Email marketing can be very profitable, but its success depends on the tactics you use.
There’s no doubt that email marketing is one of the most profitable avenues for marketers.
For every $1 spent on email marketing, the ROI is between $45 and $32. That’s not surprising since most consumers check their email ten times a day, every day. What’s more? Of those consumers, those who actually purchase products marketed via email spend 138% more than those who don’t receive email offers.
With this in mind, companies looking to stay ahead of the competition should employ the following strategies to achieve maximum success.
1. Show him that you care
Believe it or not, something as simple as addressing customers by name can make them more likely to engage with your emails.
When Experian Marketing Services compared generic promotional emails to personalized ones, they found that personalized emails have 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher click-through rates per person. What’s more, according to Harvard Business Review, personalization can generate five to eight times the ROI on marketing spend and increase sales by more than 10%.
People don’t want to feel like nameless faces in a sea of customers; they want to be respected. If your brand isn’t willing to go the extra mile, your competition will step in to fill the void.
2. Data is power
Remember in 2013, when Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency ( NSA ) was collecting mountains of personal and private information on millions of people? Morality aside, the NSA saw the data for what it was: a key to power. While you don’t need to go to such extremes, the principle remains the same. The more you discover about the person or business, the more knowledge you can use to your advantage to build a relationship or secure a sale.
At Outreach Chimp, we write hyper-personalized cold emails for companies seeking guest blogging placements by studying their website analytics using SEO data providers like MOZ, Ahrefs, and SerpStat. The goal is not only to promote our services but also to provide valuable insight into their website’s shortcomings and suggestions for improvements.
This may seem like a lot of work for a cold outreach campaign, but with automation and the use of application programming interfaces (APIs), it takes minimal effort to achieve significant results.
3. Write click-worthy subject lines
Every competent marketer knows the marketing mantra: “Provide value. Solve problems.” No one likes clickbait, and if you use it, prepare for your emails to never be opened again.
Subjects like “10 Ways to Blast Fat Off Your Body in Five Minutes!” are grounds for spam, and while your email may actually be helpful and highlight ways to blast fat in a short period of time, the subject line cheapens the content. If your email title reads like a National Enquirer, People, or BuzzFeed headline, people won’t open it—and rightfully so.
4. Be mobile-friendly
Today, everyone has a mobile phone; some people have three. In 2014, data from the U.S. Consumer Device Preference Report revealed that 65% of emails were opened on phones. Now more than ever, it’s important to ensure your emails are suitable for reading on these devices.
5. Target your list
The Data & Marketing Association found that segmented email campaigns generated a 76% increase in revenue for marketers.
By segmenting your subscribers, readers, or buyers, you can focus on their demographics and categorize them based on criteria. For example, if 10 of your subscribers open emails about SEO keyword optimization, you can assign them a special category. This category means they’ll receive only SEO-related emails specifically tailored to them, while the other segmented subscribers will receive a different set of emails.
It’s important to target your list with specific promotions and offers related to the segment on your lists. Gone are the days when we could cast a wide net and know that at least 10 out of every 100 people would take the bait.
6. Test everything
Without testing your messages, subject lines, or any other aspect of your emails, you won’t know what works and what doesn’t.
The study of these metrics is called A/B testing, and it’s an invaluable tool that every email marketer should know. You’ll also be able to test which subject lines your emails are opened or not, which is great information to have. Now, this isn’t meant to be a universal fact, hence the importance of testing everything.
Analyzing numbers such as inbox rates, open rates, bounce rates, response rates, and unsubscribe rates can help you make your email campaigns more effective.
7. Follow-up within reason
Let’s imagine this is a perfect world. The emails you send have a 65% open rate (I said perfect, not unrealistic), average response rates, and an above-average subscription rate.
People are buying the products your emails promote. Now, let’s say you start adding one or two emails every other day. Even though the numbers drop a bit, you’re still sending emails to “get your name in front of their faces” and become as relevant as Coca-Cola. Within days, your emails aren’t opened at all; dozens of people quickly report them as “spam” or send your work to the trash.
What’s the solution? Email tracking tools, which you can use to set up reminder emails on a schedule that provides value without annoying your customers.
In the old days, we gave cold emails the benefit of the doubt. We might not have known who the sender was or how they received our email, but as long as it was relevant to us, it didn’t matter.
But that’s no longer the case. Today, hyper-personalized emails that add value are key to attracting and retaining customers.
