Email Marketing Campaigns for Green Industry Businesses: Why You Need Them & What You Need to Know
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The Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
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With the popularity of social media marketing, it’s easy to overlook email as a viable marketing opportunity, but nearly 80% of marketers state email marketing is one of their top three most effective marketing channels. Not to mention, you own your email channel and can reach your subscribers directly, unlike social media platforms that can change algorithms with no notice and instantly impact your reach.
When you create purposeful content that provides value to your recipients, there’s no question whether you should include email marketing within your strategy—the answer is an unequivocal YES. The real question is, what does it take to create email content that your subscribers will actually want to read, that provides value, and that converts, versus emails that end up unopened in the trash folder? The answer—strategy.
Creating an Email Marketing Strategy as a Green Industry Business
Leading lawn, landscape, and outdoor living firms use email marketing for various purposes, including building relationships, nurturing leads, keeping your brand top-of-mind, and promoting content and services. They might include links to their blog posts or case studies, provide a behind-the-scenes look at their daily operations, share upcoming sales, provide industry tips for the season, or offer project inspiration. The content included depends on the goal of each email.
Setting Your Email Marketing Campaign Goals
The first step in any email marketing campaign is identifying your overall business objective. Examples are increasing sales, building brand awareness or loyalty, establishing industry authority, or driving traffic to your website.
Use your overall business objective to determine the goal of each email or the action you want the recipient to take after reading your email. Examples of goals may be increasing traffic to a specific landing page, scheduling an appointment for a new service offering, or booking a consultation.
Segmenting Your Audience Into Targeted Groups
The last thing you want is to send the wrong content to the wrong audience and risk losing subscribers. Segmenting your audience helps build trust and develop relationships and is a highly effective tactic. Marketers that segment their audiences in email campaigns notice as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
By creating segmented groups of contacts, you’ll provide the right content at the right time—which is powerful. You can segment your audience in various ways, depending on your goals.
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SEGMENT 1: STAGE OF CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Prospects require different content at each stage of the customer journey. If they’re on your email list, they could vary in stages, from the consideration or conversion stage to the loyalty stage. During the consideration stage, your emails could include educational information about your services and their benefits. After the conversion, you may send a confirmation email or a welcome series. In the loyalty stage, you may focus on sharing blog posts that educate or upselling opportunities for other services they may benefit from.
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SEGMENT 2: RESIDENTIAL VS. COMMERCIAL
Residential and commercial content should be separate, whether it’s email content or website content. The audience is entirely different for each segment, and what motivates one likely won’t motivate the other. This is the most basic segmentation, but you can further segment each group.
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SEGMENT 3: ENGAGEMENT HISTORY
Analytics can help drive your email marketing efforts. You can create a segmented email list based on a group of subscribers’ behavior, such as how often they open and engage with your emails. This strategy helps you target your more active subscribers, who are likely more ready to convert.
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SEGMENT 4: INTERESTS
You can create segments for the customers you’ve built outdoor kitchens for, built inground pools, or provided lawn care treatments for. The customer with an outdoor kitchen won’t be interested in inground pool upgrades and vice versa, demonstrating the importance of segmenting your audience to provide the right content at the right time.
Choosing Your Email Campaign Type
Your email campaign type will depend on your goal and the purpose of your email.
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NEWSLETTERS
These periodic emails are a popular choice to keep your brand top-of-mind by providing industry-related news, updates, and timely reminders about your services.
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PROMOTIONAL
A promotional email includes information about a specific service. For example, you might promote your fall cleanup services in an email sent in August or your snow and ice management services in an email sent in October.
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WELCOME & THANK YOU
Most outdoor living companies send a welcome email with a new subscription or a form submission. As it sounds, you will welcome the new reader and thank them for subscribing to your list or submitting a form on your website. You might briefly introduce your company and provide an overview of your services.
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LEAD NURTURING
These emails are sent to leads who have expressed interest in your company or services but have not yet converted. The purpose is to guide your leads through the sales funnel, ultimately leading to conversion.
