2015 is finally here and we’d like to wish you a very happy New Year!
We hope you’ve recovered from all the celebrations and festivities, and if you’re anything like us, then you’ve probably already broken some of your resolutions that you were so determined to stick to on the first day of January!
But what about the resolutions that will shape us as email marketers? Those are the ones worth keeping if you want to succeed in 2015. And we’re already seeing a huge potential for an incredible year in email marketing.
So if you want to stand apart from the crowd, stop making resolutions that you won’t keep and focus on the ones that will really matter.
Check out our 4 new year resolutions that every email marketer should make…
1. Plan for engagement-based delivery
Did you know that many popular email providers including Gmail and Yahoo will automatically put your emails in the spam folder if the user doesn’t read it?
It’s important to attract attention right away, meaning you should never underestimate the importance of your subject lines.
So what does a good subject line look like?
Well it really depends on the intended audience, but there are some best practices that can really help improve your client’s open rates…
Be clear with what the user can expect if they open the email. Although offering a vague subject line can intrigue, if it’s completely off-topic then you won’t see any click-through’s from it. It’s also best to keep it short as subject lines with 28-39 characters have been proven to receive a higher open rate.
Other top tips that we’d recommend include: Asking questions as this can engage the reader to think about how it will apply to them; include numbers such as ’10 ways to’ etc; keep it personalised with the reader’s name in the title; tell them you’re going to teach them something with a ‘how to’ subject line; make announcements by using buzzwords such as ‘introducing’ or ‘updates’.
2. Align email with social media
If you’re one of the 93% of businesses that use social media for marketing then we don’t need to tell you how advantageous it can be for your organisation. But wouldn’t it be great if you could utilise your email campaigns on social media? By encouraging people to share the email, you’ll see a much better campaign response and further promotion for your client.
But how do you encourage shares?
Well firstly, you need to create share links within your email templates – something that our platform does in fact offer. You’ll then be able to track and report the activity across social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin.
But thinking further afield than that, you need to give people a reason to want to share the email. It goes past including good deals or offers, the email needs to engage and tell a story that will translate well on social platforms. Think about different campaign themes, great imagery and design that can help tell your clients brand story. We also suggest including events, product reviews and insider information works really well for sharing on social.
3. Start using email drip campaigns
Drip campaigns can be a really effective technique to nurture and build customer relationships, so make this part of your 2015 strategy. A drip campaign is where you send a series of emails to ‘drip’ timely information to your customers, in order to bring them successfully through your sales funnel. As mentioned above, it’s all about building a great story for your clients brand, and it has been proven to be an effective marketing method.
How to plan a drip campaign
Using your email marketing solution, you’ll be able to automate the series of emails so that they target your audience at the right time. For example, a drip campaign might be used to encourage shopping-basket recovery in order to tempt the user to go back and buy the products that they left in their basket.
There’s a variety of different tactics that will be beneficial to your clients business, but some of the best drip campaigns include: educational – aim to inform a prospect to encourage conversions; reengagement – targeted at customers who haven’t responded to an email over a long period of time; training – teaching a customer how to use a product; promotional – provides the audience with offers, and special discounts to help convert.
For a drip campaign to work it’s important to segment the audience and target them at the right time, depending on what stage of the sales funnel they are at.
4. Prepare for a multi-device world
We’ve already talked at length about how important it is to ensure your emails are responsive, but considering 91% of consumers check their email at least once a day using their smartphone, we thought it was worth mentioning again.
Mobile is growing at a rapid rate, so it’s no longer an option to send out emails that are unresponsive. Not only will it frustrate the user, but it will damage your reputation with your clients if you’re sending out unresponsive emails.
How do I make sure it’s responsive?
The good news is, any decent email platform such as Instiller, will help you create email templates that are responsive. With drag and drop tools you won’t need coding skills, and your clients can go ahead and add certain content without breaking the email.
Once you’ve created it, tools such as Litmus will let you preview your email template across all devices and email apps, so you can test that your images, copy and links work together, and that it looks good too!
Takeaway
Your marketing emails tend to be the very first point of contact that a customer will have with your clients brand, so it’s key to ensure that you’re paving the way for a long-lasting relationship.
Take these 4 resolutions with you and put a strategy in place that will consider every process of the sales and marketing funnel – from when the email arrives, right through to closing the deal.
Here’s to a successful 2015!