Email Marketing Success – Email has been around a very long time and lacks the sexy appeal of social media like Pinterest, Instagram or the aging appeal of Facebook. Since the beginning of email marketing, people have claimed that it was destined to fail.
According to a recent study by Custora, customer acquisition using email marketing has quadrupled in the last four years. With customer acquisition crossing multiple channels these predictive analytics may not fully reflect the buyer path. Social media may be responsible for raising awareness and engagement – but without email marketing, the interest in a purchase can fizzle out.
What is particularly interesting about the study, is that the customers who come to a business as a result of email marketing tend to shop more and spend 11 percent more than when they come from other sources.
The New Inbox
In a new book by Simms Jenkins, he explains that the “The New Inbox” is the digital marketing hub allowing the social media outlets to be effective. A combination of buyer empowerment and lead nurturing fuels the powerful email marketing machine. He points out that the recent recession caused businesses to carefully analyze their marketing spend. He claims, “If you have just one bullet left in your gun to sell something, then email should always be that bullet.”
Expand Segmentation
According to a recent study, your email subscribers receive and average of 416 commercial messages a month. It is hard to cut through the clutter of noise and be heard. Your recipients will click away if they don’t find your email relevant.
Relevancy is what consumers demand. Sending monthly blasts to your entire email list is pretty irrelevant to any of your prospects and customers. Take a long hard look at your CRM software and find ways to segment your lists into relevant categories.
Clean Up Your Database
To begin, clear out all bounces and unsubscribe requests. Identify easy errors such as incomplete fields and common typos. You may be able to improve your bounce rate by simply locating the original source of the higher numbers of bounced emails. Once you know where to look, it becomes easier to clean them out.
Get serious about cleansing your database if it has been a while since you last gave it a good scrubbing. Consider professional services such as Strike Iron to verify emails and implement good hygiene practices.
Monitor CRM Dashboards
As you outline your goals for the year, determine what metrics will inform you about whether you are on track for reaching them. Each outcome you want to accomplish for the year can be broken down into measurable bites of data. Set up your CRM software to automatically catch those stats and adjust your email marketing to what you learn from that data.
A few statistics:
- 91% of online consumers will tell you they check their email at least once each day.
- Companies report that a primary goal of email marketing (78%) is retention of existing customers.
- 70% of today’s buyers will tell you that they always open emails from their favorite companies.
Email marketing has the power to generate revenue for your business. Give it the attention it deserves.