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POST-BID
After submitting a bid, an email can be automatically sent thanking the lead for their time and consideration. This email might include content demonstrating why your company is the best choice for the job. For example, if you’ve bid on a snow and ice management account, the email could include information about your 24/7 storm tracking, GPS-equipped trucks, and positive customer reviews.
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POST-PURCHASE
After you’ve completed a service, you can send a post-purchase email. You might collect their feedback about the work you performed and services provided or simply ask the customer to review your company on Google or Facebook, helping build your online reputation.
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RE-ENGAGEMENT
If subscribers have not opened or engaged with your email in a while, you can put them in a re-engagement campaign to help them re-engage with your brand. This campaign can help determine if you need to remove the subscriber from your list.
Email Marketing Campaign Automation
Automation allows emails to be sent after a specific action is taken, saving time and helping you provide exceptional service.
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AUTORESPONDERS
Using autoresponders in your email marketing strategy is appropriate when you want to send an automated email in response to a specific trigger. For example, it could be a confirmation email when a lead fills out a contact form on your website. Autoresponders are generally one-off communications.
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DRIP CAMPAIGNS
Drip campaigns refer to a series of marketing emails with varying messages sent automatically over some time. It might start with a welcome email when a lead subscribes to your email list and be followed up by a series of educational emails that provide more information about your services. At the end of the drip campaign, you’ll provide a call-to-action (CTA) to schedule an appointment, book a consultation, or a contact us option.
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WORKFLOWS
While drip campaigns remain the same no matter what action the subscriber takes, workflows are a series of automated emails that continuously change based on the subscriber's actions. If your lead clicks on a section of your email about outdoor kitchens, they are added to a specific list of contacts interested in outdoor kitchens for future marketing campaigns. The workflow can be set up to send an email specifically about cooking outdoors after a specified time.
Email Marketing Best Practices for Green Industry Businesses
While email might feel more casual than the copy on your website or printed marketing material, you should approach it with the same strategy and professionalism. Consumers are barraged with marketing emails, so ensuring your email stands out is essential.
Formatting and Copy Best Practices
A professional writer can create email copy that maintains a consistent tone and voice with your overall business branding and encourages the subscriber to continue reading. Keep it simple and short. Email is an effective marketing tool when combined with a pleasing design, layout, and effective CTAs.
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PERSONALIZATION
The email should be written as if it is intended for the specific reader. Using the second-person point of view makes the email feel more personal (using “you” to address the reader). Including the subscriber's first name in the email increases the open rate by 18%.
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SUBJECT LINE & PRE-HEADER
Keep your subject line short and sweet, generally no more than nine words and 60 characters. Studies show that using one emoji to supplement words in the subject line is most effective. Including the subscriber’s first name in the subject line catches the eye and encourages them to open the email.
The pre-header is often overlooked when sending an email, but it’s essential. This is the section you see below the subject line in your inbox. This copy should support your subject line and either provide a summary of the body of the email or include the benefit of opening your email. Again, keep this short and sweet, between 30 to 80 characters.
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EMAIL BODY CONTENT
The bulk of your email will be the email body content. Studies show that approximately 20 lines of text with three or fewer images have the highest CTR. Good copy and design work together to educate the reader, encourage them to keep reading, and ultimately convert.
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ENGAGING CTAS
The subject line, pre-header, and email body work together to lead a prospect to take action when they reach the CTA. You may have multiple CTAs in a single email, depending on the formatting and email type. People generally read from the top left to the right of an email, so placing your CTA buttons toward the bottom or the right side of your content is effective.
The CTA should be clear so the reader knows exactly where the link will take them. For example, you may feature a snippet of a blog post with a CTA of “Read More” or describe the benefits of your weed control services with a CTA of “Get an Estimate.”
Avoiding the Spam Filter
There are common sense guidelines, such as avoiding all caps and multiple exclamation points. Still, following best practices to avoid the spam folder is essential.
Avoid spam trigger words, such as “opt in,” “act now,” or “limited time offer,” as these phrases often flag an email for spam.
