Anyone can do email marketing. But can they deliver email marketing ROI? “This person quoted me $X and said they would write me 10 emails. Why is your rate so much higher?”
This type of feedback is something that those in my industry receive frequently. I am not charging an astronomical number. I do however have several years of experience backed by industry knowledge of what actually is required when writing ‘an email.’
Not everyone can write a high conversion email. That is why this is a speciality within the field of marketing. It’s more than images, and copy and (hopefully) a button.
It’s not just ‘an email’
An email marketer needs to be concerned with:
- Buyers personas
- Analytics
- Personalizing messaging
- Incorporating AI to better understand buyers intent
- Call to action wording, placement, colour
- Subject line performance
- Emoji performance
- Retargeting
- Effective copy and imagery
- Etc., etc., etc.
Depending on your industry and demographics, the list goes on.
Email continues to be the highest performing marketing channel. And nearly 60% of people allow email marketing to affect their purchase decisions. So why is it so undervalued?
Return to the data
Perhaps it is the number of people writing emails and sending them with no thought or concern to the science behind them. Look at your inbox. How many emails do you receive in a day and delete immediately? How many do you have unopened? Often emails of value get pushed far down in an inbox before the reader even gets a chance.
This one to one channel is an effective way to get your message in front of your buyer. With consumers increasingly doing more self-directed research before consuming, the fact that they have given you their email is a privilege that needs to be respected and valued. Look at your customer acquisition data and determine how much you are seeing terms of ROI on customers who make purchases through email. The Data and Marketing Association, performs their annual email benchmark report, and finds that “Email marketing returns $53 for every $1 you spend.” That is a pretty significant ROI!
So with all that being said, how can you best deliver value, not only to your own company but, to your customer with emails?
Deliver Email Marketing ROI
With changes to Google and Facebook’s user data tracking around the corner, the power of an opt-in list of known people you can sell to is invaluable. By making it harder to track and target on these search and social platforms, the value of someone providing you with their email address and agreeing for you to contact them is huge. Here’s some tips on how to get the most and ensure you deliver email marketing ROI to your team!
Be aware of how your target audience consumes information. If they prefer to learn more about offers and new products on social, but look to email for more thought leadership and learning opportunities and texts for appointment reminders, then don’t push all communications to email.
Communicate expectations. A welcome nurture series is a great place to let subscribers know what they will receive in terms of content, information and frequency.
Make it Personal. At all chances make the content as personalized as possible, depending on your budget and industry. There are amazing tools that deliver personalized landing pages with content that changes depending on the customer segment. Some brands are getting really clever, by utilizing GPS technology and company apps to trigger relevant in-app offers when customers are near a store.
Get the content right. Old fashioned A/B testing is still your best friend for this. We have to remember that attention spans are short, and people hate to read these days. So email marketers need to find the right balance to communicate important topics, in consumable chunks of content, rich media, bullet lists and CTAs to learn more.
Test, iterate and repeat. Once you have the awesome sauce for content optimized for conversion, don’t stop there. It can always be better. It can always change. Consumer whims change more frequently than the weather. Do not get complacent.
Get outside of the inbox. By employing a remarketing pixel in an email, you are able to track behavioral data. Unlike cookies, pixels aren’t blocked by web browsers, yet, and the data can be used to trigger email nurture programs, or used to retarget content through display ads, etc.
Start actually collecting data and invest in analytics. Having a true understanding of your customer will allow you to do the tactics mentioned above. Most marketers aren’t actually using segmentation effectively. It’s not because of lack of knowledge, it's because of lack of data. The big companies are developing foundational systems that allow them to analyze data, identify algorithms and behaviours and predict responses.
Automation is key
Having high performing welcome messages upon subscribe, personalized content delivered based on behaviour and abandon cart and exit emails sent, e-commerce and email marketing strategies area to invest in to see the most sales success. Marketing budgets need to move away from investment in traditional marketing means. Conferences, events, brick and mortar investment budgets all need to move into digital marketing.
If you still aren’t convinced that email delivers great value, Campaign Monitor have created a great list of stats to help persuade you!
For more tips on creating great email nurture programs, I invite you to read this article.
