Email marketing is only going to get stronger in 2021 and beyond. PPC (pay-per-click) and other paid ads are being unexpectedly banned, social media accounts are being suddenly disabled, and rising ad costs makes it difficult for SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) to remain competitive. This will make email lists worth their price in gold for any e-commerce business worth its salt in today’s incredibly one-sided social media driven world.
Here are 10 email marketing pros sharing their email campaign best practices to drive growth, expand your user-base, and guarantee skyrocketing online sales.
1. Leverage email personalization
According to Alina Clark, co-founder & marketing director at CocoDoc, the hallmark of any successful email campaign for 2021 and beyond is the involvement of AI in email personalization.
“AI makes email personalization easier and more efficient. In fact, our email campaigns have had 35% plus CTR rates since we went automated. I would definitely recommend this to any email marketer.”
2. Test, test, test
“If you can measure something then you should be testing it,” says Omer Reiner, licensed realtor & president of FL Cash Home Buyers. He believes that email marketing has never been more alive driven by the increase of work from home arrangements, there are more chances for people to check and read their emails.
“Testing campaigns before fully launching them is crucial in marketing because it can help you avoid mistakes, capitalize on good ideas, and even uncover new ideas that you never even thought would work. Always test several different options and then choose the most successful.”
3. Use sales funnels
An evergreen email marketing strategy that always works like a charm is sales funnels, as attested by Rajan Sharma, founder of Reviews Hustle. “You can promote anything to your email list, and you can even set up all this process in auto mode. It is a very successful email marketing strategy to generate sales.”
4. Focus on email retargeting
Jon Torres, founder of brandlovely.com, believes that email retargeting is a smart tactic that can help minimize cart abandonment rate and increase sales. He recommends segmenting email subscribers before sending personalized recommendations.
“Send emails within 24 hours of the website visit. Use messaging that shows you acknowledge they visited your site. Respect your customers’ privacy should they opt out of future emails,” Torres said. Email retargeting is all about communicating with the right recipients at the right time in their purchase journey.
5. Make quality content a priority
According to Ovi Demetrian Jr., founder of Blocks Edit, making great emails is the single most important thing salespeople must focus on with their B2B email marketing.
“Write quality content, utilize great design, and produce email campaigns that directly speak to your audience. Email is the one marketing channel that people have complete control over and each message they receive goes into their personal inbox. This means they are careful about what they receive, and we should keep that in mind and be respectful of it.”
6. Learn to be more agile
Chad S. White, head of research at Oracle Marketing Consulting, observes that the COVID-19 crisis taught email marketers to always expect the unexpected and learn to adapt with it.
“2020 highlighted a need for brands to be nimbler and more responsive with their email marketing. In 2021, that will translate into a push to automate more content using personalization and AI-driven recommendations. But even more than that, email programs will seek to simplify and speed up their email builds, leading to a surge in adoption of modular email architecture.”
7. Use technology to successfully navigate uncertainties
For Gavin Laugenie, head of strategy & insight at dotdigital, 2021 is the year where we should learn adaptability. Marketers must create empathetic, thought-provoking content and have faith in their tech to give them a new strategy when circumstances inevitably change.
“You have to have powerful data-crunching AI to segment and serve up accurate data to deliver targeted messages to your audience on the channels that will make the most significant impact at any given time. Email remains king, but as consumer behavior continues to change regularly, complementing email with live chat, SMS, push etc. will help deliver the contextual messages your customers demand.”
8. Improve email deliverability
“You’ve got to be in it to win it,” said Scott Hardigree, founder of Email Industries. “Good deliverability has always been vital to brands but it’s getting harder to hit the inbox consistently, which forces marketers to do more than the minimum. In 2021, high email deliverability rates will be reserved for brands that do the hard work and adhere to best practices.”
9. Stand out through BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification)
Lauren Meyer, VP of Industry Relations & Compliance at Kickbox, explains that BIMI allows marketers to display brand-controlled logos together with emails sent out to recipients.
“The benefits of implementing BIMI for your brand go beyond simply having your logo appear within subscriber inboxes. The process itself is one that forces you to have all of your authentication properly set up. BIMI also requires you to have a reasonably good sender reputation.”
10. Re-evaluate how you deal with active and inactive subscribers
The focus for 2021 and beyond, according to Dela Quist, founder of Alchemy Worx, should be about the long term – not just next week’s numbers. It is important not to neglect seemingly disengaged subscribers because they can turn out to be valuable in the future.
“Our goal is to increase post-acquisition loyalty rates and improve win-back rates. Loyalty builds incrementally with each additional engagement cycle, so each time re-engagement generated by your win-back activity occurs you get greater loyalty and a higher lifetime value.”
What Next?
These are 10 excellent recommendations from email marketing pros for you to try in 2021 and beyond.
So, what are you waiting for? Get started with SwaysEast and grow your business through successful email marketing campaigns. It’s free to sign up with Riptide and Waves today!
