Email Marketing: Are you getting the best results? Top 10 Tips for Optimising your Campaigns for Success
Email Marketing is one of the best Digital Marketing activities for return on investment if used strategically and correctly. At IMS Marketing we work closely with our clients to ensure they make the best of their email marketing campaigns.
Did you know:
- There is a 14.99% increase in click rate for lists that are segmented for campaigns see over its non-segmented campaigns. (Mailchimp)
- The average open rate for Business and Finance campaigns is 20.68% Vs Pharmaceuticals with an open rate of 17.79%. (Mailchimp)
- The average clickthrough rate for B2B marketing emails in Q2 2013 was 1.7%. (Epsilon)
- 48% of emails are opened on mobile devices. (Litmus)
- 60% of marketers believe email marketing produces positive ROI. (Marketing Sherpa)
- Email marketing yields an average 4,300% return on investment for business and brands across the US. (Direct Marketing Association 2014)
The above is just a few of many amazing statistics. You might be asking why these are important to know. Like everything with Digital Marketing, email campaigns are more measureable Vs traditional direct mail campaigns. We are in a position where we can benchmark against almost anything e.g. industry averages; past results and much more. This allows us to measure, optimize and improve.
Sending out emails/e-zines periodically without looking at their performance will more than likely means you will not be achieving the best results. Tweaking and testing will generally always help improve open rates, clicks and overall conversions.
Email marketing was one of the first forms of Digital Marketing and some have quickly forgotten about the benefits that come with it.
Below I have put together of 10 Top Tips when approaching your Email Marketing campaigns.
1. Add Value
Sending an email full of company news, staff promotions and new hires will not make the most interesting read for your reader. Our potential customers/clients have become very good at ignoring noise, therefore it is essential that the content in your email in some way adds value to them.
This can be done by writing informative thought leadership pieces, industry news, competitions and more.
Measure your open rates, time spent on landing pages, and conversion rates to monitor the impact the email is having on your readers.
2. Personalise emails
This makes sense however it is often something companies neglect. Personalised emails will capture the reader’s attention faster. It also allows for a more customised and targeted message.
3. Opted in and targeted database
People are unlikely to open an email they haven’t agreed to receive. Ensure recipients have ‘opted in’ to receive the emails. This can be accomplished with a simple tick box at the sign-up stage. Once we reached this opt in state with the reader we are in a better position to provide them with content.
A term coined by Seth Godin (Internet Entrepreneur) and used by marketers in recent years is ‘permission marketing’—namely, that brands should first seek permission before sending customers email marketing messages.
Permission marketing is the opposite of interruption marketing; instead of interrupting the customer with unrequested information, permission marketing aims to sell goods and services only when the prospect gives consent in advance to receive the marketing information.
4. Optimise for mobile
In 2015 the number of smartphone owners predicted in the Western Europe is expected to reach 63%, according to research from eMarketer. Brands that don’t optimise email marketing campaigns for mobile are at a distinct disadvantage. It is important to offer subscribers an enjoyable mobile experience as it is likely someone will simply delete an email not optimised for mobile.
Many email marketing platforms such as Mail Chimp have mobile optimised templates as standard.
5. Set clear objectives for your emails 
Nobody has got time to read an ‘essay’ when they open an email. Keep emails to the point whilst adding value to the readers. It is important that your email campaign serve a purpose for both you and the reader. Do not just send out emails to tick the box, send them out with a clear objective in mind e.g. increase website queries of product/service offerings, building relationships with existing clients and build relationships with clients.
6. Include a time-sensitive element to the campaign
Introducing some sort of time-sensitive component to an email marketing campaign will create a sense of urgency and make people more likely to respond immediately. For example, ‘sign up today and receive a free credit evaluation’ will make recipients more inclined to act today instead of saving it for tomorrow and then forgetting.
7. Keep your email list segmented and clean
Like any form of marketing, the more targeted the message the better. With email marketing we have a great opportunity to send targeted messages. For this to work you will need to segment your database into categories that make sense to your target market.
It also means that you will have to collect more information at the opt in stage, or update the information in your database as you engage with your database.
Segmentation of your list can be based on anything from; geography to gender to opportunities. It is also important to keep your list updated and clean i.e. correct data a nd remove opt outs.
8. Build on your list and consider Marketing Automation
Expanding further on the personalised email approach we now have more automated systems available to us with tools such as; Marketo; Hubspot and Pardot. The industry term for this is ‘Marketing Automation’.
Injecting personalised recommendations into marketing emails based on your subscribers’ browsing behaviour on your website can increase click-through rates by 25 – 35% and sales conversion rates by 15 – 25%. (Exact Target Blog, Salesforce)
9. Optimise website landing pages
Your email campaign is not just about your email. More often or not (and we highly recommend) your email campaign should link to your website. Like any online integrated campaign the landing page should be relevant to what the user is expecting to land on.
Optimise the content and call to actions on the landing page to make it clear to the user what to do next or to tell the story you are aiming to tell.
10. Measure, Monitor and Improve
It is essential to measure the success of any marketing campaign; digital marketing allows us to do this a lot more accurately. Like any online activities we do for the marketing of our company we should ensure that all email marketing campaigns are monitored.
Email statistics to look at include, opt out rates, click rates, and open rates. You can also dive in further a look at your website analytics, in particular the visits that came from your email campaign.
It is important to monitor, opt out rates. If this is high you need to look into why. Questions to ask include; are we sending it to the right segment? Have they opted in to this list? Are they enjoying the content? If you cannot figure it out from the data presented, considering getting some feedback in the form of a survey or an informal qualitative interview.
If click rates are lower than normal or industry average it could be worth looking into the content of the newsletter and call to actions. A/B testing can be beneficial for this.
Overall working to measure, monitor and improve is an essential element to long-term campaign successes.
Interested in developing a new Email Marketing Strategy, contact our Digital Marketing Manager for further details at [email protected] or call +353 91 739450.