Recently seen as exciting and fresh, email marketing aged quickly behind social media, marketers’ newest go-to strategy. “Likes” now take precedence over subscribers, and following trends is more noble than providing engaging content. Social networking platforms have opened up a world of possibilities for businesses, no doubt, but with advanced metrics and dwindling competition, could it be that now is the perfect time to launch an email marketing campaign? In reality, email marketing’s decline has been greatly exaggerated. Hubspot reports that 54 percent of marketers who used email marketing during the 2011 holiday season said their campaigns were extremely or very successful.
If you’re looking to establish greater customer relationships or promote your product or service through content, ignore the premature obituaries and consider email marketing to spread the word.
Study Metrics
Email marketing lost value when users became immune to the slew of messages. On-the-go recipients quickly developed an eye to spot useless advertisements, and email providers even began filtering these messages into marketing wastelands known as “spam” folders. While many businesses believe that email marketing is a dead tactic, new metrics can help marketers determine their campaign’s effectiveness. Open rates tell marketers how many recipients opened the mail, which provides insight into effective email titles. Click-through rate monitors how many recipients follow a business link to the desired destination. Like with any other advertising, engaging relevant content entices consumers to learn more. Other metrics, including response rate, conversion rate and unsubscribe rate provide further procession, turning a guessing game into a sharpened tool.
Many mass email service providers include these metrics in their services. Otherwise, businesses can purchases individual tools online at sites like getopenrate.com.
Focus on Content
In the age of social media, email has become a more efficient way to consume information. Without real-time comments, photos, videos and links, email is pound-for-pound a more effective way to communicate. To maintain this edge, email marketers must focus their efforts on providing value to recipients. Use email content to put your business’ product or service in context, outlining where you fit in a trending or relevant topic. If you’re losing subscribers, consider adding exclusive deals or discounts in your email content.
By providing value to email recipients, not only will you build brand awareness for your business, you’ll also strengthen relationships with your subscribing or potential customers, a skill social media claims to dominate.
Know Your Audience
Effective content engages readers, so in order to build a content strategy, you’ll need to know your audience. A software company that offers to a wide audience might be tempted to lob various content topics as they email market. Survey data might reveal that many of its subscribers are business owners. In this case, an email marketer would be wise to mold their email marketing content around B2B companies.
Audience analysis makes crafting an email marketing campaign easier and more focused.
By Peter Marino
