Email marketing is an effective, cost-effective marketing channel that can deliver a high return on investment. In order to maximize impact, marketers must use best practices that include automation, segmentation, personalization, and tracking.
Regularly scrub your email list of inactive subscribers to improve deliverability and engagement rates. You can also use tools within email marketing solutions to automatically segment and deliver personalized content based on behavioral data.
1. Automate Your Emails
Email automation is a valuable tool that can help businesses reach their audience at just the right time, without having to send each individual message on a manual basis. It can also improve personalization and increase the impact of your marketing efforts, by ensuring that you are only sending messages to those who truly want to receive them.
With email automation, marketers can set up a series of emails that are sent to subscribers for cost-effective email campaigns. These automated emails, known as drip campaigns, are a great way to nurture leads and convert them into customers by providing them with relevant content that can help them make their decision. This can be done by providing helpful information such as tips and tricks, tutorials, product recommendations, and more.
Another benefit of using automated emails is that it can help save time. By automating your emails, you can schedule them to be sent out at a later time, which will free up more of your time to focus on other aspects of your business. You can even use an email automation solution to automatically sort your emails into different folders, so that you only have the important ones in your inbox at any given time.
A simple example of an automated email is one that is sent to a new subscriber after they sign up for your newsletter or blog. The email can thank them for signing up and welcome them to your community by letting them know what they can expect to hear from you in the future. It can also include a special offer, such as a discount on their first purchase.
A more advanced example of an automated email is one that is triggered when a customer adds a product to their cart but does not complete the sale. This type of automated email can be used to remind the customer of the product they wanted to buy and encourage them to come back to complete their order. This can be done by providing them with a discount, such as 15% off, or by offering additional products that might complement their original selection.
2. Segment Your Email List
Email marketing solutions can help you create automated campaigns that target specific groups of subscribers. By sending messages that speak to the interests, habits and needs of the people on your email list, you can increase open rates, click-through rates and conversions. This personalization will improve customer retention and satisfaction.
Email segmentation is the process of dividing your email subscribers into groups or “segments” based on criteria such as demographics, location and behavior. Email marketing platforms have tools that can automate this process, but you can also create segments manually based on the information you know about your audience.
One common example is the difference between consumers who have a high school diploma and those who have a bachelor’s degree or higher. These different customers have a very different set of needs and may respond to your emails differently. For instance, they might be receptive to offers and promotions that are specific to their education level.
You can also segment your audience by age, as older individuals may have different needs and preferences from younger ones. For instance, they may be more receptive to retirement planning information than to college student loan offers. You can also segment your audience by household size, as this will impact their shopping habits and buying patterns. For example, large families might be receptive to offers on bulk products, while single college students might be more interested in smaller quantities of products.
Other ways to segment your audience include examining the way your subscribers interact with your emails and website. For example, you can create a segment for customers who are most active on your site and social media and send them exclusive deals and content that they won’t find anywhere else. You can also create a segment for customers who are least active and use that group to experiment with ways to encourage them to engage.
Email marketing can be a powerful tool for your business, but it’s important to keep in mind that email campaigns that are too general will be a turn-off for many of your subscribers. By taking the time to create and implement an effective email strategy, you can reap the rewards of improved open rates, click-through rates, increased conversions and a lower unsubscribe rate.
3. Personalize Your Emails
When email recipients receive emails that feel personalized, they perceive them as being more relevant to their interests and needs. This can help brands to stand out in the inbox and inspire engagement that leads to conversions. Email personalization can be done in a variety of ways, from using subscribers’ names in subject lines to leveraging behavioral data and dynamic content to create truly tailored experiences.
Incorporating personalization into your email strategy can have a positive impact on many email marketing KPIs, including open rates, click-through rates, and ROI. To maximize results, businesses can personalize every aspect of their emails, from the subject line to the body of the message to the call-to-action.
One of the most popular email personalization tactics is to use a subscriber’s name in the subject line, which can increase open rates by up to 50%. However, it’s important to avoid overdoing this. Too much personalization can make an email feel invasive and overly promotional, which may turn customers off.
Another way to enhance email personalization is by leveraging behavior-driven content blocks that populate with personalized recommendations or product suggestions based on subscriber actions. For example, Sephora uses this approach in their transactional emails to upsell products to subscribers who have made recent purchases. This helps to maintain customer interest and loyalty by making it easy for them to find the right products or services that are a good fit for their needs.
A well-implemented email personalization strategy can also help to reduce customer churn by sending personalized offers or incentives that encourage customers to return to the brand. However, it’s important to set clear goals for your personalization efforts and ensure that they are aligned with your business objectives.
Personalized subject lines and preheaders can make an immediate impression on your audience, but you must continue to refine these elements over time to keep them relevant. This can be done by tracking your open and click-through rates to understand what type of personalization is working best for you. Moreover, it’s crucial to monitor how your email personalization tactics affect customer engagement and retention to identify opportunities for further optimization.
4. Track Your Emails
Email tracking shows you when recipients open and click your emails. This metric is important because it can give you insights into your email marketing strategy and help you determine if your efforts are having an impact. For example, if you see that your email is being opened but not clicked, you might need to alter your subject line or include a call-to-action.
Using a tool like Gmail Meter can help you get a comprehensive overview of all your email activity. The platform gives you insights on how many emails you send and receive, your response time, who you email the most, and more. It also helps you optimize your workflow by giving you a daily report that shows you how much email you’ve sent, received, and how long it has been since you responded to an email.
Another type of email tracker is EmailAnalytics, which visualizes your team’s email activity in Gmail and Outlook. This email tool gives you real-time SLA alerts and can be especially helpful for sales and customer support teams. You can use this tool to track your team’s email responsiveness, analyze key email metrics, and improve collaboration.
The ability to track emails is a powerful tool that benefits both businesses and customers alike. By knowing when a prospect opens an email, you can time your follow-ups to maximize your chances of turning them into a customer.
This is especially important when it comes to sales, as 35-50% of deals go to the first vendor that responds and following up within an hour makes you 7x more likely to close a sale. In addition, email tracking can help you understand the effectiveness of your sales outreach, allowing you to adjust your follow-up strategies and ensure that they are being used correctly.
In addition to improving your email marketing efforts, email tracking can also help you make better decisions about your current email service provider. Assess whether your current email marketing solution is delivering the best results or whether it can be improved through internal changes before committing to a system replacement.