10 Electrician Email Marketing Best Practices to Supercharge Your Business

What Are Your Email Marketing Goals?

The most creative and innovative electrician marketing ideas fall flat without a goal. Email marketing campaigns are no exception. 

That’s because it’s impossible to know if a campaign is succeeding if there’s no clear definition of what success looks like from the start.

Email marketing goals keep you on track, serve as a benchmark for measuring a campaign's performance, and can help validate your ideas. They can help you double down on what’s working to boost conversions and change what’s not.

Sarah Ghirardo, Senior Marketing Operations Manager for Marketing Pro, recently spoke about this to Jackie Aubel as part of Season 5 of the Toolbox for the Trades podcast.

She stressed the importance of setting marketing campaign goals.

"You can't rely on wildly outlandish goals for your business, no matter what your revenue size is," she says. "Because I guarantee when you write a goal down, and when you speak it into existence, it can happen for you.”

Now, the question is: How do you go about setting an email marketing campaign goal?

Here’s how…

Understand your overall business objectives

Email marketing campaigns can’t help to grow your business if they’re isolated from its objectives. Campaign and business must align.

So, the first step is to determine what your current business objectives are. Then…

Identify specific objectives

After discovering your business’s objectives, the next step is breaking it down into specific goals that can be achieved through email marketing.

Some common specific email marketing goals include:

• Growing your customer base.

• Converting potential customers into paying customers.

• Driving traffic to your landing page, website, or social media accounts.

• Boosting sales conversions.

• Nurturing customer relationships.

• Promoting new products/services.

• Growing brand awareness and recognition.

Determine key performance indicators

It’s important to identify the metrics you’ll be using to track and measure the success of the email marketing campaign. They should match the company’s objectives and the desired outcome of the email marketing efforts.

For example, if your goal is simply to build awareness, the forwarding rate—the number of recipients who shared the email—will be one metric to track.

Some other common email marketing KPIs include open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, unsubscribe rates, and revenue generated.

Pro tip!

Remember that recent iOS privacy updates may limit the accuracy of some metrics. So, don’t focus on just one metric. Make marketing decisions after considering metric values collectively instead of focusing exclusively on one.

Make your goals SMART

Once you’ve found all the pieces—your business’s objectives, how email marketing helps achieve them, and the metrics for measuring them, the next thing is to use them to create the goal.

The goal must be achievable, measurable, and actionable. 

How can you ensure that? By using the SMART framework.

SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

For example, let “we will boost the conversion rate of our email marketing campaign,” be goal A. “We will increase traffic by 10% before the next quarter by creating content that resonates only with customers who are in charge of industries in constant need of electrical services,” is goal B.

Goal B is far better and has a greater chance of success because goal A:

• Has no time limit. Is the goal meant to last for a single year? Or is it for eternity?

• Isn’t measurable.

• Lacks specificity. What percentage increase are we aiming for? What is the target audience? How do we hope to achieve this goal?

So, ensure any goal you set for your email marketing campaign is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, like goal B.

To do that, use this framework when writing your email marketing goals:

“We will [what you wish to do] by [give a numerical value or percentage] before [put a time limit] by [insert how you plan to achieve the goal].”

Now that we’re done with the foundation of setting email marketing goals, let’s explore the top strategies associated with successful email marketing campaigns.

1. Develop your digital marketing strategy

Before you send out emails, first decide what you aim to accomplish.

Think about your company's electrician marketing strategy. Do you want to book more jobs? Strengthen your brand? Grow revenue by closing unsold estimates? Educate customers on electrical safety during swimming pool season?

Once you narrow your intent, the rest is easy. With ServiceTitanMarketing Pro, electrical contracting businesses can leverage customer information to create professionally designed emails, seamlessly delivering customized messages to the right audience.

ServiceTitan helps electrical contractors create high-quality emails using professional-looking and fully customizable templates, eliminating the cost of hiring a professional email designer or marketing agency.

