Is your current use of email marketing allowing you to see an increase in consumer engagement and an increase in membership sales? If not, then read on to discover the importance of email marketing, how it can be done well, what the risks are and some useful hints and tips along the way.
Importance of email marketing?
Email marketing has been around for quite a while now, however within a fast-growing digital world it is important to keep up to date with email marketings capabilities, the effects in which email marketing can have and how this can benefit your company. Ellis-Chadwick & Doherty (2011) states how email marketing can create sustainable engagement through effective tactics such as email personalisation, interactive features and hyperlinks. Miller (2018) suggests how email marketing is constantly changing and in order to keep engagement levels up you need to make sure emails are personalised, 79% of people like product recommendations and 64% of people like personalised offers (according to the Salesforce Connected Shoppers Report). Based upon those statistics, it is fair to say that now is the perfect time to introduce email marketing if you aren’t already, or if you are, make sure you are keeping up to date and are doing it effectively. Chaffey (2016) discusses how email marketing creates a dialogue through interactivity, which can generate long-term relationships with recipients and higher rates of engagement.
How can email marketing be done well?
Considering that 92% of adults use email and spend 13 hours each week checking mail (Talaric, 2016) there is great hope for the initiative of email marketing. Ryan (2017) suggests building the emails using HTML to ensure dynamic and real-time elements can be displayed, as well as, keeping content to the top right of page to ensure it will work on smaller devices also. Miller (2018) mentions how mobile reach was at 56% in 2016, so it is crucial that email marketing works just as well on a mobile device. If you couldn’t open up an email which came through on your smartphone, how likely are you to go to a desktop just to view that one email? The importance of mobile content is crucial, people are constantly on the move and want to be able to see an email on their phone just as much as what they would with a desktop. Gilliland (2017) points out how ASDA use email alerts for the ten days towards the end of the month for those who subscribe, where content is personalised to the recipient based upon their shopping history, which is super effective – just in time for pay-day.
Top Tips
Talarics’ (2016) top email marketing tips are:
- Construct a straightforward subject line
- Ensure your design is branded, clean and professional
- Your content must be compelling, storytelling works well
- Have a clear next step for recipient
- Make sure all emails are personalised
- Proof read your email over and over again and test links
- Consider your “from” name as you don’t want to be considered spam
- Automate emails e.g. Day 1, 3 and 7
Wijngaerd (2017) top email marketing tips are: http://blog.wsi-emarketing.com/email-marketing-tips-2018/
- Not to buy email lists
- Provide a clear message to your recipient
- To be mobile friendly
- Make sure users can unsubscribe
- Ensure the design is easy to use
- Use Google Analytics to measure performance
Fulcrum Tech (2017) top tips for driving engagement through email marketing are:
- Use your subject line to convey your company value
- Always personalise your content and your offers to the individual
- Segment your email lists based upon demographics, browsing behaviour etc
- Create a call to action
- Ensure your emails support mobile use
- Set up automated emails
How can effective Email Marketing help to increase membership sales?
Once you are able to connect and personalise an email to your recipient, they are either want to going to sign up for a membership or they are not. Including a call to action will encourage the recipient on what to do next and how to proceed e.g. ‘I want to sign up now’ or ‘Yes, I would love to have a free 3-day trial’. Email marketing will be a continually useful tool once a recipient has signed up, it will be able to keep them up to date with their progress, special offers, competitions, special events, new classes, to introduce a gyms app etc. Ultimately you want to the recipient to ‘sign up’, ask yourself what it would take for an email to capture you – so that you are willing to join there and then.
What are the risks to email marketing?
Kerpen (2015) argues many of the benefits suggesting that email marketing lists don’t usually engage or provide value to the recipient, and are only used to sell, and ultimately end up unsubscribing from an email list due to the annoyance of the emails. Morrison (2015) adds that there is a fine line between sending emails continuously and then entering the ‘annoyance-marketing’ territory. That being said, who likes to receive those ‘summer holiday sale’ emails every morning in January before you even get out of bed? Ryan (2017) discusses logistical problems such as recipients not receiving emails and immediately going into the spam folder. This can be avoided through using software in the testing process to flag up any detections. Negative email marketing metrics can include deletion of email, un-subscription and spam. Morrison (2015) mentions how the easy and low-cost aspect of email marketing could in the long term damage a company, and that companies are most interested in themselves as opposed to their consumers. You don’t want to lose your consumer engagement because of a poor email marketing campaign. It is something which has to be monitored consistently and you have to be prepared to make necessary changes.
