Improving Email Marketing Effectiveness

Email marketing is a cost-effective marketing technique that delivers an average $38 return on investment, according to Susan Gunelius, author of Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business. It’s also a great way to keep in touch with your customers and prospects.

The number of subscribers to email lists is steadily declining, while the number of emails sent per day is steadily increasing. As a result, explains Gunelius, people are getting tired of receiving irrelevant emails, and they’re not opening them anymore.

Email marketing continues to be essential for attracting customers in today's digital era, but the over saturation of emails means that you must effectively use email marketing in order to succeed.

A well-crafted email campaign requires a clear understanding of the target audience and what they want to know.

Here are some things to include in an email campaign:

1. The Subject Line - It is imperative that we get the recipient’s attention by including a compelling and interesting headline in the subject line. It should be short and concise and should be written in such a way that it promises something useful or important about what is inside the email.
2. The Content - The content should be structured so that it provides value for the reader, presents new information, or tells them about an upcoming event or promotion.
3. The Call-to-Action Button - A call-to-action button is important because it maps out the next logical step after reading your content. Having a call to action is necessary, not optional, if you want to make sales.

We are all busy reading emails, but the best marketers know that it’s not about sending more email, or even always sending better written emails — it's about how email campaigns are designed. Designing your email campaigns well is key to getting your prospects to read your messages and become customers.

The Importance of Segmenting Your Audience and Targeting Their Interests

The entirety of your campaign needs to be directed towards a target audience. While designing your campaign, use your target audience to inform your decisions. Segmenting your audience is important because it enables you to target various types of customers and create content that aligns with their interests. The more you segment the audience, the more specific you can be with your content, and the more likely readers are to be interested in what you have to say.

The segments of your audience should correlate with their shared value. This means that segments can vary depending on different factors which allow you to adjust how broad or niche your message is. If you are trying to sell a product or service, for example, then it would make sense to target people who have disposable income and are looking for that thing specifically.

Segmenting is an important part of designing a successful content marketing strategy because it helps to ensure that the right people are receiving information pertaining to them.

Designing Effective Content

• Keep it short - People will only read the first few sentences of an email before deciding if it deserves their attention. Make sure you have enough time-sensitive information in that part of the message to get them interested in reading more.
• Use images - People love imagery because it makes them feel emotions much more deeply than words can. Add in pictures that tell the story just as well as your written content does. People may not look too closely at your imagery, but the subconscious tone will be there.

Two of the best ways to measure engagement are by looking at your campaign’s open rate and click through rate (CTR). Both of these metrics allow you to see how potential customers engage with your content.

Open Rates

Open rates are the percentage of people on your list who open your emails. If you have 100 people on your list and only 20 people open your email, you have an open rate of 20%.

There are many ways to increase the open rate of your emails. One way is to create a good subject line. Another way is to make sure you're sending emails consistently and not too often. Remember emails must be relevant to the person receiving them.

Click Through Rate

Email marketing is a great way to connect with your audience, but sometimes people might open your email and ignore the content inside. Your email click through rates (CTR) is a measurement of interaction — are people actually clicking on your content and interacting with it? 

If you want to improve these metrics be sure to:

• Have a clear and concise subject line
• Make sure that the content of the email is relevant and interesting
• Provide value in every single email
• Send out shorter emails

1. The first step of an email marketing campaign is to identify a target audience. These targets usually fall into one of two categories:
   • Prospects: people who have been identified as likely customers.
   • Customers: people who have a history of buying a company’s product or service.
2. The second step is to identify the best time and frequency for sending emails to each target group.
3. The third step is to create a mailing list by populating it with contact information for each target group.
4. The fourth step is developing the content for the email
5. The fifth step is designing content to optimize for different devices and applications.
6. The sixth step is checking agreements with an email provider, such as Microsoft Outlook or Gmail, for services such as spam. You want your messages to avoid being blocked by spam filters through these major email channels.

We’ve narrowed down six influencing factors that determine the success of an email campaign:

1. Subject line: The subject line is important for a successful email marketing campaign because it is the first thing someone will see when they receive the email. It is important for the subject line to be concise and to the point, while also providing enough information to make someone want to open it. A good subject line grabs the attention of the reader and makes them want to open the email.
2. Email content: Reader attention spans are at an all-time low. With 3,500 to 5,000 advertisements vying for people's attention in a single day, it is tougher than ever to get someone to read your email. In order to make sure your email marketing campaign doesn't get lost in the inbox shuffle, it is important to make sure your emails are unique and interesting.
3. Email design: Email design is important for a successful email marketing campaign because it helps to convey the message to the customers. When someone sees an email, they are not able to see the person talking to them, they are only able to see the words on the screen. The words on the screen help to convey how the company wants the customer to feel. For instance, if the company wants the customer to feel excited about their new product, they will use language that elicits an exciting tone and style.
4. Mobile responsiveness: Mobile responsive design allows a site to change its layout to be more readable on different devices, such as smartphone, tablet, laptop, and desktop.
   By being responsive, you are able to have a consistent layout for your visitors on any device they are using. This will allow your visitors to interact with your message no matter what device they prefer to use.
5. Email open rate: Email open rate is important for a successful email marketing campaign because it tells you how many people have opened the email and viewed your content. The number of people that open your email can be a strong indicator of how many people will click the links in your email and buy your products.
6. Email click-through rate: Click-through rate is the number of clicks on a link in an email divided by the number of times the email was opened. This is an important metric for email marketing campaigns because it shows the level of interest the recipient has in the content. If an email has a very high click-through rate, it means that people are clicking on links in the email. This shows that they are interested in the content and are interested in taking action.

We’ve discussed many ways to improve email marketing effectiveness. Here are some more ways to further boost results and increase customer engagement:

• Increase customer engagement by sending better emails
• Define goals for each campaign
• Add CTAs (call to actions) to emails
• Connect with your customers on social media channels through your emails
• Segment your list according to buyer responses. For example, when a group purchases a certain product, take this as an indicator that they’ll likely purchase similar products.

We should not neglect the power of email marketing in our digital strategy, especially given that we now live in a digital world. Email remains one of the most effective channels for generating sales leads and driving conversions. The more we improve our email marketing effectiveness, the more we gain from our marketplace.

References:

https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Guide-Email-Marketing-Business/dp/1599186284

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2005-06-19-cannes-box_x.htm