Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
If you plan to invest more in email marketing this year, you’re on the right track. Email remains one of the most effective channels for driving revenue. In fact, 87% of marketing leaders say email marketing is critical to the success of their company. But how do you make the most of it without spending hours creating every campaign?
By simplifying your workflows, you can get more efficient and boost sales – without burning out. Here are five tactics you can adopt in your business today.
Related: Don’t Sleep on Email Marketing — Here’s Why It’s Still Your Business’s Most Powerful Tool
1. Assess your entire email marketing program
A quick audit of your email marketing helps you spot what’s working – and what’s just draining your time. Set aside time to review every part of your process and identify what feels the most time-consuming. Then, ask yourself: Can this be simplified or automated?
For instance, if content creation slows you down, you could:
- Repurpose existing content. Turn blog posts or social media posts into small newsletter sections.
- Let AI save you brainpower. Avoid writing entire emails with AI, but don’t shy away from asking it to generate ideas or ensure your copy is on point.
- Find a great design tool. To create emails faster, use a platform with pre-made templates and drag-and-drop functionality — no design skills are required.
Small adjustments like these can free up hours in your schedule without compromising the quality of your email campaigns.
2. Send fewer, more impactful emails
You may not need to send as many emails as you think to drive results. 44% of consumers unsubscribe from email lists because the sender emails too often. So, take a look at your sending frequency and consider whether you’re over-communicating.
Instead of overwhelming your audience with too many messages, focus on quality. For instance, you could:
- Prioritize value. Only send an email when you have something meaningful or critical to say.
- Combine messages. It’s better to consolidate your updates into a single newsletter.
Test sending fewer campaigns and track results to see how your subscribers react. They may welcome this approach, and you’ll reduce your workload.
3. Streamline your email list management
Your contact list is a key component of email marketing, but managing it shouldn’t feel like a full-time job. You can simplify how you manage your subscribers and invest those efforts in other tasks.
For instance, pruning obsolete and disengaged subscribers is a must, but you can automate this task by using an email validation service. Programming the software to perform this task at regular intervals saves you energy and time.
Also, consider these other ways to simplify email list management:
- Segment smarter. Don’t overcomplicate. Instead, use a few core segments and focus on sending them the most relevant content.
- Automate unsubscriptions. Pick an email service provider that automatically removes subscribers who opt out. You shouldn’t have to worry about deleting contacts or tracking opt-out requests – this should happen seamlessly to keep your list compliant and up-to-date.
This saves you time, ensures you follow best practices and reduces the risk of emailing people who no longer want to hear from you.
Related: 5 Tips to Significantly Increase the ROI of Your Next Email Campaign
4. Use templates to create your emails faster
If you design every email from scratch, it’s time to switch to a better approach. Templates can significantly cut down the time you spend designing your campaigns. Plus, they help you keep your branding consistent so your subscribers always recognize you in their inboxes.
Here’s how to simplify your email marketing by using more templates:
- Create a master template. Design a reusable layout with your logo, brand colors and core elements you’ll use often.
- Build templates for campaigns. Have different layouts you can edit quickly for your welcome emails, promotions and product updates.
- Reuse content blocks. Save sections like headers or footers so you can easily drag and drop them into future emails.
Templates speed up your content creation process and help your emails look polished and on-brand.
5. Track results and focus on what matters most
Reviewing your performance metrics regularly is another way to save time and energy on email marketing. By seeing what’s working, you can fine-tune your strategy without unnecessary effort.
Focus on important metrics like:
- Click-through rates. Pinpoint subject lines and content topics that drive engagement.
- Unsubscribe rates. If you see a spike, it could signal over-sending or irrelevant content.
- Revenue drivers. Every month, make a top 3 list of the emails that drive the most sales. How can you replicate them?
Tracking your metrics isn’t hard, and it will help you eliminate tasks that drain your resources and sabotage your results. Focus on that data to improve — small adjustments can deliver bigger wins than you’d expect.
