Email Marketing

Top 5 ways to obtain stellar results with email marketing

These are the top 5 areas to focus on to get your email open rate going up.

With this information, you can tailor your email marketing strategy.

Not only does it allow you to send your emails out at the correct times, but it gives you some idea of the interest your product brings, opening up better targeting for digital marketing.

We are going back to basics with email marketing.

Although this method is pretty old school, it has evolved, and is not as simple as a quick email out to as many people as possible.

However it still has the ability to deliver results.

GDPR and email marketing

Before we begin I want to quickly point out the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

GDPR came into force in May 2018, once this came into play, purchase of cold lead data lists will be strictly forbidden.

Any customer data that you hold, cannot be from a purchase and will be subject to strict EU rules.

These consist of –

• Making it clear to the consumer what you will do with their data.
• Making it clear they will not be subject to spam.
• How often they will receive communication from you.
• What type of communication will be sent i.e. offers/awards/newsletters.
• Providing the consumer access to the data you hold on them upon request.
• Deleting all data you hold on a consumer at their request.

Opting into email marketing

But most importantly, they have to opt-in.

You will have to make it clear they can opt-out at any point and how they can do that.

You must allow them to see all the personally identifiable data you hold on them when asked and also remove it from your systems if requested.

Right… now we have that covered…

1. Engagement through email marketing

If you have your customer data, then you then have the opportunity to “engage” this means a respectable relationship between company and consumer can be built.

A good campaign strategy will always consist of a follow-up email after data has been provided, also known as a trigger email.

This means when anyone has submitted data or purchased something from your website, they will automatically receive an email.

It is always good to keep it very personal when emailing out to customers.

This does not mean emailing each one individually but rather set up your response programme to automatically insert their first name where appropriate (provided it was given).

If not, then you can make the email more about their purchase than them, personalising the data you have.

This takes email marketing from a marketing channel to a customer experience and just keeps them coming back for more!

2. Segmenting your subscribers is the newest process on the block.

Studies show if you segment your customer data, you will see the benefit in your results.

Using CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, segmenting gives you the ability to focus the target on different elements of your audience.

You can not only make your emails even more personal but you can draw in different customers with different sales tactics.

3. The next thing on your list is making your email mobile phone friendly.

74% of your subscribers will open their mail using a mobile device.

We have all opened an email on our phones that hasn’t been mobile optimised, and what do we do with it?

We either delete or we unsubscribe.

Always check that your emails are mobile optimised. You’ll be wasting your time and money if you don’t do so.

Once you have your template sorted don’t forget to test it!

Check the design, check the functionality and send a test copy!

4. Further personalisation with email marketing

A trigger email can be sent out whenever there is movement from a subscriber on your site.

“Abandoned cart” emails and “thank you for visiting” emails gives the buyer time to consider coming back to the site.

Client data can help with further personalisation by allowing you to send out ‘Happy Birthday’ emails with discounted rates to entice them to shop.

Trigger emails perform really well, in fact, statistics show this type of email marketing has a 5 times higher rate of email opening than standard email marketing tactics and a massive 15% higher click-through rate.

Direct marketing emails have an average open rate of 20%

These are emails campaigns which are sent on occasions such as mother’s day with appropriate offers.

Transactional emails have an average open rate of 52%.

This is not surprising as this is when a customer requests information, such as “I forgot my password”.

5. Knowing your spam limits!

Spamming is a massive no-no.

Not only will you annoy your customer but you will also have your email address blacklisted and added to a worldwide spam list making it impossible for you to send emails from any email address associated with a domain name.

For more information on email marketing and strategy, check out our other useful pages such as –

• Online marketing – What is it?
• Top digital marketing tips
• Inbound marketing
• How to choose a marketing agency