In a case of ageism, email marketing has once again been branded ‘dead on its feet’. Yes, it is the oldest Internet marketing tool, and yes, it has been misused a lot, but saying it’s dead is a big misnomer.
In a recent study by email provider, BlueHornet, 75% of the 1,800 consumers polled, said they regularly made purchases based on the marketing emails they received. This poll was part of their annual monitoring of email trends and it’s respondents cut across a wide age spectrum.
The long term success of any email marketing campaign requires mastery of these six fundamentals:
1. Know your subscribers so you can understand what makes them click a link and take action
2. Maintain a reasonable posting frequency, to avoid overloading subscribers.
3. With 50% of emails being read on mobile, it’s a no-brainer to optimize your emails for smaller screens.
4. Your open rate is greatly influenced by your subject line, be sure to start communicating clearly from there.
5. Aim to offer quality, relevant content always. The suggested ratio of sales to non-sales messages is around 1 to 3.
6. Always include a Call–To–Action.
Mastering these will guarantee that your emails get opened and earn you engaged subscribers, but can you improve your campaigns?
Yes you can. By following these steps, you can, but it starts with an audit of your current email campaigns.
• Tweak your Broadcast – Many email marketers simply blast out the same message to their entire list. They forget that people on the list joined at different times, are at different points in the sales cycle and may even have totally different needs. Consistently sending unrelated messages to a subscriber is a sure way to get classed as spam.
For better targeting, segment your email database. There is no one way to segment; you can keep it simple as buyers versus prospects, or make it complex; as long as you understand what each group signifies. With a segmented database, focus on sending only emails tailored to the members of that list.
• Improve your Levers – When subscribers click your call-to-action, where do they land? Ideally, a CTA from a sales message should take them to where they can make a purchase or make an appointment. Is that page set up for maximum conversions? When was the last time you switched any elements around?
• Your customer’s tastes will change over time, and your campaign should accommodate this. Making changes to elements like the wording used, the position of your buy buttons, even the colour of the page can yield an increase or decrease in conversion. Businesses are advised to test occasionally to get the best combo for conversions.
• Change your Software – If you are running campaigns on a budget, you’d be tempted to use the cheapest email provider options available. Some of them claim to be cheap and fuss-free, but all that glitters isn’t gold. By going cheap, you’ll be sacrificing a ton of features. As entry-level email marketing software, popular providers like AWeber, MailChimp or Constant Contact can only cut it for so long.
As your subscriber base increases, there’ll be a greater need to segment your database and have better reports become more pronounced. To make money, by closely tracking what works, you may need to test higher budget options like Ontraport, Eloqua or Infusionsoft. The value derived from proper segmentation far outweighs the cost of the software.
• What’s your Autoresponder Response – Think of this add-on as your 24/7 marketing assistant. A well thought-out autoresponder sequence is configured to send specific messages to subscribers, based on the action they have taken on your site. If a prospect signs up to your list, downloads an e-book, or makes a purchase, the autoresponder can continue to market to them. The key is doing this successfully is to be non-pushy about it.
A properly set up autoresponder can contact trial users (another reason why you should segment your list), and offer them discounts on the product. It can also send a reminder to downloaders of a free book to start a trial of the product. Like all parts of your email campaign, elements of the autoresponder sequence must be tested over time. You can switch around the copy, subject line, CTA, even the length of the sequence.
While you can get the basic six right and experience a degree of success, an audit of your processes can show you where tweaks can increase profits. Email marketing is far from dead, it just needs to be refreshed using new data and optimized for better conversions.
If you cant tell your Constant Contact from your GetDrip, let Search & More step in and clear the cobwebs. A custom email campaign can generate a highly engaged list; and in many cases, this list can be a business’s only real asset. Let us help you create an engaged subscriber list, contact us today.
