E-mail Marketing has evolved so much over the last years that it has become the main business channel for organizations that are actively preoccupied with their marketing. The trend is directly influenced by our behaviour, that has been changed by technology, since, with our devices in our pockets, we have access to our e-mail anywhere and anytime. But how can we find a smart way of optimizing e-mail marketing when we are up against so many daily e-mails?
Subscription based on permission
In addition to the fact that the purchase of databases is not ”legal”, the consequences of its use are low results, insufficiently invested time and money, plus the rejection of the brand involved, instead of eliciting empathy. It’s like taking a person off the street into your store and forcing them to buy something…you might convince a few, but it’s not exactly a healthy long-term business strategy, now is it?
Smart subscriptions can be obtained organically, with incentivization and patience. When a database is built in a healthy fashion, the results are incomparably better and the e-mail marketing channel becomes a perfect business and awareness satellite for brands.
The subscription process must be measured strictly from a business point of view, identifying the lowest subscription price, the most efficient channel and the message that will convince people to provide personal data. Because Caranfil’s text, told through Dinică’s words has made history: ‘An outreached hand that doesn’t tell a story gets no alms.’
Customizing and segmentation
Sending one newsletter a month to all subscribers proves to be a non-optimized and even harmful activity, given people’s expectations with regard to brands. The more data is known about subscribers, the better the content can be sent to more suitable people, at the right place and time. Geographical location is extremely important, because 10 AM in Bali is not the same thing as 10 AM in Prague and people around the world are more mobile than ever.
Dale Carnegie said that a person’s name is the sweetest sound in any language to them. Using a person’s name in the e-mail’s subject field shall result in an opening rate 26% higher than in the case of standard e-mails. And global marketers say that they’ve noticed a 760% increase in income in the case of e-mails sent to segments of the database versus sending e-mails to the entire database.
We often hear that we don’t read newsletters, actually, we only read the ones received from the brands that we are interested in and that draw our attention, since we are receiving increasingly relevant information, that seems like it’s tailor-made for us.
The fight for 1×1 customization has begun
Information in newsletters is now more customized, since it’s sent based on context and the data is interconnected with other digital communication platforms, that are part of our daily activities (e.g.: Google, Facebook, Instagram), used in remarketing campaigns to support the mix of online communication.
Responsive Mobile first and simplicity in design
At the moment, 8 out of 10 people use their mobile phone to access the Internet and, in the previous year, the newsletter opening rate was 68% higher on mobile phones compared to the previous year. Therefore, an e-mail that looks good on Outloook, but is not responsive on a mobile device on Gmail (the largest e-mail provider on the planet), is a huge waste of the potential of marketing.
A newsletter is like a website page, so the design principle is similar to that of websites: ‘less is more’, only that which is valuable really matters. A person’s experience in contact with the brand dictates the quality of the design. It’s better for only one button to be present, connected to a single desirable action, than to have 3 buttons for different purposes. It’s like someone stopping you on the street and showing you 3 vacation offers and telling you that you have a few seconds to make a decision … that won’t be very easy, now will it!?
Automation and transactional e-mails
When a person has subscribed to a database with prepared Email Marketing automation, a digital journey with predefined e-mails will begin. These e-mails are sent based on a person’s clicks and the brand’s communication objectives. In addition to resource optimization through the lack of human involvement in sending, automated e-mails generate up to 320% more receipts than standard e-mails, according to Campaign Monitor.
Retargeting the information from the website and continuing the action performed by the visitor through transactional e-mails is the ace up the sleeve of today’s e-commerce world. Instant discounts generated based on the context of the visit, sent through newsletters for incentivization or building loyalty seem to result in 6 times more receipts and the chances of subscribers receiving automated e-mails finalizing the transaction in online stores are 3 times higher.
Measuring results
As we can see, measuring figures has become a main activity in digital marketing and this is also true of sent newsletters. It’s more than important to analyse all of the possible statistics, from the opening and click percentage to the unique click to open rate or, visually speaking, which part of the newsletter was more attractive for subscribers, so that you can improve the design of e-mails. When all is said and done, you can’t optimize what you can’t measure.
Top 10 checklist for Email Marketing performance
- Clear e-mail marketing strategy, with well-defined steps
- Subscription with permission, database obtained organically, not purchased
- Newsletter automation, digital journeys starting at the moment of subscription
- As much data about subscribers as possible, used in the e-mail content
- Content customization in the subject field or in the content of the newsletter
- Database segmentation, not everyone needs to receive the same information
- Simplicity in design, mobile responsiveness, simple & clean
- Sending at the right time, based on the location of the subscriber
- Client-orientation, more about the customer and less about the brand
- Email Analytics, measured statistics used for the constant optimization of E-mail marketing process.
Take-away conclusions
When it comes to e-mails, we don’t act like we do on Instagram or YouTube. It’s more personal, with more attention to the content, and the e-mails received every day are like an avalanche, so that an inappropriate newsletter can turn a subscriber into an un-subscriber. People reject an approach that is too aggressive, but empathize with sweet talk, used at the right time. And, since using e-mail is a dominant activity each day, it’s best to do it with a healthy strategy, with patience and care.
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Statistics sources: Pew Research Center, Campaign Monitor
