With the evolution and availability of sharing information online, it can be easy to gear all of your marketing forces towards social media platforms and SEO strategies. Yet, e-mail still remains a strong force in reaching and retaining consumers. According to The Radicati Group, there were over 205 billion e-mails sent and received per day in 2015, with 122 business e-mails sent and received per user per day. And as easy as it may be for consumers to click the delete button while they parse through their personal inbox, a 2013 McKinsey & Company report found that e-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.
Strategies for using this powerful marketing tool are constantly evolving, and now most experts emphasize the importance of creating personable, quality emails to retain a strong subscriber base. The “E-mail List Strategy Survey Summary Report” recently published by Ascend2 found that marketers’ most important goal is increasing e-mail list quality, and that the most important objective for an e-mail marketing strategy is to increase engagement. So, how can you craft an effective marketing e-mail with these objectives in mind?
Craft a Short, Sweet, and Shareable E-mail
Natasha Smith of Direct Marketing News notes, “On average, users get about 150 messages in their inboxes each day, and those e-mails are coming from family, friends, and coworkers. A succinct e-mail allows readers to consider an offer or read a message in a matter of moments.” Time is a valuable resource to the average consumer, and a compact message helps the subscriber to quickly read, engage and digest at no cost. E-mails are no longer constrained to the desktop screen, however. Fifty-three percent of e-mails are opened on mobile devices; compare that to less than 20% about three years ago. Smartphones allow consumers to be connected to multiple social and professional platforms at once and on the go, and this new marketing frontier is growing. Make sure your e-mails and website cater to a mobile layout, and your content is fit for small screens and for easily sharing across multiple mobile platforms.
Use Marketing Automation
A good marketing e-mail will not just save a subscriber time, but engage and cater to their personal interests. Home-goods retailer Williams-Sonoma reported a tenfold improvement in response rates by adopting personalized e-mail offerings based on individuals’ on-site and catalog shopping behavior (McKinsey & Company). But, how can you even begin to create and manage personalized e-mails? One of the most effective and efficient ways is by employing marketing automation: “a form of customer relationship management that focuses on the definition, scheduling, segmentation and tracking of marketing campaigns” (Marketing Automation Times). It may seem a daunting enterprise, but there are many different types of marketing automation software that are easy to use, efficient, and will actually save you time while enhancing productivity. It can automate repetitive business tasks, create a database of and analyze current and potential customers, and more importantly, help you to create and manage quality e-mail marketing campaigns. For example, an e-mail marketing service such as MailChimp can take your e-mail list and divide your subscribers into different categories based on consumer interactions, needs, or information they’ve shared. You can then script emails that cater to each group, and MailChimp will automatically send subscribers their designated, personalized e-mail. Marketing automation has become a powerful tool, especially in e-mail marketing, where conversion rates have been shown to increase by 50%.
Give the Receiver Some Incentive
While 70% of people say they always open e-mails from their favorite companies, 40% of consumers would unsubscribe from a brand’s marketing if the coupons or incentives were not good enough (Direct Marketing News). Promotional messages have the two-way ability to push brands and products, while remaining relevant and beneficial for consumers. If a promotional e-mail is succinct, engaging and easy to follow, it can be an incredibly beneficial marketing tool: “e-mails that contain a coupon have an open rate of more than 14%, an increase in unique clicks of 34%, a transaction completion rate increase of 27%, a 48% increase in revenue per e-mail sent” (Access).
Email marketing is as essential as ever, and strategies for using this tool are continually evolving. By revamping email content and getting started with marketing automation, you could build stronger subscriber relationships and move forward with your online presence. For help on how to overhaul your email campaigns, contact us today.
