When it comes to the newer, more “digital” forms of marketing that we use today, email marketing is one that has been around the longest. Marketing emails are nothing new or exciting for the most part, and the majority of people out there are starting to skim over them just as they do television commercials and magazine ads. So how can you be sure your email marketing tactics are working? Keep reading to find out the best way to handle email marketing in 2014.
The main thing to realize when you are crafting your marketing emails is that customers are inundated with marketing messages almost 24/7. All they hear is noise at this point, and they have learned to tune everything out. In order to grab their attention, you have to offer them something they find an actual interest in. Your emails need to be trustworthy, relevant to their wants and needs, and conversational in tone.
In all honesty, a lot of the work needs to be done outside of your actual email marketing efforts. Portraying your business as an authority in your industry, one who has valuable information that your target buyers need, and who is always available to answer questions and lend a helping hand is of the utmost importance. This can be done incredibly well through your website, blog, and social media sites.
The basis of inbound marketing is in creating valuable content that your target buyers need, and making it easily available without pushing it on them with traditionally aggressive marketing methods. When creating your email marketing campaign it may be easy to fall back on the standard of sending email after email to your entire email list promoting every deal, every new piece of info, and whatever else you feel is noteworthy over and over again. This is most certainly NOT the right approach.
Consistently creating valuable, informative content that your target buyers actually want to have is the key. Making sure the right person receives the right message is what will guarantee success or failure. Push your content out across all channels, driving it home through your email marketing tactics.
Whenever a consumer gives you their email address, they are doing so in hopes that you will only use it when you have something of value to offer them. No one wants to receive so many emails from one company that they all begin to look and feel the same. They only want the cream of the crop, the emails that specifically relate to what they themselves find an interest in.
When you send out mass emails to your entire email list, there may only be a handful that that particular message speaks to. Taking the time to target specific buyer personas with carefully crafted messages is well worth your effort. If a consumer receives only a few email messages a month from your company, but they are targeted to include a message that relates directly to their wants and needs and speaks to them in a tone that they can appreciate, they will be much happier and much more open to hearing what you have to say. Defining your target buyer personas is something you should have done day one when you set out to develop a marketing plan for your business, so if you haven’t done so at this point, do it NOW.
After you’ve determined how to target your messages and decided on a frequency that feels right, it’s time to make sure you have a way to measure your success. Consistently reviewing your results through analytics is incredibly important. There are several things that you can monitor, but the most significant when it comes to email are open rate, click-through rate, and number of unsubscribes. These three things can tell you a lot about how well your email marketing efforts are going.
Open rate lets you know how enticing your headlines are, and how valued your business is by your subscribers. If you have a low open rate, then you obviously need to work on building a better relationship with your target buyers in order to ensure they want to hear what you have to say. Your click through rate will let you in on how well your messaging is working. If it’s low, then that’s a good indication that your message may not be targeted enough, or that your copy simply needs work.
When it comes to your unsubscribe rate, it’s easy to see what that means. If your unsubscribes are high, then you know your email marketing efforts need a major overhaul. Your messages aren’t getting through to the right audience, your offers aren’t enticing enough, and you may be sending out too many emails. Creating a form to ask why the consumer is opting out upon their unsubscribe is a great way to answer the questions you may have about what you’re doing wrong.
Email marketing is incredibly important to the online success of your business, so it’s essential to know that you’re doing it right. If your company isn’t currently seeing much success when it comes to email efforts, it’s time to do some fine-tuning. The email marketing game is constantly changing, so keeping up with what currently works is vital to the success of your company. To read more on email marketing and other marketing tactics, download our free eBook "How Inbound Marketing Drives Real Results".
Comments