Email Marketing and Why You Should Use it
Why do I need to use Email Marketing?
Email is the ideal way to communicate with your prospects, leads and existing clients. They gave you their contact information because they saw something in you- whether it is the service you provide, a product you sell or a question you can answer, they want to stay in touch. It is now your job to provide them with what they were looking for while simultaneously converting from a prospect, to a lead, and ultimately closing them.
What do I need to start?
When first getting started you need to ensure all stakeholders buy into the process. Together you must believe that your email strategy will be effective. To do so, it is best that you all decide the timing, the frequency, and the content that be sent. You can take it one step further and decide your segmentation, level of personalization, and KPI’s together. Second, you will need to decide on an email automation software. Programs like MailChimp, ConstantContact, and HubSpot are all great options to automate and optimize your strategy.
What are the Most Important Elements to consider with Email Marketing?
Mobile Devices- mobile optimization
Significance of Segmentation- context and content
Personalization- adds context, deliver a targeted, personal message
Data Driven Analysis and Optimization- validates your performance
How do I lead them through the Buyer’s Journey?
The best way to do this is to determine where they came into the journey. For example, they may have subscribed to your blog, filled out a contact form or a consultation request, or already signed up for your services. Naturally, the content that you will want to provide each respective phase will be different. You need to map out what each recipient will want at each level- how can you help them? How can you modify their experience, so it is ideal? What will success look like? When looking at email marketing from this lens you can see why content, segmentation, and analysis are all so important.
How do I segment my contacts?
First and foremost you need to have permission to email these contacts. The days of buying an email list and hoping for the best are over and even more so this practice is illegal.
Divide up current contacts on where they are in the cycle- prospect, lead, existing
Divide up incoming contacts from where the lead came from- website, social media, email, in person
Divide up contacts based on persona- interests, demographic, needs etc.
Components of a High Performing Email
To create a high performing email you must consider the 5 “W’s”- Who, What, Where, When, Why.
Who is your audience and what is their persona?
What do you want them to do? Register, download, share, purchase, etc.
Where will they be reading your email? On their commute? In their office? Right before bed?
When is the best time to send?
Why are you sending them this email; do they benefit from your message?
After considering those 5 points, you need to analyze how they have responded. Did they open the email? Did they click within? Analytics like these will allow you to adjust your 5 W’s and find the optimal strategy for each persona. Now that you’ve developed a sense of what to aim for, consider these starters to increase engagement.
How do I increase engagement?
Optimize your email for opens- the subject line is the gatekeeper so make it something that gives insight to the recipient and resonates with their persona. Shorter is better, avoid salesy language and keep it straight forward and concise. Ask a question.
Use a company address to send your emails- not only does it seem more professional, but it will allow you to send from an address appropriate for the recipient’s stage in the life cycle. Furthermore, do not send from a “Do Not Reply” address- you want them to engage with you.
Utilize the preview text- tease the content of your email, experiment with emojis, and allude to your call to action.
Personalization- When possible personalize the email for your recipient. Plug in their name, their interests, actions they’ve taken; any information that makes it seem like it’s more personal and less automated.
How to design a High Quality Email?
Naturally, the more superior the design of your email, the more likely individuals are to engage. Consider these points to increase engagement:
Write for scan ability- grab attention, build anticipation, and call for their action. Implement an inverted triangle strategy so that the point of the email is clear and deliberate and becomes less focused as it carries on. A minimum of size 14 font should be used.
Do not create a wall of text- add images, use headers, sub headers, different fonts, bolding, italics, or colored text but do not underline. Additionally, utilize whitespace and make a prominent call to action. The CTA should be no less than 44 px by 44 px and placed above the fold.
Vary your approach when emailing consumers and businesses - consumers prefer more features ie; colors, images, frills, etc. Businesses should be more direct and less creative.
Remember to link images, hyperlink your copy, edit the alt text of images and the CTAs so that they lead to the goal you are aiming to achieve.
Provide a link to an online version, design an email that is 600px as that is the ideal and utilize mobile friendly templates. 54% of emails are opened on a mobile device.
