Six strategies for successful email marketing in 2013
24 Jan 2013
This week I ran a webinar on six strategies for successful email in 2013, thanks to all who attended. In case you missed it here’s a blog with the key takeaways or, if you prefer, you can click the button above and view the webinar in full.
Email is still king!
- 77% prefer to receive permission-based promotions via email
- Only 6% preferring these messages via social media
- ROI of 3000% achieved through email in 2012
- With a great strategy you can expect this to grow into 2013
1) Realise the importance of good data
Marketers shouldn’t ignore the implications for sending to old or non opted in data. Spamhaus monitor senders and have the ability to block IPs with ISPs so remember your sender reputation is your responsibility. Therefore you need to be savvy. You can do this by getting a list health check up, growing your data organically, making your sign up process accessible, encouraging email sign up via social and creating re-engagement campaigns.
2) Compliment email strategies with SMS
Use email to tell the story and SMS for a quick reminder. 90% of SMS are read in the first 15 minutes of being received. SMS creates timed intimacy and immediacy.
3) Optimise for mobile
We all know optimising email for mobile is becoming increasingly important so be clever with what you’re doing; target recipients with the right content in the right place and the right time. Customers transacting on mobile grew from 19% in 2011 to 34% in 2012 but remember not to alienate your desktop users – ensure your emails render on both. If you have the budget you can do this by using responsive design templates, if not then follow these three pointers:
- Make sure its 300 - 400px wide
- Make the text larger so it is easily readable, e.g. min 12px Arial
- Make the images smaller in file size
This is a great example from Greggs, not only does it render perfectly on a mobile device, it is also targeted. Greggs know what busy commuters will be doing at 7.30am in the morning so if this email drops into their inbox then it’s perfect conversion timing.
4) Measure success – long and short term goals
It may sound obvious but are you measuring what you’re doing? Short term goals are things like clicks, opens, open outs and conversions which the chances are you’re measuring on a regular basis. But also consider long term goals such as subscriber lifetime value, engagement, referrals and how viral your campaigns are.
5) Merging online and offline channels
Consider how your offline and online channels could complement each other. Digital makes up 30% of the Financial Times’ total revenue so ensuring that the two channels are merging is really important to them. If you’re a retailer then why not capture data instore? This purchase history could then feed through to your email campaigns.
6) Integrate email and social
Integrating email & social is such an important and achievable aspect, get creative with it, don’t just add social share links to the top or base of your email as it’s unlikely anyone will share your whole email, so just add social share links to individual content pieces.
Here’s an example of what innocent do is encourage social share with an instruction of what they want you to share, it’s obviously great content as they are fantastic at this, but just by asking and telling your recipients what to share is extremely powerful, you’ll find recipients like being told what to do!
innocent also get their recipients hooked into their social channels straight away, they take advantage of the welcome email – when people sign up to your brand they are the most engaged you are likely to ever get them with you. Send out that instant welcome email, then get them to check you out on Facebook and Twitter, they are far more likely to do this on sign up as your brand is fresh in their mind.
You should also be capturing data through social – speak to your ESP about creating a sign up form on Facebook that posts data straight into your newsletter list that can trigger the welcome email.
Jade is Account Director at Pure360. She has been working with Pure360 since 2009 looking after our lovely clients. Before that she was working with Heart Radio. Follow her on Twitter @jadeytan
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