Building a Comprehensive Email Strategy
In this day and age, email marketing is no longer optional if you want maximum results from your digital marketing. After all, 92 percent of online adults use email and 61 percent use it in an average day (Pew Research Center). Of course, most organizations are using email marketing. This is why it is so important for you to have a comprehensive email strategy that helps you to stand out above the throng.
But what does that look like? There are a few key strategies you can employ to turn your emails from white noise to emails your audience actually opens.
1. Find Ways to Segment Your Audience
Let’s look at three customers for a moment. First, we have Carla, who trains for marathons, eats organic foods and is a stay-at-home mom. Second, we have Jim, who loves hunting, fishing and is a mechanic. Third, we have Susan, who is an attorney, loves going out with her girlfriends on weekends and lives in high heels. Now, let’s say you own a store that sells skincare and beauty products. These three customers are not going to be interested in the same products, so why would you send all three of them an email about a new lipstick line? You wouldn’t if your audience was segmented. You would know who to send certain emails to and who wouldn’t be interested. By sending emails targeted to the appropriate audience, you increase your open rate and chance of conversion.
2. Personalize Emails
Customers love to receive emails that feel like they are just for them. If you’ve done a good job in segmenting your audience, this becomes a lot easier. One of the easiest things you can do to individualize your emails is to make sure they include the names of your customers. Every email marketing platform has this capability. Next, let’s look at our customers again. Because you’ve segmented your emails, you have more insight into your clients. So, you might send Carla an email about a new organic skincare line. You will send John an email about a salve that helps heal cuts and scrapes or a wash that helps remove grease. You can then send Susan a how-to email about the latest smokey eye trend. Each customer is now much more likely to open the email you sent.
3. Email Automation
Email automation has really taken off, and it provides some incredible ROI. Automated email messages actually average a 70.5 percent higher open rate and 152 percent higher click-through rate than a normal marketing email (Epsilon Email Institute). What this means for your business is that you can tailor your content even more to meet the individual needs of your audience. We are going to look at our three favorite customers one more time to see how email automation works. Let’s say that you sent Carla that email about the organic skincare line, and you know she is interested because she opened the email and clicked on the link. With email automation, in a couple of days you can send her an email with a 10 percent off coupon code for that line. This will make her more likely to try it. Maybe John purchased perfume from you for his wife for their anniversary. When it gets close to the next anniversary, you can send him a reminder email that includes a suggestion for this year’s gift. And finally, you can track who visits your website and what they look at. You know Susan was looking at a makeup line she is interested in trying. You can send her a buy one get one free, or a free shipping code in an email. She doesn’t realize you know she looked at those items, so it feels serendipitous, and she is more likely to make the purchase.
Behavior Drives Success
There’s one key element that drives all key points in this post. Email marketing technology has expanded rapidly and now many platforms can track an individual’s behavior during each site visit. You can segment your list based on which users visited a certain page on your site. You can send an email to anyone who has looked at a product page three times without making a purchase. You can better personalize email content with information beyond names like products. If you work in B2B sales, you can see which pages of your website a prospect has seen before you make a sales call. These automation and tracking tools should be a part of your email marketing platform to ensure you’re getting the most out of this highly effective communication tool.
There are lots of amazing ways you can use email marketing to grow your business and your bottom line, as long as you have a comprehensive strategy in place to make the most of it.