Additionally, electricians can attribute a job to the specific Google ad, social media marketing, or email campaign the customer came from. This is better than running digital marketing campaigns without ever knowing if they’re effective.

Electrical companies can, therefore, make better marketing decisions.

2. Target Your Email Audience

Companies in the trades no longer need to blast their entire contact list and then cross their fingers. Highly effective email marketing relies on a specific target audience.

Send emails to customers based on unsold estimates, special offers, membership renewals, service area ZIP codes, and more, using ServiceTitan’s pre-built templates. When customers receive timely and relevant information they can use, they’re more likely to take action.

Sending segmented, personalized emails doesn’t need to be difficult or time-consuming, either. Robin Cody, director of marketing and business development for Dallas-based Cody & Sons Plumbing, Heating & Air, says she can set up an email campaign in Marketing Pro in 30 minutes or less, compared to an hour or more with different software.

“I just don’t have the time to look into our data, research, and start doing things like building audiences,” Cody says. “That’s what’s so great about ServiceTitan Marketing Pro. I can essentially use it as our customer relationship management software now. I can use and analyze our own data to target customers appropriately.”

It’s all simple: Create an audience containing the customers you want to target, craft your email, and send it out.

3. Create Engaging Content

Good emails feature an eye-catching (but not spammy) subject line and preview text. Check out these electrician advertising slogans for fun ideas. 

“The average consumer has a time span of only three seconds when they open an email,” says Alexander Attarian, ServiceTitan’s group product manager for Marketing Pro. “So, you have three seconds to get their attention, keep their attention, and get them to do what you want them to do.”

Once people open the email, the content should lead to a click inside the email.

“The content itself sells the click, which is the most important part from a marketing perspective," Attarian says. “You want people to actually click inside the email. I don't care what subject line you have, what open rates you're getting, if someone opens your email and doesn't take action, you may as well not have sent that email.”

Add layers to your campaigns, including links to your electrician website’s blog or YouTube videos. Make it easy for customers to respond, and include contact information, such as your company’s phone number.

4. Optimize for Mobile

Mobile-friendly emails are a must for a positive user experience. Format emails so they look great and perform properly on mobile devices.

Here’s a quick rundown for mobile optimization:

• Keep subject lines under 50 characters and between four to seven words.

• Use a preheader, which is the text following the subject line.

• Keep it concise and to the point.

• Avoid spam triggers. Don’t use all capitalization, excessive punctuation, or words like “free,” “deal,” or “now.”

• Provide a clear, visible call to action.

5. Automate Email Marketing

Ditch the time-consuming manual process of combing through customer data each time you want to send an email. 

Software like ServiceTitan automates your email campaigns so you can quickly send customized emails to your target audience.

“The way our society is going and the way that we are running our businesses, we need to be automated,” says Sarah Ghirardo, senior marketing operations manager at ServiceTitan, in a recent ServiceTitan Toolbox for the Trades podcast. 

“We need to be more efficient because it hits the bottom line when we are not. ...The tools that we are providing you with at Marketing Pro are about creating that automation and efficiency, and having transparency in your numbers so you can learn.”

After you segment your audience, customer information automatically updates in real time, so you can set up your campaigns and let ServiceTitan take care of the rest.

For example, you could create an email list of only customers with aging equipment in need of replacement or repairs, and bulk-send them an email selling them a discount on a maintenance contract.

The good thing about this is it takes just a few minutes. You can set it up as an automated follow-up email marketing campaign that’s set off once a potential customer has performed a certain action.

For instance, you can set up the system to send a reminder email with questions, once it sees an unsold estimate.

With this sort of segmentation in place, your email marketing campaigns will resonate with recipients and have a greater likelihood of generating revenue.

Additionally, ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro Email feature gives you insights as to the performance of your email campaigns and ties each job request to the email that prompted it.

It’s therefore easy to spot underperforming emails and find a way to replicate those that are generating revenue.

