Out of 90% of Internet users who open their main mailbox at least once a day, 45% use it to manage their purchases (Source: Email Marketing Attitude BtoC du SNCD). A true marketing strategy, emailing is one of the most effective approaches for obtaining new contacts and converting prospects into customers. By creating successful campaigns, your business can retain them while enjoying a satisfying ROI. So, what elements should be taken into account to achieve a successful email marketing strategy?
To attract and retain your customers, remember to pace your emailing campaigns with finesse. This way, they won’t end up in spam and won’t be considered intrusive.
Define your goals
The objectives of an emailing campaign vary according to the periods and the company concerned. In general, it is used for:
- Obtain new customers;
- Increase sales;
- Consolidate the relationship with former customers;
- Optimize brand visibility.
Segment your contacts
To be sure to provide answers to everyone’s needs and expectations, based on the information you have about readers, detect what might interest each other, then segment your contacts.
While some companies segment their contacts by gender, others may categorize them by subscription types. Depending on your activity, you have the choice between these four main categories of segmentation:
- Psychographic: it aims to understand and analyze the lifestyle, values and individual attitudes to then establish your priorities;
- Behavioral: it is used to identify common behaviors in relation to your services and products;
- Demographic: it is intended to learn more about the social characteristics of your persona;
- Geographic: This helps determine the location and conditions in which your target lives.
By segmenting your target, you can develop a successful email strategy. With this technique, you multiply your chances of increasing your ROI, because you manage to better meet the needs of your customers by proposing adapted offers. In addition, you better understand your customers and prospects and will be able to serve them effectively, retain them and satisfy them.
Personalize your email campaign
With personalized, targeted and segmented marketing emails, you get an ROI of around 122% and generate almost 60% of your revenue. Compared to non-personalized emails, personalized emails also help to complete six times more transactions.
So, don’t be afraid to call your recipient by name to make emails look more human and build a better relationship. With typical profiles obtained through segmentation, you can:
- Adapt your landing pages;
- Create specific content that meets identified needs;
- Send emails in response to an action performed by the contact (abandon cart, visit a page, etc.).
Think of a simplified unsubscription
To avoid any frustration for your contacts, give them the possibility to unsubscribe easily and at any time if they no longer want to receive emails from you. This option can encourage to open mails which will not be classified as spam.
Pay special attention to email subject lines
The object is the first thing the recipient sees that may or may not catch their attention. Heal him to encourage him to open the email. To be attractive, the subject of your email must:
- Be short;
- Convey a sense of urgency;
- Use concise language;
- Contain action verbs;
- Present the information he will find in the email.
Avoid making false promises or using words encouraging a spam report: visa, mastercard, money, casino, etc.
If you’re out of inspiration, these 51 catchphrases will help you force the opening of your emails.
Write easy, mobile-friendly emails
The majority of users prefer to check their emails via their mobile since this practical and fast solution saves time. When developing your emailing strategy, do not forget this parameter.
Consider behavioral emails
For good behavioral targeting, use CRMs or web tracking tools, as they help you implement an effective email marketing strategy. The behavioral email can be the one you receive when you have placed an order and you forget to validate your basket. This type of highly targeted email considers different behavioral data.
Use storytelling
Stand out from your competitors with storytelling. By appealing to emotions, this approach aims to consolidate the identity of the company, to provoke attachment to the brand, to obtain the maximum positive impact of your emailing campaign.
Test the FoMO technique
Intended to increase your sales, the FoMO is an effective psychological trigger. Literally “Fear of Missing Out” encourages the customer to buy the product, to put it in a hurry using words expressing scarcity, such as “there are only two left” for example. You can also make your product desirable by showing that many want it at all costs or by offering promotional coupons in your messages. By creating emergency purchasing situations, you can easily destock your products in a short time.
Choose the right moment
Choose different time slots for sending the emails, then based on the reactions of the recipients, you can draw a conclusion on when is the right time. This may vary depending on your goals and the target audience in general.
Test your email campaigns
Vary the content, topics, formats and CTAs or call to action to find out which perform best. Despite the instability of certain segments, you will notice certain trends as shipments are made. To perform these A/B tests, each time analyze a single element at a time in order to reach relevant conclusions for each element analyzed.
Analyze user reactions after sending emails and then track and analyze several parameters: unsubscribes, open rate, reactions, etc.
Improve deliverability
Make sure all sent emails arrive in the inbox. To improve deliverability:
- Use a dedicated IP address;
- Request verification of your mailing list;
- Clean up your mailing list frequently;
- Avoid phrases and words that trigger spam alert filters;
- Use whitelists to send your messages: safe addresses, domains, accredited servers).
Analyze your performance
This step is essential to optimize your email campaign in the long term. This is likely to change over time, especially as your audience and business evolve. But to detect the elements to be optimized, follow your KPIs or key performance indicators:
- click-through rate;
- Conversion rate;
- Reactivity rate;
- Churn rate;
- Deliverability rate.
Train yourself!
To master the good practices of email marketing, do not hesitate to train yourself. By registering for this certified webmarketing training, you will know how to optimize the performance of your emarketing and email marketing campaigns in particular and measure your actions. By having the right basics, you will also have all the keys in hand to accelerate the growth of your business.
Conclusion
Email marketing aims to develop and enrich the customer relationship by regularly providing relevant information to customers. The more the latter is used to seeing your brand and the name of your company, the easier it will be for her to contact you, because you will now be part of her references. Attached to the brand, customers are indeed loyal, while you gain notoriety. By optimizing your email marketing campaigns, you will be able to quickly obtain a satisfactory return on investment.