Email marketing, contrary to what some may think, is not dead. By the end of 2017 there is expected to be over 3.7 billion email users worldwide (Radicati Group Email Statistics Report, 2017). This is a massive opportunity for businesses to reach their consumers, right to their inbox any time of day, wherever in the world they may be, therefore email should be at the heart of any marketing strategy.
Tybout and Hauser (1981) say the goal of a marketing audit is to identify any short run actions that can be done to increase profitability, and with emailing software now so readily available online, it can be easy for small businesses to optimize their campaigns. This blog post will show 4 ways to evaluate how well a small business is trying to increase click through rate (CTR) through their opt in email. Email marketing is consistently delivering a high rate of return on investment (Bawm & Nath, 2014). Campaign Monitor (2017) found that for every $1 spent, email generates $38 in ROI so it is worth the time to audit your email marketing campaign.
- Evaluate Content Creation:
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Personalised messages Is the company using the receivers name in the email? Communicator Corp (2017) says personalisation reduces email unsubscribes, increases the number of clicks and results in a higher open rate. We are in an age of personalisation and hyper-targeting. Consumers expect brands to know who they are and personalisation can increase open rates by 26% (Experian, 2017).
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Clear concise subject lines It is very important that the reader can understand the subject line quickly and easily. Subject lines have a strong influence on whether the reader opens the email, which could result in a click through (Balakrishnan and Parekh, 2014). Emails with personalised subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.
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Clear call to action in each email The email layout and design should make sure the call to action is clear and instantly recognisable.
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Interesting? Are you sending the email out of duty, or because you have something of value and relevant to say? The content should be informative AND sales orientated.
Here we can see two clear calls to action which encourage the reader to complete the actions through Spotify.
- Manage Segments Effectively
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Is the company grouping customers by demographics, purchase history and browsing trends? Marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns (Campaign Monitor, 2017). Generic segmentation can lead to an irrelevant campaign or emails being classed as spam (Bawm & Nath, 2014).
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Is the company using dynamic segments? Your customers are not all the same and are always changing, the more you tailor emails to individual customers, the more likely they will buy.
- Refine your email design & layout
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Studies have shown that the placements of your links on an email can affect your CTR (Kumar and Salo, 2016), links placed on the left are far more likely to clicked on.
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Ensure your email is optimized for mobile: this is a must have in 2017 and if you do not do so you can risk losing opens, clicks, and conversions. Email opens on mobiles have increased by 30% in the past 5 years (Campaign Monitor, 2017).
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Customers expect a consistent experience when dealing with a brand, so make sure your emails match up with the branding of your business.
See this example of 13 of the best examples of beautiful email design: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-design-templates-and-inspiration
- Sending Emails
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Each audience is different and A/B testing is hugely important and can help you make adjustments continuously to improve your campaign performance therefore your CTR. Understanding which aspects of your email campaign drive engagement and influence purchase decisions is critical and A/B tests can improve conversion rates by 49% (Campaign Monitor, 2017).
Here is a great beginners guide in showing you the most effective ways to A/B test: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/ab-testing-email-campaigns/.
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If you have subscribed to receive an email, you would expect the email to come from the brand and not from the name of the person who has written the email. 68% of Americans say they base their decision to open an email on the ‘From’ name so make sure your ‘Mail From’ name is the right one.
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Transactional emails are the automated emails you receive from a company. For example, order confirmations and shipping notifications. These email open rates are 8x higher than your average email (Experian, 2017). These emails offer a huge opportunity for marketers to take advantage of this high open rate and use them to increase brand loyalty. Ensure they always arrive on time, are pleasing to the eye and always personalised to engage with your customer and increase revenues further.
Here are some good examples of different types of transactional email templates:
https://instapage.com/blog/transactional-email-best-practices
An academic study completed by Pantea & Pop (2010) which explored what information customers want to receive from companies, found the following in their survey: Customers were clear in that the most important things they wanted to hear about were events such as sales, followed by news about the organisation and then new product launches. This data can be used and applied when auditing your email campaigns to make sure you’re sending information the consumer wants to receive.
Watch this short video about best email marketing campaigns:
Any business, large or small should always be conscious of continuously searching for new ways to improve their email marketing, the four categories above are just a few of the ways a company can audit their campaigns to make sure each campaign is better than the last.
It is clear to see from the statistics that email is far from dead, in fact it is very much alive and well!