The power of email marketing

The 80:20 rule is widely used in business, but how does it apply to digital marketing? Odds are, roughly 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients. Focus your energy on those 20% and you will strikingly increase your revenue. But how should you build relationships with these customers? The answer is email marketing.

Email may be as old as the internet itself, but in 2019, over 50% of the world’s population still started their day by checking their email.

Marketers can leverage email usage and connect with their prospects and customers in a highly targeted way that will be successful in delivering ROI.

You probably have hundreds or even thousands of contacts on your client lists. Don’t lose sight of your high-volume buyers while getting weighed down in acquiring new customers. Make sure that you are connecting with them on a more personal level by perfecting your email marketing campaign.

Email marketing vs. social media marketing - which is better?

It’s a question we often get asked as content marketing specialists, but the answer isn’t so black and white.

Social media is arguably the most influential innovation in recent years and while the uptake in social media certainly encouraged businesses to establish presences on these platforms, it is not always the best avenue for reaching your customer base.

In 2020, some 3.8 million people use social media everyday, however, consumers are rapidly labelling targeted advertising on these channels as invasive and unwelcome.

When it comes to converting leads into loyal customers, supporters or even members, email marketing has remained a consistent channel of engagement. The truth is consumers feel in control of an email relationship; they opt-in to receive promotional messages with an option to unsubscribe and they can access the content at a time that best suits them.

Ultimately, your social media profiles should work in tandem with your email marketing strategy. Try linking to your social media profiles in your marketing emails and offer subscribers new opportunities to engage with your brand and your content.

Using data to improve your email marketing

The greatest element of email marketing is it’s measurability. When you use any email marketing platform you can gain valuable insight into customer behaviours and interests simply by tracking who opened your email, which links were clicked or if they unsubscribed. You can easily monitor and measure the performance of your email campaign and make adjustments to improve effectiveness, or in some cases, perform rudimentary split tests to help you decide between design and copy elements that you’re considering.

Here are some of the key metrics you should be looking out for:

• Open rate tracks how many recipients opened the email you sent. Open rates give you insight into the success of your subject line copy in enticing subscribers.
• Click through rate is the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links in your email.
• Conversion rate assesses how many recipients clicked on the link and then completed a specific action for example, making a purchase or signing up to a webinar.
• Bounce rate measures how many email addresses didn’t receive your email. If your campaigns have a high percentage of hard bounces your list may contain inactive email addresses or spelling mistakes in them.
• Unsubscribes tells you how many people opted out after receiving an email from you. Unsubscribes are not always a bad thing, it may indicate you are fine-tuning your subscriber list to interested customers.
• Forwarding rate/email sharing indicates the percentage of recipients who either shared your content via social media or forwarded the email to a friend. This metric gives you insight into how many brand advocates you may have.

With any form of measurement, the point of time in which you record your data can make a difference, so be sure to give audiences ample time to interact with your communication before drawing a conclusion on its effectiveness.

How to optimise your email campaigns

Whether you are just getting started with email marketing or have had a clear strategy for years, you’re probably looking to find ways to perfect your craft.

Here are some tips for optimising every email you send:

• Add personalisation: Mass marketing is no longer effective, because consumers are unique. One of the best ways to target a customer is to show you know something about them - who they are, where they work or what their concerns are.
• Strengthen your subject lines: A catchy subject line will make your emails more appealing at first glance. Make sure your copy is relevant to your audience and addresses your audience's concerns. Get a little creative by including humour, an engaging question or even an emoji to increase your attention and open rates.
• Harness your tone of voice: Your tone of voice should remain consistent throughout all your messaging. Make sure your body copy is clear and concise to keep readers interested, but don’t forget to celebrate your brand’s personality
• Add imagery: Using compelling imagery can motivate your audience to take action. Images will also help your body copy tell its story.
• Use powerful call to actions: when crafting an email, you can increase click through rates by adding an eye-catching CTA button that subscribers can click on to redeem your offer.

Setting up automated email marketing campaigns

Many email marketing platforms also offers access to powerful and customisable automation features including:

• Customer segmentation: You can develop different marketing material for customers depending on their interests or behaviours. For example, keep close tabs on which customer made a recent purchase or frequently purchases and tag them as a top priority for your sales efforts.
• Customer journeys: Whether we realise it or not, we are naturally inclined to take action with an email - reply, forward, click-through, sign-up or even immediately purchase. Based on triggered personalisation, you can automatically send messages to the right people at the right time and guide them through a targeted customer journey.
• User testing: A/B testing can indicate which of two email campaign options is the most effective in terms of encouraging opens or clicks. One of the biggest benefits of user testing is that you can see where your email recipients encounter problems and create a valuable backlog of functionality to implement.

Experiment with workflows and triggers and tailor your communication to hit audiences at the right time with the right message. With a bit of testing, practice and patience, your email leads will practically nurture themselves!