Spotlight on Digital Marketing - Email Marketing

In our final installment putting a spotlight on our digital marketing services, we take a look at email marketing.

Email marketing has been around for a while, and some have suggested that its time is coming to an end. Well, the facts don’t back that up at all!

Email marketing is still the most engaged-with marketing tool. According to Constant Contact, across all industries, the average engagement rate is 22%, with an average click-through rate of 5%. Compare that to social media’s engagement rates -  Facebook’s average engagement rate is 0.16%, Instagram’s is 1.73% and Twitter’s is 1.12%. The stats speak for themselves.

Emails also still are proven to generate the highest return on investment of any direct marketing tool - some businesses claim to see a return of 4400%! The fact is email is a relatively low cost service to set up and run, and reaches directly to your target market.

So what do you need to do to get it right?

Firstly, look at the design and content of the email. You want something that’s eye catching, relatively short and tailored to the audience you want to reach. Don’t make the email too long – people won’t read it. And think about any incentives you can give them to keep them coming back to you. With that in mind, remember to optimise your email for mobile as well as desktop users.

Secondly – think about relevant calls to action. This might be a click to your website or social media page, or instead it could be an offer exclusive to your email subscribers. Tailor it to your audience and capture what they want to get! The purpose of any marketing campaign is to engage with your audience, so make it simple, clear and obvious.

Create good landing pages if you are redirecting people to your website. You can set up pages specific to your email campaigns, with relevant and tailored calls to action, to increase your conversion rates.

Test, test and test again! When you use email software like MailChimp or Constant Contact, you are able to utilise their a/b test features. This sends your email out to a small section of your email list with slightly different subject lines/content/images, and reports back which are the most popular. You can then tweak your email to those results. Note this isn’t always accurate (the smaller the test pool, the less accurate the results) but is a good marker.

Get the frequency right! You want to make sure that you are ‘front of mind’ with your customers, so you shouldn’t leave it too long between emails. At the same time, most users report ‘received emails too often’ as the main reason for unsubscribing from email lists. It’s a fine balancing act so use your data you receive after each campaign to fine tune your frequency.

A final qualification – you are only as good as your email list. We’d recommend not to buy in lists – they’re not qualified to your criteria, you cannot guarantee how up to date they are and often they contain a lot of information you don’t need. Instead, get it right – spend time building up your own email list and allow people to sign up on your website/emails/social

media sites.

Need help?

We know that it is time consuming to put some ideas together, make sure the templates are eye catching and your calls-to-action are relevant. We are the experts in this area, and would be delighted to help you plan and execute an email campaign that generates you business. If you need help, pick up the phone.

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