What research already exists to help make critical sense of the idea?
We already know that email marketing is a much more cost-efficient and easier way to target customers, Hartemo (2016) states how email marketing is 40 times better at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined. Secondly, the return on investment for email marketing saw a $28.50 return in sales for every dollar spent, as opposed to $7 for direct marketing (Hartemo, 2016). Gone are the days of postal mail. Miller (2018) states how there has been an 83% growth increase on ROI for email marketing from 2015-2017 according to a State of Marketing report. Ryan (2017) strengthens this understanding stating how email frequently outperforms other digital channels and allows you to communicate with your customer on a personal level, through a current and accessible medium. From a company perspective email marketing is a fantastic resource, in comparison to other initiatives it is cheap, fast, easy to use, and can reach a targeted global community within seconds.
Final Points
Gilliland (2017) discusses how going beyond promotions, using emojis and GIFs, combined with the use of AI will ensure email marketing personalisation and an increase of engagement is achieved. Rajeck (2016) points out how segmenting and personalising email marketing is key to increase engagement and to delivering ROI.
So remember, for SUPER effective Email Marketing, always ensure that every email is:
- Personalised
- Mobile friendly
- Visually pleasing and branded
- Creates a call to action
- Provides a clear message
- Unsubscribe option
- Straightforward subject line
- Automated
- Analysed with Google Analytics
- Consistently monitored
Additional Material
Follow this 13 minute guide on email marketing, with great tips on how to get started: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/getting-started-with-email-marketing/
Alternatively, download this free e-book on email marketing: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-beginners-guide
A video on how email marketing is still important:
Other useful blogs worth reading on Email Marketing
7 Ways to Boost Engagement with Your Email Marketing Campaign
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-email-marketing-infographic
The rules of engagement: Our top tips on keeping your audience interested in your email marketing
https://blog.datavalidation.com/10-email-marketing-tips-to-increase-engagement/
References
Chaffey, D. & Chadwick, F.E. (2016) Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. 6th ed. Harlow: Pearson
Ellis-Chadwick, F. & Doherty, N.F. (2012) “Web advertising: The role of email marketing”. Journal of Business Research. Vol. 65, No. 6, pp. 843-848
Hartemo, M. (2016) “Email marketing in the era of the empowered consumer“. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 212-230.
Gilliland, N. (2017) What were the biggest email trends in 2017. [Online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/69675-what-were-the-biggest-email-trends-in-2017 [Accessed 8 February 2018]
Kerpen, D. (2015) Likeable social media. 2nd ed. Mc Graw Hill: New York
Miller (2018) Essential Email Marketing Tips for 2018. Salesforce. [Online] Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/12/essential-email-marketing-tips-for-2018.html [Accessed 7 February 2018]
Morrison, M. (2012) “Consumers balance on verge of ‘offer anarchy’; Email marketing is a cost-effective tool, but as marketers overdo it they risk long-term brand damage”. Advertising Age. Vol. 83, No. 7, pp. 24.
Rajeck, J. (2016) Driving engagement & ROI with customer-centric marketing. [Online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/67598-driving-engagement-roi-with-customer-centric-marketing/ [Accessed 6 February 2018]
Ryan, D. (2017) Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation. 4th ed. London: Kogan Page
Talarico, D. (2016) “From inbox to enroll: Email marketing tips”. Recruiting & Retaining Adult Learners. Vol. 18, No. 11, pp. 1-3.
Wijngaerd, J.V.D. (2017) ‘7 Ways to master email marketing in 2018’. WSI. [Online] Available at: http://blog.wsi-emarketing.com/email-marketing-tips-2018/ [Accessed 7 February 2018]
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