Email marketing is a highly effective marketing channel. According to a DMA study, for every $1 spent, businesses can expect a return of $42. This makes it one of the highest return on investments of any marketing strategy!
Did you know that over 290 billion emails are sent every single day? That is a shockingly high number, and this figure is expected to reach 347 billion by 2023, meaning emails are not going away any time soon. As with all marketing, what worked 5,10,15 years ago will not necessarily work today. Consumers are becoming more and more aware of the sales tactics being used on them which means the environment is constantly changing and evolving and marketers need to think of new ways to convert customers.
In this blog post, we are going to talk about how to get FREE follow-up emails for your company. We will also go over 5 email marketing campaign strategies that are going to help you get the best return on investment, so stay tuned, and make sure to read till the end!
#1 Personalization Is Everything
Long gone are the days where you can send a basic email to your list and easily get sales. Nowadays, consumers are able to separate the genuine emails from the ones that just want their money. Let’s look at the example of two subject lines:
Email A Subject Line: ‘you left items in your basket, come back and checkout’
Email B Subject Line: ‘Paul, are you still interested in your items? We saved them for you’
Which one sounds more genuine and sincere? Of course, Email B. That is because Email B referred to the customer by name and used a less pitchy tone of voice, and did not come across and ask for the sale. Remember, people love to buy but hate to be sold.
A study conducted by Experion found that personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates.
You will be surprised to know that the majority of businesses do not use personalization in their emails and if you have a look at your inbox, you will notice the same templates and styles being used over and over again.
We also recommend that you add some form of personalization to the body of your emails. You can do this by adding the subscribers name at the start or end of the email and depending on whether you are mass sending or not, you could add a specific sentence or reference in the email that is super targeted towards that subscriber.
In addition to the email itself, there is personalization that can be completed in the back end, specifically with sending the emails and the steps taken when a subscriber interacts with an email.
When it comes to subscribers interacting with the emails, what do you do then? Well, you can use email flows to set actions based on the interactions made. For example, if a subscriber opens an email but does not click the call to action button, you could set up a flow to resend the email or send them another email encouraging them to click on the call to action.
It is not only who receivers are, but what is their behaviour. Do not blast the audience with the same email messages. People who have visited your website after your first email will react to different teasers than those who had ignored your first email. Tracking and personalization of messages according to receivers behavior can increase your conversion by a lot.
#2 Focus On Positive, Authentic Content
People are bombarded with sales pitches, ‘let’s have a chat’ and buy our product emails every single day, but what about those emails that share positive news and informative content?
Mcdonalds is a great example of this. They incorporate user-generated content within their emails by adding instagram photos of their customers showing their food or restaurants. This is a great way to interact with your subscribers in a way that is not driven by sales.
It is important to remember that your subscribers are spending time out of their day to consume your email, so by making it worthwhile for them to read and offering them value, they are going to be much more likely to open future emails and even make future purchases if they like what you are sending them.
Focusing on positive, authentic content is also a great way to stand out in the ocean that is your subscribers inboxes.
#3 A/B Test Your Emails
Do you A/B test your email marketing campaigns? If not, we highly recommend you start doing it. Just like when you were in school and you would conduct experiments in science classes, it is important to test different hypotheses and scenarios. Will sending your email with one subject line be better than another? The best way to find out is to split your list into two and send each 50% a different subject line. You can then review the data and see which one performed best.
The more you know about how your subscribers respond to your emails and which ones perform best, the easier it will be to convert them into paying customers. You may be surprised to know that 39% of brands do not A/B test their email campaigns.
So, what should you A/B test? We have created a list below for you to start with:
- Subject Lines
- Email Length
- Word Order & Paragraph Structure
- Visuals
- Personalization
- Content Copy
#4 Optimise Your Emails For Mobile
We have almost reached the tipping point where more emails are being opened on mobile (46%) than desktop. This means that it is good practice to make sure that your email campaigns are optimized for mobile devices.
If you are like me, then you probably sleep with your phone next to the bed on a nightstand or plugged into your charger, and the first thing you do each morning is check your phone (a bad habit, I know, but don’t we all?) for any missed calls, messages, social media updates and...emails.
When you receive an email that is not optimized for mobile, where the text is all over the place and the visuals are either too big or too small, you probably do not want to open any more emails from that sender.
To help you make sure your emails are properly optimized for mobile devices, we recommend implementing the following:
- Implement responsive email design by making sure it is active within the email functionality. Most email service providers offer this as standard.
- Keep the subject line and preheader short so it fits in the previews on both mobile and desktop. Remember, something might look fine on desktop, but if it is too long, it may be cut off when viewing on mobile.
- Make sure the call to action is obvious. Viewers on mobile devices need to have no issue finding where they should take the next steps, so don’t be afraid to use big call to action buttons in your emails.
#5 Timing Is One Of Your Biggest Assets
Just like there are better and worse days and times to post on social media, the same is true for sending emails. There are times when people check emails more and times people check it less. It is up to you to test the most optimal times to send your emails and see which days and times provide you with the best response and return.
For example, there is no point sending emails in the middle of the night, as by the time people wake up, your email is going to be pushed down by all the others emails coming into your subscribers inboxes in the morning. Mondays are also not the best to send emails since people have so many they need to look through after the weekend, and most of the time, they will just end up ignoring or deleting all the ones deemed as not important.
There are however some days and times that are more optimal for you to use. The infographic below by CoSchedule highlights this brilliantly and provides data from 14 studies.
If you want to read more about each study, you can do so here.
Conclusion
So, are you ready to take your email marketing to the next level? Make sure to implement these 5 strategies in your email marketing campaigns this year and you should see a positive impact! To learn more information about how to get your FREE follow-up emails for your company, please visit our FREE SEO Services page.
Do not forget that persistence is key with email marketing. It is important to send frequently and on a consistent basis. Sending one email every couple of months will not have the same impact as sending one per week for a couple of months. Not every subscriber will see the emails you send, even if it will be highly valuable to them.
Also, it is highly important that you respond to your subscribers' replies fast. If the marketing team is running a campaign, make sure that the sales team is informed and prepared. The last you want is lots of clicks and inquiries with a sales team that is not ready or equipped to handle things.
If you are interested in finding out how VEVS Business Software & Website and our team of experts can help your business when it comes to digital marketing, please visit our digital marketing page for more information.
We have some other great blog posts for you to view:
> How To Get Traffic To Your Website Using These 5 Offline Marketing Methods
> How To Boost ROI For Your E-commerce With Buy Now Buttons
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