Herring (2017)
Is email marketing still alive? Top 3 tips to make your e-mail marketing effective
by Lorenzo Giovanni Vaiana on December 1, 2017
Is email marketing still alive?
269 billion sounds like a huge number, right? Well, that is the number of e-mails expected to be sent and received in the 2017! (Hurley Hall, 2017)
According to Adobe’s Campaign third annual consumer email survey, in 2017 the number of hours consumers spend on email has decreased by 27% compared with 2016. However, the consumers are still spending 5.4 hours checking email while doing their daily activities. (Naragon, 2017)
The surprising news is that among all other types of communication channels with brands, email is the most favorite with 61%, 24% more than 2016!
Naragon (2017)
Moreover, the most surprising data found from the survey is that the age group with the highest number of hours spent checking emails is the young consumers!
In fact, surprisingly, even with the massive influence of social media in the last decade, young consumers are still checking their email during their daily activities:
Naragon (2017)
Therefore, the answer to the question “is e-mail marketing still alive?” is YES!
However, an email must have a specific design and certain characteristics in order to be effective and not be ignored, or even worse, detected as spam by the e-mail receiver service!
For this reason, let’s have a look to the top tips to create an effective e-mail marketing.
Top tips for an effective e-mail
#1 Pre-Determine the Triggers:
Have you ever received an e-mail immediately afterwards the subscription to a website?
Well, that is an email marketing trigger!
The triggers within emailing automatically the customer. There are different marketing automation systems which allow you to set the time, the frequency and other options for pre-determined triggers. Therefore, the first important tip is to pre-determine the triggers with a welcome letter when a customer registers to the website, when the customer purchases from you or use an email trigger to remind the customer that a specific product or service is due to expire.
#2 Keep the Message Relevant and personal:
Burke (2017)
According to the research conducted by Radicati group (2017), consumers receive too many irrelevant emails from brands. In fact, the 17.3% of emails are classified as spam. (Hurley Hall, 2017)
The personalisation is the key! In fact, “personalisation reduces email unsubscribes, increases the number of clicks and results in a higher open rate. Automated emails which include personalisation have a 75% higher open rate than those that don’t” (Hurley Hall, 2017)
Thanks to the automated email system it is possible to personalise the communication in many different ways; In fact, it is possible to start the personalisation by using the customer details such as including their name in every email you send to them. Moreover, it is possible to personalise the e-mail by introducing a reminder of what the customer was looking at on your website or inserting hyperlinks, based on previous searches, of the products that the customer is interested in. ( Mohammadi et al., 2013)
#3 Make it Easy for Customers to Opt-Out of your List:
Guillory (2017)
It is very important to know who are you sending e-mails to. In fact, you should send e-mails only to the customers who have agreed to do so, otherwise, they could mark your e-mail as spam and this compromises your relationship with the customer and it could damage your reputation. Therefore, it is strongly suggested to use the double-opt in system which is an email marketing system that requires a new subscriber to open a subscription email containing a link which is going to confirm the subscription. ( Mohammadi et al., 2013)
In addition, you need to make sure that the customer can opt-out with a single click; In fact, remember that it doesn’t only involve your reputation but it is a legal requirement under the CAN-SPAM law! ( Mohammadi et al., 2013)
Bibliography
Burke, Z. (2017). Create Personalised Emails Your Customers Actually “Get”, Want & Read. [online] Digital Marketing Institute. Available at: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/create-personalised-emails-customers-actually-get-want-read [Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].
Guillory, S. (2017). Email Marketing: Offer Opt-In—Or Miss Out! – Tweak Your Biz. [online] Tweakyourbiz.com. Available at: http://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/2013/12/12/email-marketing-opt-in/ [Accessed 30 Nov. 2017].
Herring, A. (2017). The 10 Rules all Successful Email Marketing Campaigns Follow. [online] Marketing Armor. Available at: https://marketingarmor.com/the-10-rules-all-successful-email-marketing-campaigns-follow/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].
Hurley Hall, S. (2017). Is Email Marketing Dead? Here’s What the Statistics Show. [online] OptinMonster. Available at: https://optinmonster.com/is-email-marketing-dead-heres-what-the-statistics-show/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].
Kristin Naragon, D. (2017). Consumers Are Still Email Obsessed, But They’re Finding More Balance. [online] Latest company news & updates | Adobe Conversations Blog. Available at: https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2017/08/consumers-are-still-email-obsessed-but-theyre-finding-more-balance.html [Accessed 20 Nov. 2017].
Media.dmnews.com. (2017). Cite a Website – Cite This For Me. [online] Available at: http://media.dmnews.com/images/2014/12/18/optinoroptout_702044.jpg [Accessed 27 Nov. 2017].
Mohammadi, M., Malekian, K., Nosrati, M. and Karimi, N. (2013). Email Marketing as a Popular Type of Small Business Advertisement: A Short Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences.