Email Marketing Still Matters. Here’s What Your Strategy is Missing.

Email marketing is still the most effective way to get in touch with potential customers. Especially today, when brands are competing for customers’ attention through targeted display ads, sponsored videos, TV commercials, and more traditional means like radio and print, customers feel downright overwhelmed. 

But email marketing cuts through the noise — global management consulting company McKinsey recently discovered that email is almost 40 times more effective at gaining the attention of new customers than Facebook or Twitter. With 89% of Americans checking their email at least once a day, it’s still the most personal and direct way to get in touch with customers, let them know about your latest offers, and gather information on what they like and how you can best present it to them. 

A thoughtful, responsive email marketing strategy could be the key to your most vital business goals. Here’s what you’ve been missing. 

Get the first click. 

Over 90% of users will never return to an email. As enchanting as your writing may be, you have to remember that you are just one of possibly hundreds (or thousands for those of us who are organizationally-challenged) of emails waiting to be opened in the recipient’s inbox. This means that you have one chance to wow them. 

Use this opportunity to keep it concise. Much like a social media post, emails should be short and punchy — as much as you want to share all the details about your new product or service, remember that email should only a pit stop on the way to a blog post or landing page on your website. 

Inspiring action. 

When planning your email marketing strategy, don’t forget to focus on improving click rates by creating strong, compelling CTAs. Make sure the CTAs that lead readers to high-impact landing pages, like e-books or product offers, are placed closest to the top of the newsletter, as readers tend to drop off as you get further down the email. But don’t get discouraged! By taking on A/B testing, you can make side-by-side comparisons and find out which buttons, photos, and copy are resonating with readers, keeping their attention for longer and nudging them toward goal completion.

Your email audience is unique — treat them as such.

Subscribers are much more likely to open an email if it looks like it was written specifically for them. But it makes sense right? Your customers value their own time and don’t want to waste it, but they’ll invest in a newsletter or blog post if they find the content useful or thought-provoking. To do this, we first have to know them. And once we know them, we can wow them! 

By organizing your email subscriber list into segments, you can more accurately target for specific interests or purchasing habits. If our restaurant client in Washington, DC wants to promote a culinary event in the city, we’d create a segment that includes last year’s attendees, loyal customers, and bloggers or influencers. This way we ensure that we’re sending our content to an audience that will find the information relevant and interesting, and depending on what they click or sign up for, we can send them more specific information that aligns with their interests. 

Keep them wanting more. 

Customers tend to feel bombarded with ads, sponsored content and the privacy concerns that come along with them, so it’s more difficult than ever to keep a potential customer’s attention, let alone make them feel comfortable enough to give away personal information like emails and phone numbers. But with gated content, it’s a two-way street: we benefit from their information because we can provide them with a more personal ad experience, so they have to benefit by receiving an e-book or special offer in exchange for their information. 

Email keeps information-gathering simple in a way that other channels cannot. Tracking key metrics like opens, clicks and email-generated leads can give you a full profile on a customer’s level of interest and place in the sales pipeline, making it easier to personalize their journey and get them on board as a repeat customer. 

A few final tips on fine-tuning your email marketing strategy:  

Have email-exclusive content. Including product launches, employee spotlights and discounts for your loyal customers. 

Don’t sleep on subject lines. The subject line isn’t the place to parrot your opening sentence.  It’s your one-line elevator pitch. Why should they take the time to read this email; what’s in it for them? 

Keep it simple. Make sure your copy is detailed but direct. Let’s keep the attention of readers long enough to inspire the actions that will drive our own business objectives. That is, after all, why you sent this email! 

Why wait until 2020 to start winning? Schedule a conversation with one of our marketing experts today to perfect your email marketing strategy.