6. Maintain a Consistent Brand

As you develop your electrical business marketing plan, staying consistent with your message and visuals across all marketing channels builds recognition for your company.

It also ingrains your brand in the minds of customers, who may book your services, turn into loyal customers, and bring in referrals.

Other benefits of maintaining consistent branding are:

• It separates your company from the competition, which is especially important in the current heavily populated electronic services industry.

• It boosts customer loyalty.

• It positions your company as an authority.

• It lowers the guard of potential customers who are suspicious of advertisements.

• It attracts good employees.

Pro tip!

A brand isn’t built by being active on only one channel, but by sharing a unique message across various channels to connect with customers. 

For example, whoever finds your website from search engine result pages should hear and see the same tone, voice, and visual elements in your emails, on your website, and social media.

Someone who has visited your website shouldn’t feel like they’re interacting with a stranger when reading your emails.

So, how do you build your brand and interact with customers across different channels?

Well, that’s the perfect cue for the next point…

7. Take a Multi-Channel Approach

Spread your marketing tactics over several channels to give your company more chances to reach potential customers. 

Since 97% of people learn more about a local company online than anywhere else, according to the SEO Tribunal, local businesses should view email as part of a larger marketing strategy that includes content marketing, SEO strategy, and social media marketing.

To do that, you should consider repurposing your content from one channel to another while retaining the messaging and visual elements. And recycling content from one social media platform to another.

Update your company’s Google Business Profile (formerly called Google My Business) and other online directories benefitting small businesses, like Yelp or LinkedIn.

Advertising strategies, such as PPC ads (pay-per-click), Google Ads, and lead generation through Google Local Services ads, help homeowners performing a local search find their local electrician business online.

With assistance from our Google partners, ServiceTitan’s Local Service Ads feature helps electrician contractors run ads that show up at the exact moment potential customers make a high-intent search like “electricians near me.” 

Potential customers can then book appointments without leaving Google, while their information is immediately populated in ServiceTitan.

This way, you can displace competitors from the top position on search engine result pages, and customers can book jobs at their convenience. Both generate more leads for your business.

8. Clean Your Email Contact List

Clean your email lists regularly by removing inactive and unengaged email contacts who haven’t opened any of your emails in the past 18 months to two years. 

This way, you’re communicating with customers who want to receive your emails, and Google won’t need to flag your emails as suspicious.

Additionally, stay legally compliant and allow recipients to opt out of future emails if they choose. Or, allow customers to update their email preferences to receive only messages about certain topics.

9. Stick to a Schedule

Want customers to open more emails? Test different days and times for sending emails to see which generates the best results, and then stay consistent by automating your emails. 

Following scheduled sending times also shows your company operates in a professional and organized manner.

Similarly, test different subject lines or calls to action to see what attracts the attention of your customers, so you can deliver the information or offers that interest them the most.

10. Measure Email Marketing Metrics 

Maximize your electrician email marketing efforts by tracking and measuring real-time results.

ServiceTitan Marketing Pro allows users to track actual ROI by measuring email performance and revenue attribution, so you can see exactly which emails generate the best results.

Derek Baer, Director of Operations at Gold Shield Services in Illinois. “I can know whether the customer has called before (and) where the marketing came from. It's all in one spot and not across multiple layers. I don't have to look for it.”

Once you know which digital marketing efforts generate the most profit, you can focus resources on those areas, which clearly have the most growth potential.

Now Over to You

The reality is this: Email marketing is probably the most profitable marketing channel. But that’s only if the right strategies are implemented alongside.

So, go ahead. Set up your email marketing campaign. Implement the strategies listed above. Use an electrician software like ServiceTitan to automate and streamline the campaign. And watch your business grow as a result.

ServiceTitan is an all-in-one tool for the trades, used for automating and streamlining every business operation, to boost productivity and increase cost savings. Currently, over 10,000 contractors across the country use it.