5 actionable steps for email marketing growth (even during a recession)

In fact, during times of economic uncertainty, people are more likely to turn to email for deals and discounts. Here are five actionable steps you can take to grow your email list during a recession.

1. Get creative with your content

With so much email content out there, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. Being creative with your email content can help capture your audience’s attention and promote your message effectively.

There are several ways you can get creative with email content: use images and infographics to illustrate your points, or videos to engage your audience. You can also create interactive content, such as quizzes and surveys, to get your audience involved.

By getting creative with email content, you can make sure your message is heard loud and clear.

2. Make it easy for users to sign up

If a user clicks ‘subscribe’ on your website, but can’t sign up, you’ve just lost a potential relationship.

Make it as easy as possible for people to sign up for your newsletter through your website. Put your sign-up form in the best spot: in an email opt-in or directly on the site navigation. Cover the basics, with fields to ask for users’ essential details. Use action words such as ‘subscribe’ to push them along.

Email marketing is about building relationships with your customers. That means making it easy for them to jump on board and communicate with you. Subscriber data is gold dust.

3. Use social media

There are many reasons why social media is a great resource for building an email list. First, it’s free: you don’t have to pay a dime to set up on Facebook or Twitter. Second, social media is accessible all day, every day. You don’t need to be by your computer or at home to get on and post tweets.

Social media is a great way to get your content in front of your target audience. You can post about your blog posts, new products and offers. This will help increase traffic to your site, and encourage people to sign up for your newsletter.

You can also share a round-up of recent blog posts on Facebook and Twitter, including the link where people can subscribe to your newsletter.

4. Offer something of value

People subscribe to a list because they want to receive valuable content. You can start to grow an email marketing list by creating valuable content such as e-books or exclusive reports.

Don’t promote your content right away. Instead, start by using this valuable content as bait to get people to sign up for your marketing list. Then create a strategy to convert those people into paying customers.

5. Segment your email lists by buyer persona

Email list segmentation is the practice of dividing your audience into smaller groups for better-targeted marketing. Email segmentation by buyer persona increases click-through rates by up to 16% and is one of the most effective ways to improve your email marketing strategy.

Think about how you organize your work team. You may have a team that focuses on sales, one that handles support and another on data entry. You divide your team up based on what they do and where their skills lie: the sales team wouldn’t be expected to do much data entry, and the data entry team wouldn’t be expected to close deals.

Apply this idea to your email marketing. You can send similar emails to those on your list, with a focus on a particular product or service.

Segmenting your email lists by buyer persona allows you to take a deeper dive into the characteristics of those personas. You could create segments such as ‘sophisticated buyer, healthcare industry’ and ‘up-and-coming buyer, fashion industry.’

This way, you’re not just segmenting your entire list into a couple of broad categories; you’re also catering to the specific interests of your buyers.

Double down on the best tool in your marketing arsenal: email marketing

Recession has left businesses scrambling to find ways to cut costs and increase revenue. With the right strategy, email marketing can be an effective and affordable way to reach new customers and grow your business.

The best part? Email marketing allows you to reach customers across platforms, including desktop and mobile devices. It’s always worth investing in a few email marketing tools or in an email marketing professional that can help you launch a campaign in preparation for a recession.

At Digital Ethos, we pride ourselves on building bespoke email marketing strategies, allowing you to outperform your competitors and future-proof your brand. Get in touch to get the ball rolling.