When it comes to creating an effective marketing strategy there really is a lot to consider, especially in the digital space.
From social media and Google Adwords to banner advertising and more, there are many channels to choose from and many ways of building brand awareness, developing leads or driving sales.
But there is one marketing channel that, although it’s been around for decades, is often overlooked yet still delivers incredibly positive results.
And that channel is email marketing…
A simple ‘stat attack’ shows the following illuminating facts:
- 40% of B2B marketers say email marketing remains the most crucial of all their channels
- 73% of Millennials claim their preferred method of receiving business or marketing communications is email
- And most staggeringly, 99% of consumers check their email every day and claim this to be their preferred way to receive communications
Given the above, let’s explore the benefits of email marketing!
Building connections through Personalised Content
Building long-term connection with your customers through personalized email communication can really help to build return sales, onward referrals and better overall engagement with your brand.
Personalising emails can mean something as simple as using a person’s actual name in the opening greeting, but also using specific content – whether information, offers, images, or links – according to who you’re sending the emails to.
A new customer, for example, may want to receive different information than a returning customer. Or customers in certain regions may need different offers depending on the season.
Knowing what to send, who to send it to and when to send it can really help build that personalized touch. Be sure to segment your audiences and know the optimal time and frequency to send them email communications to get the best open, read and clickthrough rates.
Improving your service through regular surveys
If you have a decent-sized database of customers who have opted in to receive email communications from you, that means they’re already interested in engaging with your brand. You should use this opportunity to ask them how you can improve, what they like or don’t like, what they’d like to see more of and how you can improve your customer experience.
With the return data you’ll also be able to begin to segment your truly loyal fans from the mid- and lower-engaged customers. That way you’ll know who you need to work harder on converting to true brand ambassadors!
Driving Sales
Here again are some pretty straightforward statistics to show the value of email campaigns to drive sales – 59% of marketers get the best ROI from well-constructed email bursts, and those who segment their campaigns see as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
No matter whether you’re encouraging the first purchase, inspiring further purchases using a loyalty discount or reminding customers to return to their cart if they haven’t yet completed the transaction, using a well-timed, well-targeted email campaign will bring positive sales results.
Building audiences across the board
As a digitally savvy business owner, you’ll have a range of digital touchpoints where you can communicate with your customers, build your brand awareness, engage with prospective customers and generally raise the bar of customer experience.
Email campaigns can help you drive traffic to these various touchpoints – whether it’s to a specific page on your website, or a promotion to build your Facebook followers, having a clear Call to Action in your email campaign can help boost success.
Cost-effective broad, segmented reach
Email campaigns done right offer you the chance to reach large audiences, or specific segments of your audience quickly, easily and cost effectively. Campaigns don’t take long to produce, can be templated for future time-saving, and most bulk email tools such as MailChimp offer loads of technical support to help you track send, open, read and click-through rates, amongst other key metrics.
Owning your audience
One of the key, but most overlooked aspects of value that email campaigns bring to business owners is ownership… instead of leveraging the audiences of Facebook or Google, which although vast are anonymous to you, with email databases that you build over time, you own that data, giving you the upper hand in creating the personalized communication that differentiates these campaigns from those on paid media.
In summary, email marketing has been around for decades for a really good reason – it’s quick, simple, effective and easy and there are plenty of systems and tools to help you create campaigns that can really stand out, drive new audiences and sales, and build your reputation as a business that knows how to talk to its customers.
To find out more about setting up and running email marketing campaigns contact the team at Realnet today on 01223 550800 or info@realnet.co.uk.