Email marketing is the digital marketing strategy of sending promotional messages to prospects and customers. This refers to email newsletters, lead nurturing emails, transactional emails, sponsorships, and event announcements. Email marketing ROI, according to an eMarketer study, is 122%. That is significantly higher ROI than many other marketing channels like Facebook or Twitter.
Consider the following statistics about the value and impact of email:
- The average email subscriber is worth almost $50.
- The number of email users worldwide is forecasted to exceed 4 billion by 2021, with a 3% growth rate or almost 100 million for the next three years.
- Email is the top choice for business communication among 86% of business professionals and 73% of millennials.
- Email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than social media.
- At least 60% of B2B marketers believe in the revenue generating power of email marketing.
Top 13 Email Marketing Mistakes People Make
- Forgetting a thoughtful or personalized welcome email
- Hyping and overselling in the subject line
- Making the emails very design-heavy
- Providing unclear and vague call-to-action
- Violating the terms of service of your email marketing service provider
- Sending too many emails in quick succession
- Running the same campaign repeatedly with no proven ROI
- Non-responsive mobile email design
- Not having enough email opt-in forms on your website
- Not delivering what the person has signed up for
- Not setting defined email marketing goals
- Not segmenting your audience
- Not updating your email lists
Why Email Marketing is the Best Customer Relationship-Building Channel
1. Customers prefer email
One of the reasons customers choose email to communicate with brands is because it puts them in control of the content they receive. If your main marketing goal is to build relationships with your customers, reach out to them through their communication channel of choice.
2. Email is more personal and direct
A sign of trust from leads or existing customers is when they subscribe to your email list. This means they are interested in developing a relationship with you. The direct nature of email also makes it easy to personalize content that would maximize opportunities for conversion.
3. Email is easier to track
As you monitor the performance of email campaigns, you can tweak, adjust, and update any of its features and make it more efficient in achieving your marketing goals.
4. Email easily integrates with other marketing channels
Emails can be incorporated into as many inbound marketing campaign channels as you can. This will improve deliverability rate, clickthrough rates, and conversion rates.
5. Email is easy to set up, yet highly effective
Many email marketing platforms enable users to launch their campaigns within a couple of hours. It is easy to implement, cost effective, and yet highly effective.
Top 5 Advanced Email Marketing Strategies
1. Collecting high-quality contact data for your clients
Having high-quality contact subscribers’ data is the foundation of all successful email marketing strategies. When you have firsthand knowledge of your clients’ target audience, there is ease and accuracy in engaging, acquiring, and retaining more customers.
2. Create segmented lists of your clients’ subscribers
According to a Janrain study, irrelevant content drives away almost 75% of online consumers. Segmentation ensures that each subscriber receives stimulating, relevant content that’s useful and valuable for them.
3. Get personal with your clients’ audiences
Emails with personalized subject lines get at least 25% increase in open rates while subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity are 22% more likely to be opened. When you use a specific contact person, according to a Pinpointe marketing research, rather than a company name or a general email address, there is as much as 35% boost in open rates!
4. Use dynamic content with engaging design
Visuals and design templates are equally important as written content in email marketing campaigns. Grab readers’ attention through a variety of imagery, colors graphics, and special email design grids.
5. Use marketing automation to measure and streamline email campaigns
Marketing automation makes it easy to use engaging email design templates, send personalized and scalable content, develop segmented subscribers’ lists, and collect high quality contact data.
Here are five things to consider when choosing the right email marketing service provider for your organization:
1. Features
Foremost, know the exact features your organization needs. Is it email templates, an address finder, or advanced segmentation? This will be useful for picking a service provider to help you create the most effective marketing strategy and reach your marketing goals.
2. Support
Prompt and reliable support is crucial when you must deal with any technical issues. Find an email marketing service provider who offers excellent tech assistance with live chat, email help or phone support as well as self-serve help guides, FAQs, and free online resources.
3. Analytics
This is to track successes and failures of any email campaign. Regularly checking on analytics can help you make informed decisions and make improvements to achieve your desired ROI.
4. Ease of use
So, depending on your own personal skills and competency level, pick one you find easy and comfortable using.
5. Price
Some offer the basics for free while others charge a reasonable fee for their premium plan. Start with a plan that fits your business needs and upgrade accordingly.
If you want to build your email list, improve your open rates, and turn more subscribers into customers, get started for FREE with Waves today.
