By Katie Mientka
Email marketing: an effective strategy for building trust and relationships, converting leads, and boosting revenue – or a dinosaur that social media renders obsolete? Well, it depends!
Without a sound strategy, the success of email marketing campaigns is hit or miss (mostly miss); however, with a carefully-considered game plan, your brand can reach prospects and customers, engage, convert, and realize bottom line results.
Email Is Alive and Well
For 99% of consumers, checking their email is as much a part of their daily routine as brushing their teeth, and half check it more than ten times a day. This is good news for businesses, and so is this:
- Nearly half of the world’s population has at least one email account, and billions of messages are sent each day.
- Consumers report that they prefer email to receive updates from brands.
- 73% of millennials prefer to communicate with brands via email.
- 59% of consumers say that email marketing influences their purchase decisions.
- About 59% of marketing professionals say email delivers the best ROI of any marketing strategy.1
- For every $1 you spend, you make an average of $32.2
Not bad for a “dinosaur”!
5 Tips for Effective Email Marketing
Without further ado, our top tips for effective email marketing campaigns:
1. Customize and Segment
No one wants to feel anonymous, and if you’re trying to reach and engage prospects and customers, you have to do better than generic messaging. The average open rate for email is 20.81%. When you make a simple switch and add a personalized subject line, you can see that jump by 50%.
Segmentation is another invaluable way to personalize emails. You categorize your subscribers into different segments based on relevant criteria, such as purchase history, size of purchase, stage of the buyer’s journey, interests, location, survey/quiz results, etc.
This allows you to deliver content that is relevant to them. For example, a Welcome email (these have excellent open rates – 82%) is appropriate for someone in the awareness stage or has signed up to receive your weekly newsletter. An existing customer may benefit from a link to an article on your website that offers them helpful tips (10 Fall Maintenance Musts, How to Care for Your New Granite Countertop, 2020’s Top Design Trends, etc.).
Marketers who use segmentation can see an increase in revenue of up to 760%.3
2. Add Video
By simply incorporating a video into your email message, you can increase click rates by an astonishing 300%.4 Video is appealing, and people retain 95% of the information shared via this format – a much higher rate than when they hear or read content. Be sure to optimize for mobile as well, so the video can play across devices.
3. Spend Time on Your Subject Line
Your open rate is determined almost exclusively on the power of your subject line. Keep it short and straight forward, but at the same time, inject personality into it. Difficult to do in 6 to 10 words, we know! In fact, 56% of businesses that use an emoji in their subject line had higher open rates than those who did not. ? If that’s on brand for you, go for it. If not, go for a no-nonsense approach. There is no wrong answer; it depends on your brand identity.
Subject lines with questions, numbers, and the word “video,” in them have higher open rates as well. Give them a try.
4. Think of Email Like a Tweet
Short and sweet! Getting a recipient to open the email is half the battle. When they do, keep them interested and engaged. Get right to the point: busy schedules mean we don’t have time to sit around reading an epic message. Make sure your language is concise. If you need to share more information, utilize bullet points so it is easy to read. Another tip: have one call to action per email. Multiple CTAs lead to confusion – and no action!
5. Don’t Become a Constant Companion
Don’t bug your subscribers! When people are bombarded with emails daily (or even more often), they unsubscribe quickly. They may even completely disengage with your brand. At the same time, they did sign up and want to hear from you. About half of consumers say that receiving marketing emails about once a week is optimal.
Email marketing does work. With a sound strategy, it is an excellent way to connect, engage, and keep your brand top of mind with consumers. If you want to revamp your approach, contact the Haven team today. We’re here to take the frustration out of marketing so you can get back to work.
