People might argue that email marketing is already becoming extinct. I disagree, email marketing works – and as they say, the proof is in the pudding!
Society is coming back full circle in a few ways – women are reintegrating 80’s leggings, men are adopting caveman-esque grooming habits (see: lumbersexual), and email marketing is back ‘in’. It was one of the first forms of digital marketing, and one of the most effective was to get results and increase your profitability.
As for the proof in the pudding: Experian has suggested that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average ROI is $44.25 – higher than any other form of digital marketing (i.e banner advertising, SEM, social media, pay-per-click marketing etc.).
Even though it’s the oldest form of digital marketing – there is still a ton for us to learn – here are 5 ways to get the most out of email marketing for your business.
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Increase your knowledge about customer behaviour
If you have a website, or a social media page, I’m sure you already track analytics (i.e. conversion rates, click-through rates, page views, etc.). Did you know you can do the same with your email activity? There are analytics tools that allow you to analyze email activity to view user interaction and increase the profitability of your marketing team.
You can use tools as simple as A/B testing, click tracking in an effort to improve your click-through-rates and analyze your email campaigns to track your client’s behaviours.
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Conduct surveys
Many people overlook the simplest approach in favour of a more complex one, because they think it will net them a larger reward. Just as aspects and behaviours of society and technology are circling back around – we should go back to a very simple technique: surveys. We have don’t feedback surveys for years in a manual form – but you can pair this with your email marketing to send out mass surveys to your customers.
Your email database can help you to guide your marketing and product choices. Use the internet surveys to ask your clients about their needs, wants, views, and opinions. Verify your businesses likeability – engage with your clients and establish rapport through your email surveys
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Connect and use both email and social media platforms
It’s been shown that emails that contain social media sharing/connection buttons have a click-through-rate that’s 115% higher than those that don’t. However, when used on their own – it’s similar to laying out a welcome mat in front of your store and assuming people will intrinsically enter and purchase items.
Instead of using it alone, strengthen your marketing efforts by pairing your email marketing with your social media platforms. Do something as simple as adding a sign up link to your blog updates, or a sign up tab to your Twitter or Facebook page. Finally, people love knowing classified information – so offer them exclusive access to newsletter content, videos, etc.
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Promote active customer engagement
Encouraging client engagement begins with building rapport and making it personal. We’ve already established that email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tools.
Client engagement leads to profitability and monetary rewards, but how do we use email marketing to do that? Generally we send email updates, news, fyi’s on new blog posts and interesting content – but none of this encourages engagement. Instead use email marketing to incite participation, client engaging quizzes, surveys and polls. The result is two-fold, more customer engagement and an increase in your customer profiles.
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Re-direct emails based on website activity
Email retargeting can allow you to focus on your clients actions. These actions (abandoned shopping cart, unfinished user registration etc.) generate an automatic email to the client. If retargeting takes place soon after the event, say an hour or so, you can begin the process of rapport building with that individual.
Give the client a precise action to engage in – say completing their order or finishing their user registration. Try to ensure that you don’t include discounts, freebies, or promos in your first retargeting email – this may make one sale – but will not draw the client in and keep them; Reserve gifts for future emails or as a last-ditch effort to elicit a response from the client.
As you can see, we’ve established that email marketing is an awesome tool for your marketing team. It has built a solid foundation in delivering results and profitability for businesses globally. Moving forward, ensure that you don’t waste the potential of email marketing by using it for boring, and frankly annoying, emails about product updates or blog posts. With great risk comes great reward, so be bold and use the techniques about to take your email marketing to the next level and increase your brand’s profitability!
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