For some odd reason, many Marketers tend to frown on email marketing. Sure, it’s not as glitzy as some of the other tactics available to the modern day marketer, but what may shock some, email marketing is (still) the most effective tool a Marketer can use. The issue is, many people don’t know how to use it correctly. When done correctly, email marketing yields an amazing ROI and helps build a long-lasting customer relationships.
Today’s marketers are continuing to utilize and convert customers through email marketing, while keeping the cost of their marketing budget low. Even further, great marketers are segmenting their audience and targeting high value leads, by measuring results of previous emails and using analytics to back marketing decisions. Check out some statistics below:
• Did you know that for every $1 spent, email marketing generates $44 in ROI. – Campaign Monitor
• Email marketing works 40 times better at getting customers than Facebook and Twitter, and compared to social media, it offers a 17% higher conversion – Entrepreneur
• 95 percent of people who sign up for a newsletter from a recognized brand consider the email useful – Entrepreneur
• Emails effortlessly nurture leads. A nurtured lead increases sales 20% more than a cold lead. At 33% less cost than other lead-generating mechanisms, emails generate 50 percent more sales – Entrepreneur
Despite these overwhelmingly positive stats, companies today still have a lack of regard or respect for the people that opted in to be communicated with them. So how can we utilize this tactic in a way that respects your target audience? &Marketing challenges you to ask yourself these questions.
Who is My Audience?
If you’re sending someone who is seeking information about your services (top funnel), case studies or a meet request (bottom funnel), you could be alienating that person. How does the prospect interact with your emails? What content did they download? What is their behavior or experience with you? Has your sales team already reached out to them and identified their place within the funnel? From a B2C perspective, do you know what particular products or services each member of your audience is interested in? Do they want coupons or promotions or do they want they want to see new products or services that you are offering? Do the proper research on your list and audience, segment it out, and create the appropriate messages for each them.
What’s My Goal?
Every email should have a desired goal. Whether it’s an e-promo or a newsletter, a well designed email should have a clear message which will lead users to accomplish that goal. Don’t email just to email or think that because you send a goalless email you are increasing “brand awareness.” If email marketing is in service to a larger goal, then make sure each email has mini goals designed to help you achieve the larger goal. Once you have the goal, it’s easy to make design and content decisions, and then measure the success of the campaign to see where you can improve.
How do I Measure Effectiveness?
Your email service provider (ESP) has important reporting capabilities, and can help you determine who opened the email and what content they engaged with. Reports from your ESP are great at identifying what users actually acted on, though it doesn’t cover everything you should be measuring. This is where Google Analytics comes into the equation. First, create a campaign tagged URL with Google’s Campaign URL Builder. This will tag all the links in your email so that Google Analytics will be able to associate all traffic from that email, to that campaign. Then you’ll be able to see how at a higher level how your audience interacted with your web site when they got there from your email. Through combined ESP and Google Analytics, you will have sufficient data to gather insights and prepare your next campaign.
What Did I Learn from this Campaign?
Review and evaluate the metrics – Understand what your statistics mean and benchmark them against previous campaigns. Create a comprehensive dashboard that gives you all the pertinent information you need to make the best decisions about your email marketing strategy going forward. Common email analytics include open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. On Google Analytics, common analytics for landing pages are: bounce rate, average time on site, and bounce rate. You can even measure the amount of sales an email generates if you have an eCommerce component to your site.
Am I Following Up?
Email marketing is only as good as the follow up plan you have in place for each campaign. Make sure you create a strategy for each audience type, every link that’s clicked, every person that opens/doesn’t open your email, etc. Remember if they’ve given you permission to talk with them, they are interested in you on some level. Email marketing is great way to determine who is a qualified lead and who needs more nurturing and you can tailor your campaigns to each of those segments.
Today’s marketers are continuing to utilize and convert customers through email marketing, while keeping the cost of their marketing budget low. Even further, great marketers are segmenting their audience and targeting high value leads, by measuring results of previous emails and using analytics to back marketing decisions. Check out some statistics below:
• Did you know that for every $1 spent, email marketing generates $44 in ROI. – Campaign Monitor
• Email marketing works 40 times better at getting customers than Facebook and Twitter, and compared to social media, it offers a 17% higher conversion – Entrepreneur
• 95 percent of people who sign up for a newsletter from a recognized brand consider the email useful – Entrepreneur
• Emails effortlessly nurture leads. A nurtured lead increases sales 20% more than a cold lead. At 33% less cost than other lead-generating mechanisms, emails generate 50 percent more sales – Entrepreneur
Despite these overwhelmingly positive stats, companies today still have a lack of regard or respect for the people that opted in to be communicated with them. So how can we utilize this tactic in a way that respects your target audience? &Marketing challenges you to ask yourself these questions.
Who is My Audience?
If you’re sending someone who is seeking information about your services (top funnel), case studies or a meet request (bottom funnel), you could be alienating that person. How does the prospect interact with your emails? What content did they download? What is their behavior or experience with you? Has your sales team already reached out to them and identified their place within the funnel? From a B2C perspective, do you know what particular products or services each member of your audience is interested in? Do they want coupons or promotions or do they want they want to see new products or services that you are offering? Do the proper research on your list and audience, segment it out, and create the appropriate messages for each them.
What’s My Goal?
Every email should have a desired goal. Whether it’s an e-promo or a newsletter, a well designed email should have a clear message which will lead users to accomplish that goal. Don’t email just to email or think that because you send a goalless email you are increasing “brand awareness.” If email marketing is in service to a larger goal, then make sure each email has mini goals designed to help you achieve the larger goal. Once you have the goal, it’s easy to make design and content decisions, and then measure the success of the campaign to see where you can improve.
How do I Measure Effectiveness?
Your email service provider (ESP) has important reporting capabilities, and can help you determine who opened the email and what content they engaged with. Reports from your ESP are great at identifying what users actually acted on, though it doesn’t cover everything you should be measuring. This is where Google Analytics comes into the equation. First, create a campaign tagged URL with Google’s Campaign URL Builder. This will tag all the links in your email so that Google Analytics will be able to associate all traffic from that email, to that campaign. Then you’ll be able to see how at a higher level how your audience interacted with your web site when they got there from your email. Through combined ESP and Google Analytics, you will have sufficient data to gather insights and prepare your next campaign.
What Did I Learn from this Campaign?
Review and evaluate the metrics – Understand what your statistics mean and benchmark them against previous campaigns. Create a comprehensive dashboard that gives you all the pertinent information you need to make the best decisions about your email marketing strategy going forward. Common email analytics include open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. On Google Analytics, common analytics for landing pages are: bounce rate, average time on site, and bounce rate. You can even measure the amount of sales an email generates if you have an eCommerce component to your site.
Am I Following Up?
Email marketing is only as good as the follow up plan you have in place for each campaign. Make sure you create a strategy for each audience type, every link that’s clicked, every person that opens/doesn’t open your email, etc. Remember if they’ve given you permission to talk with them, they are interested in you on some level. Email marketing is great way to determine who is a qualified lead and who needs more nurturing and you can tailor your campaigns to each of those segments.
