Many organizations use email marketing to connect with customers, suppliers, distributors, and employees.
It’s an incredibly effective marketing channel. Anyone who has ever dealt with a marketing campaign understands that challenges abound. It’s never a one-size-fits-all strategy – customized content is king.
Marketers can upgrade their email marketing strategies to achieve better results. Of course, many of the challenges in successful marketing campaigns can be remedied by smart strategies. It’s often on the receiving end of the spectrum: spam filters, CTRs, open rates, timing, and market saturation.
Let’s look at several vital strategies businesses can adopt to help their email marketing campaigns succeed.
Every email marketing campaign worth its salt understands that the number one challenge in this arena is high spam rates with the receiving email service. This is a Debbie Downer for marketers, but it’s not an insurmountable challenge. This problem arises when marketing emails get sent directly to a receiver’s spam filter. It depends upon various factors, notably the content of the email, the type of email service being used, and how the sender is perceived.
Unbeknownst to many marketing greenhorns, Gmail isn’t the best email marketing service. Sure, it’s free, and people want to know how to send bulk email from Gmail, but there are many downsides. Gmail is largely designed for private email use and is not entirely customizable. Plus, it doesn’t allow for the tailored, professional design that an expert email marketing campaign warrants.
Spam filters have triggers. And they run off algorithms. Your reputation as a marketing professional can be jeopardized by sending unsolicited emails, including ambiguous subject lines or irrelevant material. This can create a long-lasting reputation with recipients because your company may no longer be able to reach them.
Fortunately, there are ways to reduce the likelihood of being labeled as spam. These include audience consent to receive emails from your company and reliable email service providers. Emailing lists should always be checked for active members to reduce bounce rates and maintain a low propensity for tricking spam filters. Importantly, every marketing email message should have a prominent unsubscribe option in the body of the email.
One of the biggest challenges with marketing emails is low open rates. It’s largely a function of the quality of the marketing message. For example, how intriguing, enticing, or engaging is the subject line of the marketing email message? If it doesn’t jump out of the page and captivate the reader’s attention, it’s gone. But it’s much more than that. Often, the best emails go unopened because they are sent at inopportune times.
If email marketing messages go out at the wrong times, they will probably get buried under many other emails and not be opened. Importantly, check the email mailing list for active members. For every problem, there is a solution. In email marketing, the best solutions are personalized solutions. That means adding a human touch to the content. Also, A/B testing of the subject lines gives marketing experts useful information about what type of content resonates.
Artificial intelligence has many powerful applications in marketing. It is great for ideation and presents myriad options for marketing departments. But simple copy/paste mechanics from AI-generated content directing your email marketing strategy is a no-go. Customers have a knack for understanding when computer-generated content is trying to sell to them. Something doesn’t look right about wholly generated AI content. Keep it human to increase conversion rates, CTRs, and open rates.
Customers have high expectations of technology. Automation tools have brought this all into sharp focus. Marketers should work hard at making actionable email content. Quick click functionality that delivers on expectations – that’s the trick. Remember, people don’t like to be redirected from a clickable link to a lengthy online form.
That’s what contributes to high bounce rates. Any redirects to LPs with lengthy forms to fill out are a complete waste of time. One-click functionality simplifies all of this by allowing for the instant transfer of name and email to online forms.
These tips are designed to help email marketing campaigns succeed – they really work!