Part of our outlook into 2014 we’ve started to compile some blog posts that are not only designed to help us but also help you in creating an effective strategy.
Email marketing, have you been doing it?
I ask simply because email marketing is hugely underutilised with B2b sales however the stat’s behind why you should be doing it are eye opening:
- 40% of B2b leads generated via email marketing are considered high quality.
- 44% of respondents to email marketing made one or more purchases.
Now when you’re response rate is close to being half that’s pretty good going, especially when it’s either a hot lead or a done deal at the end of it.
The trouble with email marketing is that we’ve all become some immune to spam and get rich quick schemes that we tend to have a misconception as to what email marketing should be. (It’s about value, just good old value adding to someone’s life).
So in 2014 here are the things you should be focusing on with your email marketing strategies:
Subject Line
If you happen to be a one man band or don’t actually have a marketing department then it would be wise to take a couple of hours out to learn about creative writing.
Put it this way – the subject line is the first thing the recipient will see and it’s the only thing that will make them open the email.
Social Leverage
Social media is here to stay so give into it and leverage it to your full advantage alongside your email marketing campaigns.
Here are some ideas:
- Competitions
- Exclusive offers
- Newsletter subscriber only offers
All of the above is designed to simply capture as much data as possible, getting more and more people onto your email list is vital. They may not be interested now but it’s the most efficient way to maintain mindshare.
Timing
You can no longer disapprove the value of sending well timed means of contact. Social media updates are being widely optimised for release at specific times that followers are most likely to click through and so should emails.
Use metrics to back up your findings and ultimately test what you’re doing, it will take some time to fully understand and develop a solid strategy but in the long run email marketing is about Open Rates and Click Through Rates.
Images
Sales pitch emails are horrible, they are the best example of the worst type of email that can be sent out. Forget the paragraphs of how you’ll add value and how previous customers saw X increases.
Instead focus on the visual appeal of your email, pictures and videos are becoming a huge growth market for social media therefore you need to optimise your emails to these trends.
Images and videos also carry the added bonus of being more likely to be shared over a plain piece of text – you just can’t get excited about something like that.
Update: Google has released news that they will be caching all images – meaning that there’s a strong chance measuring metrics such as opens and views will now be difficult. For more details check out this article.
Mobile
The all round numbers for mobile usage are going drastically up – viewers, amount of time spent, activities etc – so ensuring that your email marketing campaigns are mobile friendly is vital. Add too many large pictures and you’ll have a slow to open email – instant delete.
Again test and measure as for everyone it’s different but focus in on the need to have a balance between images, information and ultimately a mobile presence.
Automation/Segmentation
If you use the likes of iContact, Mail Chimp, Aweber etc you’ll have the wonderful ability to segment and automate your email campaigns. The whole process from list sign ups to welcome messages to follow up emails can all be done on an automated scale, why aren’t you doing it?
Email marketing has become such a fluid process that 2014 should be the year you fall in love with automated campaigns and hyper targeted segmentation. Realistically there are few reasons as to why your lead rate isn’t growing with email marketing.
Email marketing isn’t that bad, there are only a few bad seeds out there that want to create horrible campaigns that deliver nothing more than pain and sorrow for your inbox.
Some of the most popular email marketing providers; Aweber, MailChimp, iContact provide great services that allow you to understand your customer. 2014 should be key for your development and use of email marketing throughout your business.