Misti Jones — December 7, 2016 Trends come and go. Remember bellbottoms, fanny packs and shoulder pads? What about email marketing? Although marketers predicted the demise of email after its tremendous decline in the mid-2000s, the tool is now soaring to new heights. That’s right folks – email is back in style.
Now, you might be wondering why email is on the rise and how your brand can hop on the email bandwagon, but first, let’s talk about why this medium is cooler than ever.
Why is Email Cool Again?
Well, the truth is that email marketing never went out of style. Instead, it’s gone through a digital makeover. We live in an age when people want information that is relevant, delivered quickly and accessible at their fingertips. People constantly check their text messages and social media accounts to stay informed, and, now, they read emails more than ever.
This is good news for marketers because email is the single most-effective mediumfor raising awareness, attraction, conversion and retention, and it’s one of the best ways to target and build relationships with customers when they’re not at their computers. According to Marketing Land, email allows marketers to effortlessly nurture leads and create messages specific to a customer’s location, device, purchase history and real-time status.
Email also offers an astounding return on investment compared to other forms of direct marketing. In fact, the Direct Marketing Association found that email yields an estimated 4,300 percent ROI. Leveraging email marketing is one of the most affordable ways to communicate to customers without risking a lot of money. If a campaign doesn’t perform as well as hoped, it can always be tweaked and redistributed at a significantly lower cost than, let’s say, if an expensive TV ad failed. In addition to helping save companies money, email also brings in revenue. According to eConsultancy, 55 percent of U.S. companies receive more than 10 percent of their sales from email marketing.
Not only is email marketing an efficient, cost-effective, measurable tool, it’s also a great way to communicate to audiences of varying generations because Boomers, Gen X and Millennials all favor communicating with businesses through email.
How Your Brand Can Hop on the Email Bandwagon
Now that you know why email is cool again, you may be thinking to yourself, “No one ever opens our emails” or “People unsubscribe a lot” but don’t fret. Here are some tips to help increase the success rate of your email campaigns:
- Use smart email marketing: To build relationships with your customers through email, follow a strategic formula when developing your email campaign. First, be sure to raise awareness by informing customers of a product, service, offering or event relevant to your business. Then, to peak their interest, tell them when and where to get said offering, making sure to include all the details such as location, link to learn more, etc. After that, help guide them to a conversion and create customer retention by sending more relevant content they’ll likely be interested in.
- Execute a mobile-friendly email design: Marketers have quickly adopted responsive website designs but have been slower moving on mobile-friendly email designs, but remember, people are reading emails now more than ever. In fact, it’s been found to be one of the top activities of smartphone users. According to Litmus, 48 percent of emails are opened on mobile devices, therefore, by adopting responsive email design, conversion rates are sure to increase.
- Focus on content: To bring down unsubscribes, try drawing attention to your emails with more powerful content and visuals. Your emails should be relevant to recipients and should have a voice. It’s important to deliver quality, niche-specific content that your audience needs/wants and shares with others. For visuals, consider using video for your next email blast. People love watching videos, and according to an infographic by Clickz, video can increase email click-through rates by 50 percent. You could try inserting games/contests, infographics, animation, carousels and more into your future emails because they’re unexpected, visually pleasing and engaging if you use them correctly.
- Craft a catchy subject line: Everyone’s inbox is full of emails with sales, ads, offers, news, reminders and information, so it’s important to know how to make your email cut through the clutter. A subject line may be the only thing your recipients see before they choose to open your email. To increase your open rate, make sure subject lines are short (49 characters max), personable, significant to the recipient and attention-grabbing (with humor, urgency, the person’s name, a question, etc.)
- Redistribute to non-responders: We do this for a lot of our clients. Redistributing an email 12 or 24 hours after the first distribution (especially if it’s during a busy time of year) gives recipients a second chance to view and engage with your email. Warning: Overuse of this strategy could result in unsubscribes.
- Add social sharing buttons: To increase email click-through rates, add social sharing buttons to your emails. Recipients are more likely to trust your brand, and as an added bonus, it can increase your click-through rates by 158 percent.
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