Email marketing is known to be one of the most affordable yet most lucrative marketing methodologies. Whether brands practice it or not, nobody can deny that it can create all of the conditions that will keep their name on top of their audience’s mind.
Here’s why:
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With such a fantastic ROI, and given the fact that email marketing creates an open dialogue between the prospect and the brand, it’s no wonder that marketers invest more and more in this marketing channel. Even more so after the pandemic shaped shopping habits and changed the way customers view a brand’s marketing efforts.
But much like every marketing channel, email marketing has its own trends and strategies, especially in the not-so-post-COVID era.
So, what are those strategies that could create a seamless experience for your brand and take your audience from brick-and-mortar to fully digital with zero friction?
First of all: Build your email list
There is nothing you can do with email marketing without an email list that you’ve created by interacting with your audience. A healthy and pristine email list should be a top priority for anyone interested in email marketing.
Now, many things go into building an email list from scratch, and attention-grabbing incentives are among them. Pop-ups and landing pages that describe the content your audience should expect, along with an offer, a discount, or some extra benefits for subscribers, could do the trick and generate leads for your brand.
Create a pop-up with an offer your prospects won’t refuse. Use formats with gamification elements, like a spin-the-wheel or a scratch or puzzle on your landing page or subscription form.
In any case, make sure to attract interested prospects and leads, and be clear about the content you are going to send—even better, ask them to choose what content they’d love to see, like so:
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This step minimizes the chances of your email being marked as spam, which could harm your sender reputation.
Pristine email deliverability rates
Email deliverability is quite a complex issue, with more than most email marketers being perplexed on what goes into perfect deliverability scores.
Here are the main factors that affect email deliverability, according to Moosend:
Getting your email delivered in the recipient’s inbox comes down to your ESP and how easy it is for the email marketing and marketing automation platform you use to give you robust tools and options that will help you segment and personalize perfectly – but more on that in a minute.
So, deliverability ensures that your email lands into a prospect’s inbox every time. This means that your recipients are always interested in what you’ve got to say. Which means they are more likely to open and click through your content.
Generally speaking, relevant content, a clear unsubscribe procedure, and email templates that are optimized for all devices and have no broken elements can boost your deliverability rates. As a matter of fact, they’re just as important as picking an email marketing tool that can guarantee a good deliverability rate overall.
And, of course, building your own email list and not buying one is crucial to your deliverability rates, as it means that you’ll only be “talking” to interested prospects.
Hyper-personalization and laser-focused segmentation
According to Forbes, you should “Check your segmentation before sending any email to ensure optimal engagement“. This is especially true if we take the number of emails sent every day into account:
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With this volume, you will need to stand out. And nothing stands out better than content that is personalized and sent out to just the right segment.
Your marketing message will go amiss if it doesn’t look like something the recipient needs or already has in mind. Investing in robust email marketing tools powered by AI and machine learning is detrimental to your email marketing strategy. Such tools can distinguish small patterns that humans would most likely miss and create hyper-personalized content corresponding to each segment.
Make sure to take a good look at your data and analytics, your recipients’ shopping habits, or even utilize surveys and quizzes on your social media. That will reveal the behaviors you’re after and allow you to send emails that are targeted and stem from a specific thought pattern.
Hyper-personalization that goes beyond a simple “Hello, John” and uses dynamic content that changes according to each recipient is just what your email marketing campaigns need.
Visual content
All marketers know that perfect visuals always win:
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The statistic above proves why marketing tools that offer the option of email templates, easy built-in email editors that can support formats such as video marketing are always sought after by marketers. These elements attract a user’s attention and usually stand out in a full inbox.
Oh, and perhaps you need to see this, too:
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These statistics show just how important visual content is, especially if you’re promoting a new procedure or product. Videos, especially explainer videos or testimonial videos, are ideal show-stoppers and can make your emails pop with useful content that your users will spend some time on.
This matters for your deliverability rates as well, seeing as email content that’s shared around is considered to be valuable. And we all know how easy it is for visuals – especially video – to go viral.
The takeaway
As we’re trying to bounce back from a pandemic that changed shopping habits and created a dire need for brick-and-mortar stores to create seamless online shopping experiences, email marketing has grown and evolved.
Luckily, email marketing is an ever-changing, highly versatile tool that can help with all strategies, from sharing offers with your audience to keeping in touch and distributing PR content that helps with promoting your marketing actions.
You just need to know how to use it.
