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In these days of GDPR, the humble email can seem like a tool that no longer has a major role to play in marketing campaigns. However, done properly it can be even more effective than before the introduction of the EU data regulation, helping you to interact with your customers and promote your brand.
Know your market
They key with emails is to send something that your audience can’t ignore, and to do that you need to know who you’re sending messages too and what their interest is in your product or service. The more you can find out about your audience, the more you can tailor content to suit them so look at Google Analytics, your apps and ecommerce platforms, and compile personas to understand each area of your customer base.
Segment your emails
Once you know who your customers are and what they like, the next step is to segment your database so people only receive information that is relevant to their interests. Segmentation can be based on everything from location – if you’re attending an event in a specific place, let your customers nearby know you’ll be there – or on what they’ve previously shown interest in – if they’ve clicked through on a specific product, follow up with more information or offers, for example.
Time for action
Monitoring activity such as buying history, website activity, clickthrough hotspots and the like can also be a great way to steer email marketing campaigns. If someone has viewed or purchased certain products, advise them on similar ones; if they’ve almost bought something but not completed the sale follow up with a reminder; if you have a core of regular customers offer them special deals. As ever, the key is to offer information that is useful to the customer, not bombard them with so many emails they end up unsubscribing.
Consistency
Which leads us on to consistency. As well as ensuring each send is consistent with your branding, also consider consistency in terms of send times. Regular updates will be more effective and promote your brand more positively than no sends for weeks followed by a deluge of emails. If in doubt, ask your customers when and how often they’d like to hear from you. This can be a great way to interact with people while providing valuable insight into how your market thinks.
Keep track
Once you’ve hit send on your email, don’t stop there. Make sure you go back and analyse the effectiveness of each campaign. Take a look at open, clickthrough and conversion rates, and consider how they vary as your try different techniques. And look at other hotspots on your send to see where customers are looking and the kind of information they’re looking for from you. If you’re undecided between the effectiveness of two campaigns, run both of them and compare the results.
Done properly, email is a fast, effective and cost-efficient marketing tool. To find out how we can help you meet your email marketing goals contact [email protected]
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