speaking to a real human who understands them. So, all elements of your email marketing content should fit under the same brand voice umbrella. Your CTA, subject line, header, and main body must all follow the same pathway. And this should be done consistently.

Like with other aspects of your email, you should always test every component to ensure it aligns with your overall tone. If your message is warm, engaging, persuasive, and emotional, you’ve struck the perfect combination.

7. Include Multimedia

You don’t have to use impressive graphics, videos, and images that take hours to create. If you can do that for every single email marketing campaign, do it! However, SaaS startups and smaller eLearning companies may not be able to afford this luxury. In your case, stick to simple visuals that engage the audience and convey the messages you want to send. For example, a simple GIF without too much text around it can communicate your unique offers perfectly. This tactic may work great for seasonal sales or unique discounts. In other cases, you may want to test interactive polls, surveys, and short videos. For instance, at eLearning Industry, we’ve created a video summarizing how our visitors can find the best LMS or HR tools on our directories. For many people, it is a lot easier to watch such a video than to read a post about it.

8. Use Double Opt-In

What type of opt-in are you currently using? Our email marketing tips include the necessity of utilizing double opt-in instead of single or pre-selected opt-in. Let’s start with single opt-in: people who subscribe to your newsletter simply add their personal details and press subscribe. They don’t have to confirm their action somehow. This method is potentially dangerous, as nothing protects you from forged email addresses. That’s why you should choose double opt-in, which means people will receive a confirmation email once they subscribe. Usually, they have to click on a link and let you know that they indeed want to be added to your email list.

Pre-selected opt-in is where a pre-checked box of selections is offered, and users only have to add their email address. It can also be problematic, as people may not realize exactly what permissions they give you.

9. Follow GDPR Rules

The best email marketing strategies ensure adherence to the General Data Protection Act (GDPR), which entered the email marketing world in 2018. GDPR provides guidelines and limitations regarding the way you process people’s personal information (name, address, ID, etc.). It applies to EU companies or those outside the EU that appeal to European audiences. GDPR compliance online training may be needed to ensure you and your team members know the exact rules. One such rule is that personal data should only be used transparently and in a manner that aligns with the goal of gathering it. Notably, one of the most common GDPR breaches is when correct information is delivered to the wrong addresses. Additionally, under these laws, users have the right to request their data to be updated, deleted, restricted, and transferred.

But how do you keep all this personal data safe and secure? Companies are required to appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who is responsible for setting strict protective measures.

10. Leverage Account-Based Marketing

We mentioned account-based marketing earlier, but let’s expand on the subject. No matter how elevated your selling skills are, you won’t convince anyone unless you learn their Achilles’ heel. To achieve this, a market intelligence report is a great first step to help you identify your ideal buyers and their needs. Spend some time analyzing each account, its industry, core pain points, and future goals. Keep in mind that the buyer’s journey is not the same in every industry. So, your email marketing tactics should align with the varying buying processes. You have to prove to each account that you know their pain points and possess the magic potion. Everything, from your subject line to your CTAs, should be customized to meet their demands.

How Much Does Email Marketing Cost?

Email strategies are usually not that expensive, ranging between $51 and $1,000 per month. The larger a company is, the more money it can invest in email marketing. Also, it depends on whether you employ in-house pros or hire external agencies. Other factors contributing to the cost of eLearning marketing solutions are the software you use, your sending frequency, campaign volume, and number of subscribers. Additionally, marketing campaigns require high-quality content, including graphics, cart abandonment emails, and welcome messages. 17% of businesses say that they spend $101–250 per month on email content, while 16% claim that they pay more than $750.

If you’re wondering how to run an email campaign, you should start by identifying a competent platform. In-house email marketing, along with a platform, costs anywhere between $750 and $1,000 per month. This goes for both HubSpot’s and Mailchimp’s solutions. Other platforms like Moosend, Constant Contact, and Campaign Monitor are cheaper.

So, is an email marketing strategy worth the hassle and investment? Absolutely, yes! On average, companies make $36 for every $1 spent. However, you can push this number even higher if you enforce effective email marketing solutions.

Key Takeaway

Building a successful email marketing strategy and answering a follow-up email after no response are things that can’t be taught overnight. You need to try out various email marketing tips to see which ones work best for you. Still, there are certain steps and techniques that apply to each and every email campaign. For starters, you should segment your users, create buyer personas, and decide on the frequency of your emails. A/B testing will help you choose the right elements, while personalizing your emails and following an account-based approach are ideal to appeal to each prospect by targeting their unique issues. To achieve this, your subject lines, CTAs, and email copy should be engaging and convincing.

Don’t be afraid of unsubscribes. In fact, you should clean your list regularly and remove addresses that haven’t interacted with you in a long time. As long as you follow GDPR rules and use a double opt-in feature, you have nothing to worry about. Your emails will remain credible, and people won’t easily send them to their spam folders.