Remember sending physical mailers to a list of your customers and it actually getting a great response? Back when the only way to tell if your mailer was effective is if you included a coupon for customers to redeem or asked them how they heard about your promotion? Yeah, we remember those days. Now when you send a postcard, you’re lucky if it isn’t immediately thrown into the garbage. If it avoids the bin, then you’re hoping that there is even a slight chance a potential customer is going to act on it. Tied in with the rising costs of postage and the environmental impact of all the wasted paper goods, mailers have quickly been moved to the wayside for other more meaningful marketing methods, namely email marketing.

Using your marketing budget effectively can honestly feel like a tall task. Being able to measure the results of your efforts has always been a critical component, and digital marketing in all forms allows for the most comprehensive datasets available when studying your unique customer base. Email marketing gives businesses detailed insight of their current customers’ behaviors, while also being an effective method of getting varied and detailed information to them quickly with excellent results. Email marketing studies show that for every $1 spent on email marketing by a business, they will see on average a $38 return on their investment.

LISTS DESIGNED FOR SUCCESS

There are instances where purchasing a list can be useful, but why chance wasting your efforts, budget, and digital credibility on a potentially bad list? Email marketing is a great method of reaching out to both first time and loyal customers. Creating and managing a list of customers who have willingly subscribed to your email marketing is the first step of setting your efforts up for success. You will see customers opt-in to your communication at various points of the sales journey—when a customer visits your website, the point of purchase at both physical locations and online stores, and even trade shows for companies in contract-based business models. When you have a list of customers who have opted-in, you’re covering your bases and protecting your domain name from infringing on SPAM and digital privacy regulations. You’re also creating a list of customers who are more likely to engage with your brand. They want information from you, and the chances are good they will act on your emails.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR EMAIL MARKETING

What are you supposed to send your email list? Is there such a thing as an email faux pas? The options are seemingly endless, but there are definitely a few dos and don’ts when communicating with your customers. The cardinal sin of email marketing is sending to your list too often. Customers want to hear from your business, but they don’t want to hear from you multiple times a day. Like social media, consistency is key. For some companies that means once a week, some once a month, or even once a quarter. Content should be varied—you don’t want to bore your customers with the same bits of information or advertisements over and over again. Blogs, press releases, new products, or current promotions all make for great content! Keep it casual, engaging, and informative—clients should feel that there is value to reading your messaging. The one consistent goal with your content should be to drive traffic to your website. The end goal for most sends is to create the opportunity to provide a service for your customer or sell them a product. That goal is going to be met on your website. Content in the email should be written, designed, and laid out in a manner that encourages clicking on a link to learn more or shop.

EMAIL MARKETING ANALYTICS TO MEASURE

It’s difficult to track current and potential customers. Most digital metrics you see are unable to easily drill down to a specific person. Impressions and click thru rates might be great, but “who” visited the site? “Who” almost signed up for a service or purchased a product? It’s hard to tell with Facebook or Google ads, but an email gives you actual identifiers. Email marketing platforms allow for businesses to see the activity of specific email addresses—when a contact opens an email, the number of clicks on a specific link, and even time stamps of when any measurable activity happens. Specific metrics tied to specific contacts can help businesses in numerous ways. From customer service to closing a sale, analytics tied to an email address gives businesses more insight into an audience, allowing for better service and better results.

DIGITAL LAGOON CAN HELP

Wanting to jumpstart your email marketing plan? Whether you’re looking for help managing your contact list or writing your monthly newsletter from scratch, Digital Lagoon is able to provide proven expertise with results that match. Get in touch today and let’s begin mapping out your digital strategy.