Triple check your work- send yourself an email and try to view your email without images. Do all the links work? Does the unsubscribe button work? Is there a plain text version?
Things to Avoid in your Email
- Do not create your email as a single image
- Avoid using background images
- Don’t use externally referenced CSS
- Don’t forget to define the width and height of your images
- Don’t use links and PNG files.
- Lean away from HTML/CSS based positioning and stick to table structured positioning.
Email Deliverability
Deliverability is a very important aspect of your email marketing campaign. Past performance does affect your future performance. If your emails are rarely opened due to design, not having permission to email that person or basic uninterest; your future emails are going to end up in the spam folder. Furthermore, you can actually get banned from sending to lists. To avoid these initial pit falls utilize personalization to your advantage- address their name, how you got their contact information and what they can expect from you.
After the first contact email evaluate your engagement. Did they open? Did they click? Identify any trends ie: sources that aren’t engaging, personas not engaging, versions of your email not performing etc. Understand that contact churn will occur- some people will simply not engage and there’s nothing you can do about it. It is still important to check on unsubscriptions and bounces. While unsubscriptions are self-explanatory, a bounce is when a server rejects your email. Each bounce is categorized by a 3 digit code that starts with a 4 or 5.
500 or 550- The recipient is no longer good or unknown
571 or 554- The content has been labeled flawed by the server. This could mean the links, the amount of text, appears as spam, spelling errors etc.
571, 554, 471- The reputation of your domain, ESP, URL, or server have been labeled incredulous
4- . This is a soft bounce and undeliverability is temporary while the server makes a decision.
Somewhat obvious, don’t send emails to addresses that don’t work or are rejecting you. There is a limit to how often you are marked as spam despite you not being notified. If your address receives enough complaints or you receive a direct complaint you may be banned. A bounce rate to aim for is about 1% if you are sending regularly
Testing and Analyzing Emails
Just as with your SEO strategy, it is important to check on what is working and what is not with your emails. Monitoring individual metrics will allow you to fine tune your strategy and ultimately convert more leads. Creating ratios of the following will allow you to see what is happening and what is effective.
Sent —> Delivered —> Opened —> Clicked —> Converted
You may be noticing that your email list is growing but engagement isn’t. If this is the case, it could be a situation where your content just isn’t resonating with your audience. To determine whether or not this is the case you should run an A/B test.
How do I create an A/B test?
Create two separate emails, written differently, but with the same objectives and see which one is better. Keep doing this till you reach an optimum design and structure. Similarly, you can test this approach with time of day, style of design, frequency, subject lines, etc. Eventually you will find a style that best resonates with your audience. Remember, to keep everything constant except the thing you are testing so you can pinpoint issues. Despite your efforts, it could still be the case that some addresses simply do not want to engage. In this scenario, it is best remove the unengaged and in the future run a reengagement campaign.
Running an A/B test will only work if you have a sizable test group, otherwise you won’t be able to glean much insight. In the situation that you are just starting out with your strategy consider these common occurrences.
Open rates are Lower than Expected
Maybe a bad subject line. Try to convey more value.
Bad subscriber expectations. Make sure you are delivering on what you initially promised
The offer isn’t relevant. Did you segment your list appropriately? Put each subscriber in the correct persona and stage of the buyer’s journey
Open Rate is High but Click through is Low
Your CTA is not placed prominent enough. Place it better
There are too many objectives. Make it clear what the reader is supposed to do.
Your subject line and content aren’t aligned. Make the two more congruent and don’t pull a bait and switch.
The email isn’t optimized for mobile. Use templates that are.
Click through rate is high but conversion is low
Poor alignment between content in the email and the landing page. Follow through on your promise.
The landing page isn’t designed properly. Apply best practices.
In the beginning of your strategy, things may seem arbitrary and ineffective. It is important that you stick to your campaign and remain diligent. Eventually you will develop a baseline for each metric and know when and which things are working and when they are not. In due time, your ROI will be exponential and the process will become easier.