What’s the most effective type of marketing? Is it creating content for humans, or writing for Google’s search algorithms?
If your content strategy is tight to Panda, Penguin & Co. – well, good luck with that one. If on the other hand, you’re interested in sharing genuine, high-quality content that helps your prospects and customers solve business problems, email is an awesome way to establish, cultivate and maintain long-term business relationships.
While some experts started making bold predictions about the rapid death of email marketing, stats and recent survey results tell a different story. Let’s have a quick look at the latest numbers provided by SalesForce:
- 95% of online consumers use email.
- 91% of consumers check their email once a day.
- eMarketer says there will be 236.8 million US email users in 2017.
- For every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment.
- Email audience will grow from 2.42 billion (year 2014) to 2.7 billion by 2017.
Looks like email is going to be around for quite a while now, isn’t it? Therefore, you’re well advised if you integrate this highly effective marketing channel into your overall business strategy.
Here’s where the rubber meets the road…
Effective email marketing goes way beyond simply adding people willy-nilly to your contacts list. The above mentioned ROI is only achieved when you run a savvy email campaign that drives targeted traffic to your website and generates high-quality leads and customers. Anything other than that means you’re wasting your valuable time and resources.
Here are three tips to help you increase your email marketing effectiveness:
1. Split-test like crazy.
Split testing is a very powerful marketing tool. You can split test the layout and placement of your opt-in forms, the subject line of your marketing campaigns, or different call to action to determine which combinations generate the highest number of quality email subscriptions.
Most top-tier email marketing software providers including GetResponse, AWeber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact and InfusionSoft offer split testing as a default function.
Make sure you modify one thing at a time so you can clearly see the effect of that particular change on your end results. Keep tweaking and testing different variables. A/B test your marketing campaigns for effectiveness.
2. Segment your list.
One-size-fits-all emails don’t seem to be highly effective, do they? Obviously, the better you can tailor your marketing messages to a certain group of subscribers, the more effective your promotions will likely be and the more sales you’ll be able to generate.
Does this mean you need to segment your email list into tens of groups of subscribers?
NO. It means you should form groups of people who have characteristics in common that are of great importance to you.
For example:
You could create a group of subscribers who open all the messages you send and have spent +$1,000 with your company. These folks should receive email marketing messages that are tailored to their specific needs and wants. You certainly don’t want this valuable segment of your list receive the same messages you send to people who rarely open your emails and have never purchased from you.
Some of your messages will appeal to the entire list and that’s perfectly fine. Other messages will only appeal to the +$1,000 audience. The better your targeting, the more likely your email marketing campaigns to result in sales.
Keywords: targeting, segmenting, personalization, tailored marketing messages
3. Keep your list accurate and up to date.
Regularly scrub your email list. Identify the subscribers who stopped opening your messages in a given period of time and put them on a separate list. I don’t suggest you remove them totally aka delete them. What I suggest is keep your list clean and accurate to ensure that it is as effective as possible.
What about the subscribers who keep ignoring your emails?
Well, one strategy would be to send them different offers from your affiliate partners to see whether these emails are appealing aka being opened or not. Another strategy would be to set up a survey and ask these leads for their feedback.
Bear in mind the following:
No matter how amazing your headlines and attractive your content, there will be leads on your list who will stop opening your campaigns. Therefore make sure you update your email data list regularly.
Over To You
Do you split-test? Do you segment your list?
What other email marketing strategies have proven effective for your campaigns?
