There are multiple factors that are decisive to be successful in an email marketing campaign but all can be summarized in ten basic points, according to Splio, specialist in email marketing. Although some may seem very obvious, many companies do not comply and their email marketing strategies do not become 100% effective or directly fail.
In addition, the changing reality in terms of technology and user habits requires us to be constantly adapting, and this task is much easier if these ten commandments of email marketing are very clear:
Do not send emails to people who do not expect them
The first question you should ask yourself before preparing any email marketing campaign is: does the recipient really expect or want to receive my email?
The objective is not to send without order or concert, but to focus on those who are interested in your services or products. Control your capturing operations, especially those you hire via a lead generation agency and make sure that you are providing the desired quality of leads. A person may give you their authorization to receive your emails, but in reality they do not want or are not interested, and therefore it is a lead that is not worth you at all.
And, above all, do not buy or rent databases. It is a bad practice that will only bring you problems.
Keep your database clean and healthy
The database is the cornerstone of your email marketing, so take care of it to the fullest. A person who no longer wants to receive your emails, is not interested in having it in your base (remember rule number 1), so do not complicate your life to unsubscribe.
Place a very visible low link at the top of your emails and unsubscribe all recipients who complain about spam. And make sure that the email marketing platform you work with has “Feedbackloop” agreements with the main ISPs and webmails.
It cleans the Hardbounces and excludes the inactive from all shipments (to which you can send special reactivation campaigns), to maintain a database in perfect condition and active, which is what really matters.
Treat your users as customers and not as simple email addresses
Think about the relationship you want to maintain with your customers and choose the right tone to talk to them in your emails. Personalize emails so that the relationship is closer, and “listen” what users want to tell you. For this it is essential to configure a reply-to address and try to read and respond to the emails sent to you.
Also try to add value to your users, not just bombard them with promotional offers.
Always identify yourself clearly
Sender’s name, senders, logos, images, links, … customers have to recognize you the first time! Identifying yourself clearly will make them establish a relationship of trust with you and make you more faithful. And if this were not enough, your emails will arrive better if they are well identified. Hiding is a practice of spammers and it is easier for the ISP to block you.
In this process, your email marketing provider will be your great ally, helping you is part of your job!
Constantly monitor the results of your campaigns
A database changes continuously, and therefore you must quickly identify these changes and adapt your strategy. Analyze and understand the statistics provided by email marketing platforms such as EmailForge, will allow you to anticipate the needs of your users and that your email marketing continues to be effective.
For this, it is essential that your email marketing provider help you get the most out of this information and collaborate with you in improving your strategy.
Analyze the behavior of your BBDD and adapt your strategy
The first task is segmentation: use all the data you have about your customers to segment your database in homogeneous groups that share buying habits and perceive your brand in a similar way. Mass emailing has died, so you have to adapt your speech to each segment and customize your campaigns.
Also, perform A / B tests to better understand the recipients of your campaigns. You can test issues, shipping hours, content, etc. to adapt to the maximum what they expect from you.
Finally, filter the inactive and dedicate special campaigns to understand why they have stopped opening your emails and try to arouse their interest again.
Take care of the design of your email
The visual identity is very important to reinforce your message and build trust. Identify the hot zones of your messages and place there the “call to action”, buttons and links that you want your recipients to click on.
On the other hand, do not neglect the html, since the layout of your message is fundamental. Test your email in all mail clients, webmail and mobile devices to make sure that all your recipients will see your message correctly. Also optimizes the HTML code to prevent it from diverting your email to Spam.
Another good practice to avoid being delivered as spam, is to maintain the balance between images and text, since emails containing only images are not seen without the images activated, and text-only emails are boring.
Once again, expert advice from your provider will be very useful.
Innovate, surprise and try not to bore
If your opening and clicking ratios go down, it is very likely because your recipients have become bored or because your messages disappoint them. You have to know how to capture and maintain the attention of your users and for that the secret is to surprise them. So much the subjects, like the design, the hour of shipment, the type of emails, the offers … you can and you must experiment with almost any element of your emails, to impact the users.
A matter always constructed in the same way, even if it is good, ends up losing its impact. Here is an example: When company X sent by mistake an email with the subject Email day 16 instead of the usual offer of the day with 15% discount, it obtained much higher opening rates, although the matter was much less attractive. Simply that being different, aroused the curiosity of the recipient.
Think mobile
Internet consumption habits are constantly evolving. We are moving from mono support (the PC of all life) to multi support (PC, Mobile, Tablet, SmartTV, Apps etc.). This makes email marketing evolve and become increasingly complex.
Your communications have to adapt to this new environment since at least 30% of your recipients will open your email on their mobile. So sending a simple HTML is no longer enough if you want 100% of your recipients to see you.
The responsive email design can help you to adapt your message according to the support each recipient uses to open it.
Work with a reliable and professional technology partner
The work of your email marketing provider is not limited to facilitating the sending tool, but it should inform you and advise you to grow your email marketing strategy.
Make sure, in addition, that the email marketing platform that you use respects all the good technical practices (agreements of feedbackloop, detection and automatic cleaning of the Hardbounces, technical identification of the emails, etc.), which will directly affect your shipments.
Being successful in email marketing is a long and continuous process, and is the result of a close collaboration with your provider, so if there is no dialogue or does not help you with every question you have, change it!