Content, targeting and message are all vitally important
As an ecommerce website, email marketing is the best way that you can maintain a dialogue with your customers and keep them coming back for more. It isn’t a simple job and will take strategy and creativity to reach your goals.
“Modern day marketers need to be aware that their brand messages are at risk of being swallowed up in the abyss that can be email marketing,” says John Watton, Senior Marketing Director at Silverpop.
“On average per person, per day consumers are receiving over 30,000 advertising messages, so it is essential that your business stands out from the crowd.”
We have come up with some handy tips to make sure your email campaigns are the best they can be.
In this article we will:
- Give you a list of tips which you can integrate into your email campaigns
- Explain how to communicate with customers
- Describe reasons for using a mix of content
1. Learn as much as you can about your customers
Knowledge is king when it comes to serving your customers with the best possible email campaigns. The more you know about them the more you can tailor their messages – personalised messages are not only better at gaining conversions, they also gain the trust of your customers.
“It may seem to be stating the obvious, but we need to stay relevant,” says Graeme Horne, Marketing Director, hungryhouse.co.uk
“People have signed up receive emails from us because they expect food-based content, so we ensure our marketing is in some way related to food. The more personalised and relevant the content, the more engagement we get.”
2. Segmentation
Creating personalised emails doesn’t have to mean creating different ones for each and every customer. If you create lots of groups and segment your customers into them you can target these groups with the same email and still give them a tailored service.
3. Make good use of the space you have
It can be tempting to get carried away with images and logos but not only can these slow down an email, they take up space which could be better used.
“Don’t waste precious above-the-fold HTML real estate on an enormous graphic such as a logo or product graphic,” says James Shakespeare, Managing Director, Evosite.
4. Change the content you send
If you are constantly sending product information to your customers and trying to get them to buy they will grow tired of your emails. Using value adding content such as buyer guides, trends and tips will be a refreshing change from your sales pitch and give customers another reason to open your emails.
5. Come up with enticing subject lines
This is your main chance at getting your customers’ attention – if you don’t grab them with a subject line they simply won’t open your message. Think about what would appeal to your target audience and create headlines that will get them clicking.
6. Always send a welcome message
There are numerous times when an email can be used to create engagement with your customers but one of the most important is the initial welcome message.
“Failing to welcome new subscribers is akin to a store clerk ignoring people when they walk in the door,” says Watton.
“A welcome message, or ideally a series of welcome messages, will ease people into the email stream, boost sales and minimise spam complaints.
7. Make newsletter sign up as easy as possible
In order to quickly grow an email list organically you must make it easy for people to sign up. If you don’t really need a piece of information at the start don’t ask for it – you can always try and get extra information later – the hardest part is getting that initial email address.
Make sure there are calls-to-action to sign up in various places on your site and give people a good reason to sign up.
8. Test and keep testing
To find out what strategy will work best with your customers you will have to test different ways of emailing them and which works best.
“In email marketing fortune favours the brave, and we will continually test new email approaches to hit gold,” says Horne.
“For example we are constantly running split test or multi-variate tests on campaigns to improve performance. This could be anything from a subject line to the sender name, the button location and especially content. Nothing is too small to test and tweak; every details counts, whether it be font colour, link location or size of images.”
9. Build up your list over time rather than buying email addresses
It is a temptation to buy lists of emails when you are starting out with very few but this is bad practice and could see you ending up in junk inboxes.
“Acquiring a sizable database of email addresses is a prerequisite of a successful email marketing program, but it’s also one of the easiest aspects to get wrong if you aren’t fussy about how you acquire names,” says Watton.
“Some email marketers want to blast out their messages to millions of people right away, collecting email addresses any way they can. Others build their databases from multiple sources, from people who have opted in to their messages at their websites and through verifiable offline sources.
Assembling a million-address database takes longer this way, but they end up winning the email race in the end.”
10. Make sure you are optimised for mobile devices
The percentage of people that read their emails on their smartphones and tablets is rising all of the time – you need to make sure that your emails are easy to read wherever your customers are reading them.
Speak Your Mind