The Guiding Principles of Successful Email Marketing

Email Marketing

Email remains
one of the most effective ways to reach customers in the world of marketing. When done appropriately, it can yield significant results for marketers by turning prospects into buying customers. Here are some of the principles that marketers can keep in mind as they venture into email marketing campaigns.

Personalisation

Email personalisation can increase the effectiveness of the message as it helps to build a one-on-one relationship with the customer. When prospects are addressed by name, it captures their attention and makes them responsive to the message. Brands cannot expect a one size fit all approach to appeal to everyone as people have different tastes and preferences. By segmenting the audience you can tailor your marketing efforts to their needs.

A study has shown that 82% of marketers believe that personalisation in email marketing helps to drive open rates, and 75% say it produces higher click-through rates. These numbers highlight that personalisation is at the heart of successful email marketing campaigns in the experience economy, where businesses must not only appeal to the customer’s wallet but their senses as well.

Knowing your target audience

To be successful in any form of marketing, you need to know your target audience.  This principle also applies in email marketing. Customers are getting inundated with emails from marketers trying to sell them products and services that they don’t need. The last thing you need is to be adding to the noise and spamming their inbox.

Take time to research and learn about your target audience as it would give you an understanding of customer’s expectations. Clearly communicate your unique selling proposition and you will have customers flocking to your business. Instead of obsessing over your product or service, you need to put yourself in customer’s shoes to know what motivates their behaviour to purchase.

Call to action

After all is said and done, you want people to take some form of action and begin the
customer journey.  Marketers cannot assume that just by going through the email, customers will know what to do next. A call to action should be taken as a signpost that pinpoints the customer to the next step of the sales process.

One of the proven techniques in email marketing is to add a sense of urgency in your call to action.  This will get people acting immediately. Simplicity is also the best approach here as you don’t want to make the whole process complicated and daunting.

Email design

In email marketing, a well-crafted message must also be well presented. As much as it is about the message, presentation is everything. With customers receiving emails from marketers trying to solicit their attention, how can brands motivate recipients to open their emails?

According to NeverBounce, well-balanced designs must be easy on the eye in such a manner that images and
texts are not overwhelming. If the text and images are neatly organised, they will make the whole email look clear and well organized. This is where email marketing software gets to play a critical role in  helping marketers  to align imagery, font, and copy to match the message .

Reasonable frequency

Digital marketers must be strategic and thoughtful about the frequency of promotional emails. No subscriber wants to feel bombarded by endless promotional material. At the same time being too infrequent can lead to a disengaged target audience.

So how do marketers strike the right balance? According to the Campaign Monitor website, one of the best ways to establish a good frequency is to give the subscribers the option to choose how often they would like to receive your emails. This approach seems reasonable as people have different preferences. Writing for Entrepreneur, Renzo Costarella says learning from the competition and fully understanding the product that’s being offered to the customer can help marketers determine the right frequency.

Final thoughts

There is no doubt that email remains one of the best communication mediums that marketers can leverage to promote businesses. Being successful in this type of marketing is not an overnight process as it requires marketers to try different approaches until they find the right recipe for success. High performing email campaigns are a combination of good content supported by great visuals that can inspire prospects to open your email.

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