Email marketing is important for building relationships, generating leads and speaking to customers directly by landing in their inbox. Not only is this convenient for them, but it is a practical and cost-effective way for businesses to reach out to their customer base. Email marketing can also be useful for driving traffic to the company website, improving sales conversions and improving brand awareness.
It’s no wonder then, that email marketing is so popular amongst businesses and that it is such an important part of many of their digital marketing strategies. But as with all technology, email marketing is always evolving and new techniques are always emerging. So in order to keep your strategy as up-to-date and effective as possible, you need to roll with these changes and stay on top of the latest email marketing trends.
That’s why we’ve put together this guide. Below we will look at some of the top email marketing strategies you should be using in 2020 if you hope to continue driving sales and seeing impressive results.
1. Using your emails for feedback
Emails aren’t just about promoting your latest products, there are plenty of other ways you can use your emails to connect with existing and potential customers. For example, you might want to offer discounts, share blog posts or promote events. Another way you can use your emails to your advantage is by sharing and asking for feedback.
When it comes to spending money on products or services, customers love to see reviews and get recommendations from those who have already made a purchase. In fact, 90% of people read online reviews before parting with their cash. As such, you can use emails to share feedback or reviews from past customers. You can do this by including testimonials or comments and perhaps even using a star rating system.
But it doesn’t stop there, you can also use your email marketing to ask for feedback. You could use automated functions to trigger these email requests based on your set criteria. For example, sending feedback requests to customers who have made multiple purchases with your company. Asking for feedback helps you to offer the very best service, creates conversations between you and your customers and shows them that you care about their opinions and are willing to make changes accordingly.
2. Including shoppable content
Have you heard of shoppable content? This technique started with social media posts and offers consumers a direct purchasing opportunity by clicking on the particular Facebook, Twitter or Instagram post they are viewing. Once they’ve clicked on it they are taken to the products original site and it is automatically added to their cart and their payment information presented to them to allow them to finish making the purchase in just a few short moves.
We’re living in a time where people expect results at the click of a button and they like checkout processes to be as quick and easy as possible. Using shoppable content makes the customer journey from advert to purchase so much quicker. And you can apply this to your email marketing strategy too.
Adding shoppable content such as images or links to your emails gives the readers what they want much faster. You are no longer just informing them of products or updates, but instead adding real value to your emails by helping them get what they need much quicker.
3. Creating segmented email lists for your subscribers
As you’re collecting data points on your customers and subscribers, you can use these to create segmented lists that help you to send more personalised emails on a bigger scale. For example, you can band customers together based on their demographics, habits or preferences and target them with the emails that will actually be of interest to them.
If there’s one thing that consumers don’t like it’s being bombarded with irrelevant content. If you do this your emails will end up going straight into the trash folder. More targeted emails make your subscriber feel like you understand who they are and want to offer them advice, products or offers that will be of value to them. This can help your business to build trust and longer-lasting relationships with your customers.
4. Creating engaging and dynamic emails
The days of plaintext emails are long gone. Nowadays we have the opportunity to do so much more with our emails in terms of design and content. Your emails need to reflect your branding, as well as being thoughtful, educational and entertaining if you hope to grab the readers attention. And while it is important that you have interesting and well-written content, images, graphics, colour schemes and design grids also contribute towards getting their attention. It’s also vital that you are using responsive designs since over half the people now open their emails on their mobile devices.
The final and one of the most important things about the design of your email is having a standout call to action that is going to push the reader to take the next. Make sure the wording is simple and clear, perhaps a bright button or bold statement that encourages them to click through and complete the desired action, be that visiting your website, blog or making a purchase.
Ensure your email marketing is GDPR compliant
As you are probably aware there are certain rules and guidelines you must adhere to when sending out marketing emails. So whatever techniques you use, you must make sure you remain GDPR compliant at all times. This is particularly true when doing things like gathering data points so you can make segmented lists and using automated systems to ask for feedback.
If you’re unsure about the rules surrounding email marketing you can check out some of the official advice here. This should help to ensure that you are compliant at every stage of collecting, storing and using personal data and email address.
It’s time to try something new
Are you ready to take your email marketing strategy to the next level? Marketing techniques and trends are always changing, so don’t hesitate! Using some (or all) of the key strategies we’ve outlined above you can revamp your email marketing strategy in 2020 for business success.
