All you need to do to boost your ROI is — make certain that your emails reach your customers’ inboxes. If you have done your homework when setting up your business email, this should be a given. Recent research shows that 90% of emails actually reach customers’ inboxes, as opposed to, say the 2% visibility of Facebook’s newsfeed. However, it is the contents of your messages that will determine whether your future messages will be read, or will be flagged as spam.
Marketing Gone Mobile
More than half of emails are accessed via mobile phones, which is to say that good marketing campaigns need to be mobile-friendly. With the number of new mobile device users rising at a 20 percent rate per annum, we need say no more. Statistics shows that ROI can be boosted considerably if this aspect is given its due share of attention. For example:
- 23 percent of people who access emails on mobile devices revisit them at least one more time
- 70 percent of mobile email readers re-read the messages
- 65 percent of the re-read emails result in a click
- One-third of overall clicks are performed on mobile devices
- Subscriptions are predominantly performed on mobile devices
To summarize, optimizing email marketing campaigns for mobile devices is a must. There are various ways to do it, and don’t be shy to use eye-catching tricks (and treats). Nice design should be coupled with effective subject lines, a concise offer, a call to action and — why not? — a video or some other interactive content.
Email ROI Fundamentals
First of all, the key to email marketing success lies in the customer base. Maintaining the existing and acquiring new contacts should always remain your business’ primary target. As is the case with all marketing strategies, simple statistics will out. The more people see your offer, the greater the chance of a purchase. It’s that simple.
Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than social media, Facebook and Twitter, for example. There’s no mystery here, either: email keeps a business connected with the customers, and it does it on a regular basis. If you use personalized emails and interactive content, conversion rates will easily skyrocket.
All kinds of newsletters, reminders and announcements will keep the customer base focused on your business rather than on the competition. Maintain a personal tone, but always be unintrusive. Personalized messages are the first trick to winning a customer over, as many businesses actually fail to apply this simple piece of wisdom.
However, there are certain things you don’t want to do. One of those is overwhelming the recipients. Reminders are fine and all, but the line between usefulness and spamming is a thin one. There’s a piece of statistics to back the claim up. Scilicet, 78 percent of subscribers unsubscribe from services if emails arrive too often.
Further out, make use of segmentation. It can help you personalize your list, and personalize you must. Simply sending the same email to all those different people out there is not going to boost your ROI (or swell your subscriber list, for that matter). Use segmentation to its full potential to get insights at least on demographics, behavior, location and purchase history. Segmentation campaigns do wonders to a business’ ROI — according to statistics, the “wonders” equal a 760 percent increase in email revenue!
The Stepping Stone: Deliverability and Personalization
We’re sure you’ve heard of deliverability and personalization so many times that your head hurts at the mere mention of them. There’s a good reason why it is so. These two factors are so important when it comes to boosting ROI through email marketing that you’d do well to never overlook them.
Deliverability of a business’ emails is no less important than the actual offer. The more messages reach your customers’ inboxes, the greater the chance of a click-through. If the majority of your emails end up in spam folders, your email marketing campaign is as good as dead.
Knowing that, many companies make a common blunder of using catchy phrases to attract customers’ attention. More often than not, those fall under the so-called spam trigger words. Check out the CAN-SPAM Act to learn which words to avoid, and always include an unsubscribe button at the bottom of each of your messages.
As regards personalization, think in terms of pleasant merchandisers. Make your customers feel special. In case of email marketing, this is fairly easily done. Numerous templates have been invented and polished as to make the cumbersome quest of personalizing myriads of emails as easy as it gets. Common hospitality dictates some etiquette, notably welcome emails — that, and replacing generic welcome messages with customers’ names.
Finally, keep an eye on the AI developments. The trend is on the rise and certain to simplify email marketing on the go. Use automation as much as you can, and let the technology “learn” all it can from the insights. The best combination for a successful email marketing campaign is combining AI-generated insights with human personalization. Et voilà!
