With nearly 124 billion business emails being sent and received worldwide every day, your email marketing campaign has a less-than-desirable chance of being opened. In the U.K., it’s 24.79% on average to say nothing of the odds of that email seeing a clickthrough. While the rates no doubt vary with your industry and region, it always helps to get smart with your email marketing strategy, to ensure your campaign delivers the strongest possible value.
Drop the no-reply email address
As useful as it is in preventing influxes of unwanted responses (such as pesky out-of-office auto responders), a no-reply email only prevents subscribers from connecting with you on a more engaging level. Not only is it likely to confuse some readers, it gives the impression of a cold shoulder to those who actually seek to respond to your message. Modify your reply address in a way that encourages readers to provide feedback, and find alternative ways to manage your inbox.
Leverage brand power
If your products or services are integrated with those of another company, you can create case studies that briefly but effectively highlight milestones achieved by this integration to appeal to an even larger audience. By maximizing the influence of some of your biggest partners, you add credibility and a sense of authority to your own brand.
Practice the 1-2-3 method
Telling your readers exactly what to do next clears the air of any ambiguity regarding a call-to-action. If your campaign revolves around lifecycle emails — emails that are relevant to a point in the relationship partners or consumers have with your brand — you’re more likely to see a response by outlining the next three things your readers need to do. Consider the example below:
Research optimal send times
Looking at data compiled from its send time optimization system, MailChimp found that 10 a.m. was the peak time at which to send emails to individual addresses in those individuals’ respective time zones; 10 a.m., however, only reflected the preference of less than 7% of subscribers. In a nutshell, MailChimp recommends knowing your audience: Use tools to identify the time zones of your subscribers, conduct tests to determine the peak day of the week, and identify the best time of that day at which to drop your email.
Run A/B tests
Here’s an experiment: Try sending one variation of your marketing email to a portion of your subscribers, and another to a different group, and see which variation performs the best. This is called A/B testing, and you can test everything from choice of wording to the subject line to the location of a call-to-action button, to arrive at the most effective elements for your campaign email. Ideally, you ought to spend anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to test one variable, but since factors can change quickly over time, avoid devoting too much time on a test if you want to stay on top of things.
Explore these options and more to identify the best possible means of delivering your message to your audience. Your campaign is not just about generating profit, after all; it’s about creating long-term loyalty.
Sources:
The Radicati Group, Inc. (2015). Email Statistics Report, 2015-2019. Retrieved from Radicati Website: http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Email-Statistics-Report-2015-2019-Executive-Summary.pdf
Chaffey, D. (2017). Email marketing statistics 2017. Retrieved from http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/statistics-sources-for-email-marketing/
Campaign Monitor. A/B Test Your Email Campaigns. Retrieved from https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/ab-test-email-marketing-campaigns/
Foreman, J. (2014). Insights from MailChimp’s Send Time Optimization System. Retrieved from https://blog.mailchimp.com/insights-from-mailchimps-send-time-optimization-system/
Daly, J. (2015). 40 Tips for Dramatically Better Emails. Retrieved from https://www.getvero.com/resources/guides/email-marketing-best-practices/
Mistry, J. (2016). Say No to No-reply Email Addresses. Retrieved from https://litmus.com/blog/say-no-to-no-reply-email-addresses
