We’ve all just spent the past 2 months being inundated by B2C ecommerce email marketing à la holiday season. But did any of it resonate? Were the efforts of these firms worth it? According to Disruptive Advertising, “People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people that do not receive email offers.” Depending on your company’s spend on email campaigns, it is still considered an important way to connect with your customers. So how do you increase the likelihood that your marketing emails get opened?
Here are 5 simple ways to ensure those emails you’re spending money and time on have the highest chance of connecting with your customers.
1. LET’S BE FRIENDS!
While the ultimate goal is a conversion now or in the future, building the relationship (and your funnel) is what it’s all about. Taking the time to get to know your customer and segmenting your audience allows you to better connect the right information to the right person. For example, recognizing people in your overall audience enjoy activewear but vary in their reason of why and how they wear it impacts the ways you can add value through email content for each segment. Identify what your customers come to you for and how you fit into their minds. Once you segment, you open up a world of content that will improve your customer’s experience AND your relationship with them. It turns the communication into a conversation and your brand into a resource, providing additional reasons for consumers to choose you.
2. A/B TEST.
Once you have your segments identified, continue building that relationship. A/B testing is a great way to see what really resonates with each segment. For example, do your local customers care about 10% off their order or Free Delivery? Test and find out! Sending the same email with a different subject line also engages your audience in nuanced ways. This is great to test throughout the year. Do they respond to a sale or an extra gift? This information is especially helpful when planning and budgeting for promotions throughout the year.
3. TIME IT RIGHT.
When to send and how frequently? This depends. After you know your segments, track unsubscribe rates related to specific campaigns, time of year, and current events. This will inform your email campaigns moving forward. Many email platforms like Mailchimp will recommend the best time for sending an email to your audience based on your industry. If the algorithm recommends 2:14pm on a Tuesday, that might render an acceptable CTR. But have you ever tried 8:45pm on a Thursday? This again is a great place to test! Play around with that “magical time” to meet your audience, especially if it’s a niche segment. Connecting with young, urban commuters? 5pm might be the right time to send. Reaching working parents, 8pm might work best for them. Ideal email timing may vary by segment.
4. ALL IN FOR THE COUNT.
Think about your entire marketing communications strategy. Make sure you’re reaching your audience on the social channels where they live. Instead of duplicating your message, provide complementary resources and information through your email marketing campaigns. Based on activity and goals, track where you get the most traction for certain types of content. A short video on Instagram may be more worthwhile than the same video embedded in an email. Make sure you’re using the same brand voice in all your communications.
5. CONTENT IS QUEEN.
Quality, imagery, and design that reflects your brand is essential. No one wants to read an ugly email or one that offers the same generic, watered down information. This is where the value-add is tremendous! There are many affordable platforms offering a large variety (Mailchimp) and industry-specific (Flodesk) templates to get you started. And yes, a designer can do it too, depending on your budget. No matter what, the voice, tone, and look of your content is what will help your audience get to know your brand’s persona and allow them to better relate. If your customers are excited about their relationship with you and enjoy the email marketing content you provide, they’ll be more likely to click, engage in your promotions, and create a strong second side to the relationship. Struggling with content? Get to know your segments better. For larger companies, focus groups are great. For companies with smaller budgets, pay attention to who your customers follow on social media and learn about their lifestyle. They will show you what they love, hate, and care about. This is exactly where your brand can build a transparent relationship and offer content that truly resonates. The most important part…make it easy to do business with you. You are not the only email your audience is scrolling over. The easier and faster your audience can connect with you, the more likely that your position in your consumer’s mind is in their “happy place.”
MAIN TAKEAWAY: Think about the relationships with people and brands that are close to YOUR heart. Reflecting on the way these brands connect with you provides a good guide as you plan and design your email marketing campaigns to ensure added value for your customers.
Cited Reference: Hatch, Cydney. “Be in the Know: 2018 Email Marketing Statistics You Should Know.” Disruptive Advertising, November 19, 2018, https://disruptiveadvertising.com/marketing/email-marketing-statistics/