B2B and B2C companies alike rely on email marketing to reach their customers. Whether they’re launching a new product or sending a resource guide, email is an important facet to any well-rounded marketing approach. While it’s become increasingly difficult to get the attention of customers through email, it’s still a very valuable business marketing tool.
Benefits of Business Email Marketing
- According to CampaignMonitor, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you have the potential to earn $44, which equals an ROI of 4400%.
- 73% of millennials identify email as their preferred means of business communication.
- B2C customers spend 138% more than customers who don’t receive email offers.
- 59% of B2B marketers still say that email is their most effective marketing channel.
- B2C brands that use email marketing automation see conversion rates of up to 50%.
- No matter how massive the power of social media, because email is a professional and personal tool, people are still more likely to act on an email than interact with Facebook.
If you’re concerned that your email marketing performance isn’t where it should be, try these email marketing tips to improve your campaigns and optimize your marketing.
How can you improve your email marketing once and for all?
- Define “improve” and “performance”: The first step really needs to be to understand the overview of email marketing that you’re trying to do with your email. Are you simply trying to get more people to open them? Are you trying to get them to take a certain action once they’ve read it? More click-thru and improving open rates is certainly a good way to meet the second goal, but it’s also important to make sure your email content – as opposed to what just might make someone click and read – is structured. Defining the areas of your email marketing you really want to improve will help you make the right next steps.
- Make sure your emails are mobile-optimized: More people than ever are using mobile devices as the most regularly used way to access emails, so one of the most important best practices in modern email marketing is to make sure that your emails are readable and dynamic on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. If you have an excellent subject line and wonderful copy but your email doesn’t render right on the reader’s device, it’s as good as an automatic delete.
- Personalize content: Personalization is how you let your customers know you understand them and their sticking points. If you personalize an email with content about challenges a facility manager faces in furnishing growing offices and segment that to the addresses you know are facility managers, you can create a significant impact by taking the time to create custom content for this group and distribute it effectively.
- Focus on concise copy: Just because an email is longer form than a text message or a banner ad doesn’t mean you want to write 800-word email communications. For the most part, you need to spell out the reason for the email and how it will serve your customers quickly. Adding additional content – like a link where they can download a white paper or case study or a video they can watch later – is a great way to provide additional value that they can come back to. If they can digest the point of the email quickly, they’re less likely to hit delete out of frustration or annoyance.
- Use a CTA: Relatedly, you need to tell your customers what they should do. After you outline their problem and make mention of how you can help, you want to point them in the direction of what the most relevant next step to take is. If you share an anecdote about a customer who saw success with your product, ask your reader to download the case study that will show them how. If you want feedback on a recent experience they had with your brand, ask them to visit the survey form you included a link to in your email. You’ll definitely grow engagement with customers by giving them the next steps.
- Analyze: The best way to improve your email marketing performance is to make sure you’re looking at the data and have a sense of what works and what doesn’t. A good email marketing automation program can help you analyze everything contained in an email, down to which subject lines get the most attention. In fact, one of the most appealing things about email marketing is how easy it is to manage from an analytics perspective.
Businesses can’t afford to neglect email marketing. It’s an extremely relevant way to share almost everything related to your business – while social channels might be good for product launches and event announcements and banner ads are effective re-engagement, email marketing continues to be the platform where brands can deliver all valuable information to current and potential customers. Plus, it still continues to be an affordable solution for businesses of all sizes.
To find out more about how to maximize your email marketing efforts, download this guide for essential rules to email marketing.
