Email marketing has been around for decades and has evolved into one of the most cost-effective forms of direct marketing. According to the statistics portal Statista, the email marketing industry is worth $9.62 billion, and roughly 320 billion emails are sent daily. Crafting the perfect email to attract customers or increase engagement is critical. If you find yourself floundering to set your emails apart, follow these five simple steps from Lauren Martinez, Performance Marketing Manager for Baby & Child Care Brands at Kimberly Clark.
Create a winning welcome email
Your welcome email is the customer’s first exposure to your brand and what you have to offer through the email marketing channel. Unlike mass advertising, email marketing focuses on building engagement and establishing one-on-one communication with your consumer. The welcome email is your first chance to develop that connection and let them know what they can expect from you. Highlight the value you’re planning to bring your consumers, and think about the unique value propositions your brand or product can offer them. But you should not use your first email only to celebrate your value — you can also utilize the welcome email as a data capture point to allow consumers to teach you a little more about them and their needs from your brand. With so many possibilities for a welcome email, it may be prudent to spread your content over a series of emails to get those consumers to engage and understand the full breadth of the benefit they can get from your brand.
Leverage zero and first-party data
We’ve all experienced the annoyance of receiving completely irrelevant emails, and it’s an easy way to scare off potential customers. With the welcome email, you can ascertain information from your consumer base, either by zero-party or first-party data. Zero-party data is self-reported, so this data comes directly from consumers. First-party data, on the other hand, is inferred or observed data that is collected based on the actions consumers take within your digital marketing ecosystem. The information you get from your consumers will be vital in creating relevant content, as consumers should see themselves in the content you deliver.
Prioritize mobile formatting
47% of people use a mobile application to check their email, which is much higher among younger generations. You’ll need to prioritize mobile formatting if you’re targeting younger consumers. The best advice to ensure your emails are appropriately formatted for mobile devices is by testing your emails on phones. You can optimize mobile viewing by focusing on sharp, concise subject lines that are 25 to 30 characters long, and using keywords. It’s also essential to ensure the text and graphics are big enough that a consumer can easily read them on their phone and that the call to action (CTA) and buttons are large enough to engage with easily. Your text and CTA should be at least 15 to 18 pixels in size for optimal viewing.
Deliverability Checks
Email deliverability is the set of processes that are going to determine whether or not your emails are going to land in your subscribers’ inbox. You can create the best email marketing in the world and have an extensive list of subscribers, but if you don’t have a solid handle on your deliverability, none of those emails are going to be seen. Institute a marketing calendar to ensure you send a consistent volume of emails. This will help to increase your domain reputation and, subsequently, your email deliverability. Avoid spammy subject lines, including words in all caps, exclamation points, and certain trigger phrases, and avoid URL shorteners. Sending relevant content and segmenting your audience will also increase your deliverability and decrease the chances of your emails ending up in spam.
Test and learn
With technology changing quickly, it is essential to adapt to the changes and continue to create relevant and appealing content for your target audience. Having clear key performance indicators (KPIs) that you track and test, such as the click-to-open rate or click-through rates, will help you optimize your email marketing. Develop a list of tests to improve your email marketing, like testing for mobile optimization by using different fonts or graphics and testing out other subject lines and CTAs. You can even create two formats of the same email and test with different audience segments. As you test more and more aspects of your emails, you’ll find what has a positive impact and optimize it for scale. Maybe you’ll find a particular CTA that is more effective and implement it across all your emails. This continuous process of testing and adapting will help your email marketing grow without stagnation and reach more potential customers.
Email marketing is about experimenting with different tactics and determining what works best for your business. You can optimize your subject lines, graphics, send times and more based on your targeted audience, but if you don’t test, re-test, and analyze your results, you won’t be able to compete with the hundreds of emails that flood our inboxes daily.
This blog is inspired by WiT Webinar ‘5 Best Practices to Level Up Your Email Marketing.’ Watch it on WiT’s Webinar archive HERE.
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