Tips to Empower Your Email Marketing

Email is a very powerful marketing tool. The ability to send your message, to your target, on your time is unrivalled by other marketing methods. Building a strong list takes time. Consistently engaging your customers with interesting content and valuable offers are foundations of email marketing. Here are some amazing stats about email:

• 91% of consumers check email daily
• 66% of consumers have make a purchase as a result of email marketing
• 48% of emails are opened on mobile, yet only 11% are optimized
• 17% of marketers don’t track or analyze any email data!

With a whole new generation of mobile, smartphone, and tablet users, email is available with just the touch of a button.  Email is evolving! The time is now to make it an integral part of your marketing mix.

But what else can you do to help empower your email marketing? In this blog, we will discuss ten tips, which can help empower your email marketing strategy.

Build an Acquisition Strategy

If you have already focused attention on audience growth, you might want to analyze where customers are already engaging with your brand. After spending some time on that, you may want to think of ways on how to enhance a customers’ experience with your brand. You can drive interactive engagement by using new tools and techniques to alter a customer’s experience. Make sure people who reaches your page have an optimized experience – don’t lose them once they arrive.

Optimizing for mobile is extremely important

Optimize, optimize, optimize. Brands that don’t optimize email for mobile have a lot to lose. According to a recent report by Return path, 63% of US consumers delete emails immediately if they are not optimized for mobile. To engage customers you need to offer an intriguing and stylish mobile experience from the beginning. If your welcome email is optimized, and shows customers that they are in for a pleasant mobile experience, they will likely stay subscribed to your emails.

Your data should always be relevant

Make sure that when you are sending emails that you are sending them as targeted communications. The old days of simple “blast emails” are dead. Using simple data, like name, gender or location can make a huge difference on a subscriber’s experience. You should also be using this same method when it comes to social media. A targeted post can make a big difference to your following. Ensure that you vary your content across streams – your followers don’t want to keep coming across the same content.

Personalize email when possible

People who interact with your brand on a regular basis will appreciate you if you take the time to send them personalized emails. If you tailor your content to the interests of your consumers, it will make for the ultimate one-to-on communication, leading to conversions. Consider sending personalized emails based on browsing or shopping history. By adding a personalized recommendation into marketing emails, it can increase sales conversions by 15-25% and click-through rates by 25-35%.

Email drives accessibility across-channels

An email provides you with the ability to easily archive messages for a later time. It can potentially influence consumer channel preferences. Smartphones and tablets replicate the desktop messaging experience, however many consumers tend to “park” messages and later take action from their computers. Email still remains a powerful channel because of its ability to bridge tablets, smartphones and PC, allowing you to reach your customer wherever they may be.

Get their permission

Make sure that you seek out the permission of your customers before sending them marketing emails. It’s an easy first touch to many potential customers, and prevents any potential negative feedback. Consider, now with CASL (now a part of Canadian law), all marketers and companies should be checking their email lists and receiving expressed consent from the customers on their email lists. Once you have received permission, you may commence building data and personalizing your emails around the consumer.

Click to read more about CASL here and here.

Email Drives Deals 

People prefer email to Facebook for deals for a few reasons. Primarily, it’s harder to miss deals in the inbox, than it is on your news feed on Facebook. Use social media to help bring in followers, and encourage them to subscribe. Keep the deals, offers and coupons mainly for your subscribers – you should provide value to your list.

Share

Sharing doesn’t only happen via social media – consider a traditional marketing technique… Word of mouth. A subscriber may receive and offer and share it to a select few friends or family – you should allow easy sharing of your offers to maximize this effect. A private communication can influence others beyond a “Share” or “Retweet”.

Did they abandon before the sale?

Consider another type of follow up for your customers… Did they abandon a cart online? A small purchase may not warrant a follow up, but a larger purchase requires time to make a purchase. A follow up email (perhaps combined with an offer) after a certain period is a great way to make your customer reconsider, and possibly make a purchase. Tailor your messages for shoppers or for items… does a specific customer frequently browse? Is a specific item requiring a longer window to buy? These are all metrics you can use to hone your email strategy.

Automate your post-purchase messages

Post-purchase follow-up emails are essential to help retain customers and prevent them from disengaging. Test out different email windows and see what works best for your brand. Make sure your customers come back!

Email is a strong basis for interactive marketing. Combined with a strong website and exceptional customer service, it can provide a customer with the ultimate shopping experience, turning them into advocates. Remember, your audience is made of people who use smartphones, and people who don’t. Make sure you accommodate both these audiences’ needs and maximize your reach.

Need more information? Check out information about CASL and how it affects email marketing.

Michael Bickerton, Raven5 Ltd. March 2015

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