Using email the smart way

When it comes to digital marketing, email is still the top of the food chain. According to Campaign Monitor’s 2018 report, 59% of respondents said email continues to generate the most ROI for their business – more than any other digital channel.

Sending regular emails out to your mailing lists is a quick, efficient way to get new products and deals in front of your customers, but are you getting the most out of your email marketing strategy? Email is most effective when it offers content that is consistent, valuable and relevant to its recipient, a fact that most businesses have yet to take advantage of: 39% of Campaign Monitor’s respondents don’t use personalisation, 21% don’t send to segments and a whopping 50% don’t make use of automated programmes such as welcome, lapsed or prospecting campaigns.

What does all this mean at the end of the day? Making use more advanced tools like automation and segments can open up new ways of communicating with your customers, such as encouraging loyalty amongst existing customers, winning them back, and welcoming new ones. It doesn’t just help you as a business, either: using these features to support your email communications also empowers your customers to make more informed choices and means they are less likely to become disengaged (or unsubscribe completely).

So, creating relevant content is crucial to fostering fruitful customer relationships. Nurturing your data, creating segments and automated campaigns, and making use of personalisation are the tools to help you get there. If it sounds like a lot of hard work, be assured that it’s a worthwhile investment to help you generate leads, retain customers, and become savvier with the performance of your email marketing as time goes on.

Let’s get personal

Personalisation is probably one of easiest tools you can use to create a rapport with your customer: 74% of marketed believe targeted personalisation increases engagement. It can be as simple or complex as you’d like: anything from first names, purchase history, abandoned carts and birthdays to the entire content of an email can all be used to create a tailored experience for your customer. An added bonus is that usually, this kind of data is on your doorstep to begin with. Making use of sign-up forms and integrating your CRM/e-commerce platform into your email strategy is a great place to start.

Dig deeper into your mailing lists

Using segments (or smaller, targeted sections of your wider mailing list) is a sure-fire way to cultivate relevant, valuable content for your customers. According to a survey by eMarketer, sending to segments comes hand in hand with better data performance: 28% of businesses see lower unsubscribe rates and 24% see better delivery rates. By making use of segments, you avoid the blanket-approach most associated with email marketing. You instead prioritise a personal, tailored journey for your customer based on their relationship to your brand, purchase habits, or engagement rate – if you want to get more from your data, sending to segments rather than whole mailing lists is the way to go.

Automation is an important foundation

When it comes to email marketing, most businesses are still sleeping on automated campaigns. Yet, automation can be a crucial foundation to any successful digital strategy, helping to keep messaging consistent and set a level of expectation between brand and customer. From a simple welcome series to a campaign triggered by an online sign-up form, automated programmes can save you time as well as help build a solid relationship with your customers.

Your next steps to getting savvier with email

You may have mastered the basics, but to get the most out of your email strategy, to discover more about your customers and their habits, and to create timely, valuable content relevant to them, you should consider incorporating these features into your communications.