Email marketing with strategic support, design, copywriting and HTML build.

Email marketing is a form of marketing that businesses use to make customers and prospects aware of products, services, and promotional offers.

Email marketing certainly works! However, just like any other marketing channel, email marketing must be done well, for it to perform to its full potential. Campaign Monitor report that roughly 1/3 of global marketers say email marketing is the best marketing tool for generating ROI.

I use software that manages, creates and sends email marketing campaigns and also gives you real data on how many people have opened the email and how many have clicked through to your website etc.

The first step in creating a successful email marketing strategy is understanding what your email marketing objectives are. What are you trying to achieve? Is it more sales? Is it more downloads? Is it more bookings? Is it more traffic through to the site? Is it increasing your brand awareness?

When developing email strategies for our email marketing clients we often break our thinking into three areas, which we refer to as the three pillars of a successful email strategy: the who (segmentation), the what (content) and the when (frequency and timing).

To improve the relevancy of your email marketing activity it is important to look at ways to segment your email subscribers into smaller pots and then define the content and timing accordingly. For example, could you segment your subscribers by demographic data such as age, sex, or geographical location. Another fantastic way to improve the relevancy of your email marketing is by segmenting your subscribers by transactional data such as whether they have purchased a product or service before, their order frequency or order value or even by product or service category.

I often speak with clients about the need to create a rich and varied inbox. We believe that it is important to mix up the type of email campaigns you send your subscribers, as if you constantly send them the same messages, then they will become bored and your engagement rates will drop. Try sending your subscribers different types of emails, like newsletters, sale emails as well as advice driven emails. Also try mixing up the email format between short emails and longer templates.

Email frequency is another significant factor that needs to be considered when developing a successful email strategy. How often should you send your email subscribers an email? My view has always been consistent. I believe, you should push the email frequency as hard as you can, without impacting negatively on your KPIs.

Automated email marketing campaigns are sent automatically to your customers and prospects based on a schedule, or trigger, that you define. The trigger could be based on transactional data i.e. Post purchase automated emails, behavioural data i.e. abandoned basket automated emails, or demographic data e.g. Birthday emails. Automated emails help you achieve greater relevancy in your email marketing communications and therefore they generally achieve better results than ‘blast’ emails. A more relevant message, to a more relevant person at a more relevant time.

Brand messaging
Facts
Top tips & tricks
Promotional posts about services / products
Industry news
Images and videos
Seasonal posts

There are so many factors that determine an email marketing open rate. The quality of the data, the relationship you have with the subscribers, the relevancy of the subject header and the timing of the email, will all impact the open rate.

In 2020, Campaign Monitor report that the average open rate was 18%, but this does differ from sector to sector.

There are five ways to improve your email marketing opening rates.

Keep your email data clean and up to date and do not email non-engaged subscribers, as this can have a negative impact on your reputation as an email sender.
Improve the relevancy of your email marketing by segmenting content based on the subscriber’s preferences and behaviour.
Make your subject headers standout in the inbox. Read our Copywriting for email whitepaper, which outlines several subject header strategies which you could test.
Test the timing of your emails by testing which days and what time of day produces the best opening rates.
Make your email marketing the best it can be. The more valuable the subscriber finds your content then the more likely they are to open and engage with your emails.

Although these measurements share some similarities, they are completely different metrics. A click through rate simply measures the number of recipients who clicked on your email. So, for example, if you sent an email to 100,000 subscribers and 1,000 subscribers clicked then you would have achieved a 1% CTR.

A click-to-open rate measures the number of subscribers who opened and went onto click on your email. So, out of the 100,000, maybe 50,000 opened your email. Then, 10,000 went to click a link, your CTRO is 20%.

The first way to do this, which is certainly the quickest way, although not necessarily the smartest, is to buy an email list from a data broker. Although you are guaranteed volume, you are not necessarily guaranteeing success, as cold email is notoriously difficult to make work.
The second tactic to grow your list is to ask visitors to your website for their email address in exchange for a whitepaper, e-book or guide. This is a very popular tactic, especially in B2B email marketing.
The third tactic is simply giving people more opportunities to opt-in to your email. If growing your email list is a significant business objective, then make it easy for people to sign up. Move your email sign up from the footer navigation and give it greater prominence on your website. Also experiment with strategically placed pop-ups.
The fourth best way to grow your email list is to implement a robust mechanism for people to share your emails with fellow likeminded people or businesses. This tactic is often referred to as Forward to a Friend.

Take a fresh look at your email marketing activity with our complimentary email marketing evaluation.

Perhaps you think something should be working harder, or you’d like to double-check you’re not missing anything. Every now and then it can be quite useful to look at things with fresh eyes. Apply new ideas and knowledge to the challenges you’re facing. The outcome can be surprising.

Register for your complimentary email marketing evaluation below.