Email Marketing Still Works, You’re Just Doing it Wrong: 5 Things to Improve

A high-quality email marketing strategy can result in an impressive 4200% ROI. When social media marketing came around, some marketers predicted the downfall of email. However, email marketing managed to stay afloat and maintain its position as a tactic with the highest ROI.

If you aren’t getting the results you expected from your email marketing campaign, you need to do some troubleshooting. Even an excellent strategy requires tweaking regularly. Let’s look at five things you can improve today.

1. Maintain Your Email List Hygiene

Your stellar marketing efforts could disappear in vain unless you maintain your email list hygiene. A well-designed message structure coupled with highly appealing content is not sufficient to make the email message work. The key to a successful email marketing campaign is deliverability.

Unless you validate your email list regularly, you may be sending messages to people who don’t want to receive them, or worse, to non-existent addresses. This can lead to high bounce rates, poor sender’s score, and much more.

By taking advantage of such tools as an email validation solution by Byteplant, you can ensure the validity of each address on your list. This action alone could improve your email marketing efforts tremendously.

2. Work on Your Content

Regardless of the marketing tactic you use, content is always king. Email marketing isn’t an exception. By creating high-quality content for your messages, you can improve conversion rates and boost customer retention.

Make sure to personalize each message. Today, clients expect personalization so “dear Sir” letters go straight to the trash, or worse, to the spam folder. Take advantage of the information your marketing team collects about each customer segment and implement it into your messages.

Besides calling the recipients by their names, you can use the information you’ve collected through social media to address their pain points properly.

Additionally, work on your storytelling. Everyone loves a good story. Including one in your email message can catch the potential client’s attention better than a well-designed headline.

3. Use Split Testing

A/b (or split) testing is one of the marketing pillars. To find out which messages work best, you can start sending different versions to the target audience. Start by split testing your subject line and find out how many responses you get to each version.

For example, you know that personalized subject lines get the best response rates. Use them in different possible ways, such as:

•         Best deals for fishing fans
•         Dear John, this sale is designed specifically for you
•         39-year-olds love this product

Then you can proceed to split test your content. Many companies use the same templates to send out messages for many months. This can make customers tired and annoyed. Try something new every time and find out what works best.

4. Create High-Quality Welcome Emails

Welcome emails are the key to building a trusted relationship with your clients. They don’t just confirm the recipient’s interest in your products or service but give you an opportunity to show your appreciation. Your welcome email should:

•         Be personal and include as much information as possible about the recipient.
•         Not be a “no-reply” email so clients can contact you immediately if needed.
•         Tell the recipient what to expect from your emails in the future.
•         Ask the recipient why they signed up or made a purchase (to receive valuable reviews and feedback).
•         Include a powerful CTA (Call to Action).

Without a catchy welcome email, you may lose your client’s attention so your next message could come as a surprise and end up in the spam folder.

5. Experiment with Timing

Without the right timing, you could be sending your email into the void. You need to take the time to analyze your target audience to understand the perfect time to send messages.

Take into account time zones, work schedules, hobbies, preferences, and everything you know about your potential and existing clients.

Numerous studies have been done to determine the perfect email sending time. Use this information as a starting point.

The Takeaway

With the right approach, email can be a highly useful tool for customer conversion and retention. Email marketing ROI depends on how well you understand the target audience as well as the quality of your content. Take advantage of the above tips to improve your campaign today.