October 2nd, 2015
Search engine optimization, social media, and all aspects of digital media can help your brand reach more people than ever before, but there is one tactic you might be surprised is still relevant: email marketing.
Though you might think that spam and mail filters have killed this digital marketing strategy, think again. Email marketing is almost 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter at acquiring customers. If this digital marketing strategy wasn't so effective, why then would 59% of marketers planned on increasing their email marketing budgets in 2015?
Now, that's not to say that any old email marketing campaign will work. Here are a few things you should know.
There's a Value Exchange Going On.
First and foremost, you need to think about why you're sending that email because there's a value exchange going on. You might not think there is, but there is. The consumer is giving you, the sender, some of their precious time to hear you out and are expecting something of equal or higher value in exchange. You need to give them that. If your email is just a bit of self-promotion, it's not worth their time. If it's news about a sale or even an exclusive coupon, then it is. Make sure the consumer is directly getting something beneficial from your emails.
Get the Subject Line Right.
Did you know that 33% of people open an email based on the subject line alone, never mind who sent it? At the same time, 69% of people report emails as being spam based solely on their subject lines alone. In other words, your subject line matters. Emails that have the word "you" in their subject line are opened 5% less, while those with "free" are opened 10% more. "Quick," "meeting," "Fw:," all also hurt open rates, while "tomorrow," and "no subject" help. The point here is that you need to create a call to action in your subject line, and you need to be concise about it.
Personalize Your Emails.
If you want your emails to hit home, you're going to want to personalize them. Research shows that personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. That means that one in 10 more people are going to actually do business with you as a result of your email if you just personalize it. This might sound hard and complicated, but fortunately, there's digital marketing software that can make it easy.