Article Contributed by Mansi Dhorda
(Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/epublicist/8585151633)
Email marketing is one of the most powerful sales-driving tools available to businesses, particularly e-commerce stores and related companies, reaching consumers directly on their computers and personal devices. But, not every e-mail message is equally effective.
Some of the most impactful e-mails are ones that are initiated when a customer or prospect takes an action or exhibits some behavior, and are part of a series of e-mails that seek to engage shoppers over time.
Here are a few e-mail marketing strategies to help you make a success of your e-mail marketing efforts.
- Get Them with Your Subject Line
Undermine the importance of creating the perfect subject line for your e-mail at your own peril. After all, that’s the first thing customers are going to read and you want to give them a solid reason to click through it. Doing so, however, is no cakewalk.
Still not convinced about the criticality of a compelling subject line? Here are a few statistics that may leave you enlightened:
- 33% of e-mail recipients open e-mail based on subject line alone.
- 69% of e-mail recipients report e-mail as based solely on the subject line.
- 64% of people say they open an e-mail because of the subject line.
- 44% of e-mail recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email.
- For B2B companies, subject lines that contained “money,” “revenue,” and “profit” performed the best.
Several e-mail marketing solution providers test the effectiveness of e-mails by sending out two version of the same e-mail with different subject lines. This is done to figure out which one gets more open rates from customers, and the more effective subject line is ultimately used in e-mail campaigns.
- Make It Personal
When customers open their inbox and see your e-mail, they’re well aware that it is part of a campaign and has been received by others as well. How do you make your customer feel special and valued in such cases? Personalization is the answer to this.
When you collect customers’ e-mail IDs, try and get as much of their information as you can (without being creepy), such as their name, age, city of residence, interests and hobbies, and social media information. However, do leave these fields optional as not all customers may be comfortable with sharing these details and navigate away from your page if it gets time-consuming.
Use this information to personalize each email message. For example, when composing an email, customize the ‘To’ field so that the customer can see his/her name instead of seeing “Dear Customer.” This will reassure him/her that he/she isn’t just another ID in your emailing list.
- Categorize Your Emailing List
This point takes a cue from the previous one and goes a step further. Personalize your messages further by segmenting them into niche customer groups on the basis of their location, gender, past purchases, and so on.
Doing so will make it extremely easy for you to provide a specific customer group with offers and updates that are more likely to resonate with them, rather than sending e-mails to all the customers in your list, who will probably delete them or worse, mark them as spam.
- Keep It Short and Sweet
More often than not, customers aren’t going to have the time to read through long e-mails. When they open your e-mail, they’re more likely to quickly glance through it and decide in a matter of seconds if they want to delete or read through it. Herein lies the importance of keeping your e-mail content short, sweet and on-point.
Stay away from verbosity and focus on incorporating a solid call to action instead. In fact, focus your entire mail on it. Customers like it when you tell them what to do next. Remember, the call to action should be palpable, visually-appealing and should leave no doubts in the customers’ mind about the step they should take next.
- Consider Using a Newsletter Service
Consider the following findings:
- When asked to opt-in to receive updates from a company, only 10% elected to do so through Facebook, while 90% chose to receive e-mail newsletters.
- Newsletters are still considered to be a great way to grow or maintain relationships, even during times when people aren’t actively making purchasing decisions.
You will do well to sign up with an e-mail marketing service provider or create attractive, mobile-optimized e-mails and newsletters yourself. By doing so, you should be able to manage e-mail lists, integrate forms and sign-ups on your website, keep customers engaged, inform them about your latest offerings, proffer them with discounts and deals, and monitor e-mail analytics.
- Razzle and Dazzle Them
You already know that your e-mail campaign has only a few seconds to elicit a response from customers, which is why it needs to be visually-interesting and impactful enough to make them want to hang around.
This can be achieved by including fully-optimized images and graphics (for mobile and tablet users), and custom fonts and styles. Of course, the images and graphics you use should be in keeping the e-mail’s message.
As far as possible, avoid using generic stock images and pick those that do a great job of narrating your e-mail’s story.
- Grow Your Campaign with Social Shares
Did you know that the click-through rate of e-mails with social sharing buttons increase by 158 percent compared to those without them?
If you want to provide a boost to your e-mail campaign, get your customers to share your newsletter on their social networks, and give your brand more exposure, then you should make it convenient for them to do share your content. This can be done by simply placing attractive social sharing buttons strategically within your e-mail and including the necessary links; and voila, you’re famous!
Conclusion
While using social networking and image-sharing sites may be the hot new way to generate customer interaction and sales, good ol’ e-mails continue to prove their prowess in creating the same effect. When done systematically, sending e-mails to your customers ensures that you actively reach people who have chosen to receive content from you and are looking forward to your offerings. Only a well-thought-out e-mail campaign can help you optimize your mailings so that you do not lose out on potential sales. The above pointers should enable you to craft one that helps you expand your customer base as well as your bottom line.
Author Bio:
Mansi Dhorda works at E2M – A Digital Marketing Agency. A social media enthusiast, she is well-versed in content marketing and other internet marketing niches.