Get your emails whitelisted by asking subscribers to add your email address to their contacts.
Provide valuable content in each email that impresses your subscribers.
Avoid sending attachments, such as coupons or documents with more information. Instead, include a link to your website with the content.
Follow the 80% copy to 20% image ratio. Many email programs automatically block image downloads, which might cause recipients to delete your email or mark it as spam.
Analytics make it easy to track the effectiveness of your email campaigns and detect if emails are going to spam or unopened.
Measuring Your Email Marketing Campaign Results as an Outdoor Living Business
Measuring your email marketing campaign performance with key performance indicators (KPIs) will direct your efforts to ensure you’re reaching and engaging your subscribers.
Deliverability
This KPI refers to the rate at which emails reach your intended subscribers’ inboxes. Since your email service provider’s reputation affects deliverability, it’s best to stick with established and well-known companies like Google or HubSpot. Certainly, don’t use a random personal email, but have a dedicated company email address.
Remove inactive subscribers from your email list and keep only engaged subscribers. It may seem counterproductive to remove email subscribers when your goal is to build your email list, but unengaged subscribers do more harm than good, as they can negatively impact your IP or sender reputation.
Unsubscribes
Tracking this KPI helps you determine the number of people who opt out of your email list once they receive your email. While you can expect to have some unsubscribes in the normal process of weeding out unqualified leads, you will want to determine the cause if you routinely have many unsubscribes.
Evaluate whether your emails provide value rather than just trying to sell and are still aligned with your branding. Avoid promising one thing in your email and delivering another with a bait-and-switch approach. Ensure your audience is segmented accurately so that your subscribers are receiving relevant content.
Open Rate
The open rate refers to the percentage of people who open your email once it reaches your inbox. When you have low open rates, it can lead to your emails going to spam. Several factors can influence open rates, including the following:
Subject lines that aren’t engaging
Emails marked as spam
Inactive subscribers
Irrelevant content
Emails that aren’t mobile-friendly
Bad timing of delivery
Finding the right wording may require A/B testing to find out what language prompts people to open your emails. You can also try to adjust the time and day to see what works best for you. A study involving more than 20 million emails found that, on average, Tuesdays at 11 a.m. ET is the best time and day to send emails.
CTR
The CTR refers to the percentage of people who click on your CTAs. Ensuring your CTA is clear so the reader knows what to do is essential. Again, content is critical, so if your CTR is low, ensure your emails provide value and subscribers are enticed to learn more or click through.
Building Your Email List as a Lawn, Landscape, or Outdoor Living Company
No matter which email campaign type or segmenting strategy you choose, you’ll need an email list that continues to grow over time for it to be an effective strategy.
Methods of Building Your Email List
Be clear about what people are signing up for by explaining the types of emails they might expect from you and then following through.
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OPT-IN FORMS
Opt-in forms are among the best ways to grow your email list. Paired with copy that explains the value of subscribing to your emails, you’ll attract subscribers interested in your content. The purpose of an opt-in form is to move leads through your sales funnel, and the email list is often one of the first steps in the process.
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LEAD MAGNETS
A lead magnet offers a free digital gift in exchange for contact information. For example, you could provide an outdoor living lookbook highlighting the must-have features in each outdoor living space and professional photos of your completed projects. For a lawn care company, you could offer a seasonal checklist of what needs to be done each season to keep your lawn healthy.
Ethically Building Your Email List Following FTC Guidelines
Ultimately, the goal is not to grow the largest email list possible but to attract highly qualified leads to opt-in. Subscribers must opt in to receive emails to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
With a single-opt-in method, subscribers enter their email addresses once via a form submission and begin receiving your emails. The double-opt-in method requires the user to enter their email address and receive a confirmation email with a link to agree to receive emails from your business.
They won't be added to your list if they don’t complete the final step. There’s a reason over 94% of marketing agencies use the single-opt-in method for signups; they outperform double opt-ins and result in better list growth and conversions with less friction.