Email marketing campaigns remain one of the least expensive but highly profitable marketing techniques today. Nonetheless, several small businesses refrain from integrating email marketing techniques into their daily marketing practices.
It is a common belief that it is labor-intensive and it demands a lot of time compared to the other contemporary online marketing techniques. It is still one of the cost-effective tools that have the potential to elicit almost 4300% ROI for small and medium businesses. This stat should have been enough to convince people of its effectiveness. However, it is only valid for those marketers, who know how to leverage it.
Whether you are a market veteran or you are the founder of a startup, in all probability, you don’t have the luxury of time. That is precisely one of the leading reasons you should focus on email marketing efforts to make the best of the time you can invest in marketing tactics.
Personalization is ruling the world of marketing since the last year, and in 2018, email campaigns without a touch of personalization have little chance of being successful. Personalized emails generate much higher ROIs as compared to the generic ones. They can drive the ROI up by over 760% for SMBs in the US.
One-size-fits-all is an obsolete concept, and it is time for your brand to scrape the outdated ideas off the workstations. Mill Creek search engine experts blog enlists innovative and cost-effective ways you can boost your marketing efficiency.
Why should you reconsider adding email marketing to your marketing efforts?
That brings us to the core of modern email marketing campaigns. The first question more people are likely to ask is “what are personalized emails?” segmented campaigns are one of the most prominent examples of email personalization.
Recent data shows that the new segmented mailing lists generate over 60% more CTRs as compared to the generic, one-size-fits-all campaigns. This kind of segmentation of the emailing list involves surveys, demographics, email engagement and geography.
Extensive customer surveys and analysis of user data generate relevant mailing lists. Relevance is indispensable for all marketers looking to improve their email open rates. Without leveraging data analytics, it can become impossible for anyone to create email marketing campaign with a high ROI.
One of the smartest ways to make up for lack of human labor is employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) for completing the data collection, sorting and analysis. Having robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is very necessary for the collection and curation of user data from all online interactions. The AI usually takes over from the next step that involves logging, organizing and analyzing the data to generate actionable reports.
Why do digital marketers love email marketing?
There are several reasons why digital marketers tap into the potentialities of email marketing. Few of the prominent reasons are as follows-
- You can tap into the mobile and hand-held device market – With the advent of mobiles and hand-held devices, any email communication that you send will be accessed by recipients even while they are on the go.
- Keep your customers updated about new products –Even if customers are not interested in investing in any product or services, yet they like receiving messages at least in the form of information in the event of a launch of a new product or service. So, this is achieved by emails. You can keep your customer’s rather prospective leads informed through emails.
- Email marketing complements other marketing strategies –There are many ways in which email can help you in spreading the word. You can make someone aware of the latest write-up that you have posted on your blog or website.
Social media messages can be conveyed through this medium. It can act as an alarm or can send a notification to someone you want to join for a video call or a web conference or webinar.
- Alert or sending reminders –Most importantly, you will also be able to send reminders about approaching deadlines.
- It nurtures leads –If you have nurtured any lead, you can expect it to have a better conversion rate as compared to a ‘cold lead’ that has not been nurtured. Also, it helps you to build a fruitful relationship between you and your new and existing clients.
- Ideal mode of communication for DIY businesses –If you are the owner of a startup business and know how to use autoresponders and send broadcast messages, this is perhaps the best way to send across messages to your clients and also establish a relationship with them.
- Increased click-through rates –If you add social sharing button to your emails, it increases the chances of click-through rates by as much as 158% as compared to the emails that you send that do not have these social sharing buttons.
- Email marketing software –You have the option to use email marketing software. It is of immense help when you want to conduct email marketing campaigns. It does away with manual work involving segregating emails, time-consuming processes, list preparation, dividing into subgroups, building client feedback reports, and last but not the least sending emails.
- ROI – The effect of email marketing on Return on Investment has been explained in the entire write-up so you must be well aware of the ROI effect already. In fact, studies also reveal that as compared to other modes of communication, feedback, and returns, this is perhaps the best way to increase proceeds from your profits.
How to understand if your email content is on point?
There is one more thing every marketer and business owner needs to understand – not all “personalized” emails we see as templates or samples are personal enough. Simply including the name of the recipient and a greeting, in the beginning, is not the mark of a great email strategy. Here are a few things you must do before hitting “send” –
- Check the database for errors in customer details.
- Strikeout duplicate information, outdated info and proofread your company information. As far as duplicate content is concerned, make sure you do not repeat the same information. It will only dilute the importance of the email content and the information you are providing to your clients.
- Give the content a thorough read. If necessary, read it out to someone on your team and ask if it reads naturally.
- Either get a professional to write and proofread the email or use a smart software that can detect typographic errors.
You might have a lot of useful customer information but adding everything to one mail does not make much sense. You can use a bit of the valuable data for your first round of personalized emailing and leave the rest for the following shots.
Using a lot of data does not make it personal at all. That is the perfect recipe for driving your potential customers away. To make an email personal, always make it a point to spell the name of the person correctly, use the correct greeting and send out excellent content.
What defines a genuinely personal email content?
That is where the question of relevance comes into the spotlight. Content that does not ring a bell has no chances of performing well with your customers. You can see one of the best examples of relevant and exciting content in marketing in the Netflix marketing campaigns. Their hyper-personalized campaigns take the user’s activity into account and generate content that would intrigue them. Netflix makes the most of mailing list segmentation by understanding the interest of their paying users and keeping a note of it too.
Several companies, who have been doing this for a while, have a standard set of email templates. These ready-to-use emails maintain a consistent branding effort. The companies can easily insert new content and create new messages instantly.
One of the most brilliant ways to garner the attention of the recipient and increase your CTR is by including customized images and GIFs. If you need some inspiration, check out Netflix’s promotional emails for The Punisher.
Risky content is indeed the most interesting kind of content, and it packs the power to attract a wide range of audiences, but always try to keep your content in line with your services. Your email quality should never stray too far away from your brand image and brand values.
Always jump to the CTA and make it easy for your target reader to understand the subject of the email. People do not have time for cryptic emails that might hold a free subscription to a year’s worth coffee or hide a virus link. Be clear in the subject line and make sure to avoid the spam filters. For that, you might need a little help from the experts, who know how to navigate past these filters.
The only way to create genuinely personal content that is interesting and relevant is by following the audience. You need to understand your market well to be able to spearhead a successful email marketing campaign for your brand.
