02 Nov Email Marketing – Crafting Compelling Campaigns That Convert
There are literally hundreds of marketing channels and platforms available for brands and marketers to share, engage and convert: everything from paid ads to influencer marketing, social media and of course email marketing. Email marketing can seem like an outdated strategy, however, the truth is, it remains one of the most important and relevant channels. And, as an owned media channel, it’s one of the cheapest marketing tools that offers a massive return on investment (ROI).
Email marketing produces a Return on Investment of $36 for every dollar spent, which is higher than any other marketing channel. But, with almost every business using email as part of their marketing strategy, it’s more important than ever to craft compelling emails that grab readers’ attention from the get-go.
So, to help you level up your email marketing, we’re sharing our top tips and best practices to help you craft compelling campaigns that convert.
Know Your Audience
Understanding your target audience is essential to crafting compelling email marketing campaigns. Once you’ve nailed your ideal audience’s needs, interests, behaviours and pain points, your emails are more likely to resonate and drive them to take action.
Start by pulling insights from your database and identify any patterns in age, location, purchasing behaviours, and common interests. That way, you can start to craft email campaigns that speak to your audience and address their needs.
This means that you will need to be able to deliver your message just as quickly and efficiently as their audience will scroll by. The best way to do this is by creating content that is easy to consume, such as short videos, infographics, and easily digestible text.
Email Segmentation
Emails aren’t a one-size-fits-all strategy. Your subscribers aren’t all identical, and they may be subscribing to your database for different reasons and will have varying expectations and goals. Understanding your audience and the different groups of people that live on your database allows you to create targeted emails based on demographics, interests, behaviours, purchasing patterns and more. A targeted email marketing strategy is the key to conversions.
Research from Campaign Monitor shows that segmented campaigns can increase revenue by 760% and that 39% of email marketers who email subscribers see open rates jump by 24% and improved sales leads.
There are a few options when it comes to segmenting your email database:
- Geographic segmentation: geographic segmentation separates your subscribers by location, and if you’re in the area of events marketing, then tailoring your content by specific location is especially important. Is someone a local or are they travelling from afar? Customising information including flights, accommodation and things to do can add value to a traveller and help them make a faster decision to attend.
- Audience-based segmentation: If you capture job titles or professions you can tailor the language to meet job function and level of seniority to speak more closely to needs and interests. For example, B2B emails will contain different languages and approaches.
- Content segmentation: tailoring emails based on the reader’s interests or purchasing patterns is especially important when it comes to e-commerce or service-based brands and businesses. You can pull data about your customers, understand the specific products or services they have purchased or website pages they have visited and send targeted emails to boost conversions at different moments in the sales funnel. You can automate some of these functions to capture them right at the moment of decision-making to buy or keep searching.
Personalise Your Emails
Did you know that 9 in 10 people say customers expect organisations to anticipate and know their interests and needs? That’s because we’re living in a digital era of personalisation and businesses are increasingly fighting for consumers’ attention.
Research shows that personalisation makes people feel important and enhances strong relationships between you and your customers. It also increases brand usage and referral behaviour.
One of the best ways to personalise a customer’s experience is through email marketing and personalised email content that actively addresses your customer’s wants, needs and pain points.
And, email personalisation doesn’t just mean personalised subject lines with customers’ first names. A personalised email strategy allows you to create content that captures your audience’s attention, resonates with their needs and seamlessly guides them to move through the purchasing journey.
Some examples of personalised email campaigns include abandoned carts emails, and birthday emails with special offers or product recommendations based on purchase history, opportunities to buy on pre-sale to reward levels of loyalty, customised thank you’s with offers to purchase again or share with a friend or recommending new products or upgrades to continue the buying cycle.
OPTIMISE EMAIL DESIGNS FOR MOBILE
One of the most important parts of email marketing is optimising your email templates and designs for mobile. Most people open emails on smartphones, so accounting for the mobile user experience is especially important in the digital age.
Let’s dive into a few email marketing best practices for mobile optimisation.
- Optimise email design for mobile: test your templates and email designs across different devices and screen sizes to ensure mobile responsiveness.
- Be mindful of character limits: make sure your header and pre-text are between 25-30 characters, instead of the 60 characters for desktop.
- Get to the point: your email copy should be mindful of people reading on phones. Keep your copy concise, to the point and easy to follow by breaking up your information into chunks of text and using dot points where you can to make it easily digestible.
- Optimise your call-to-action (CTA) buttons: when it comes to driving conversions, always ensure your CTA buttons are as easy to find as possible and stand out from the rest of the text. Your buttons should be at least 44 x 44 Pixels for mobile email optimisation and consider repeating the CTA buttons to avoid endless scrolling through text
Harness Automated Emails
One of your secret weapons when creating an email marketing strategy is to lean into the power of automated emails. Automated emails allow you to communicate with the right customers at the right time to personalise their user experience and boost conversions. Businesses that use automated emails see 300% more clicks than just standard promotional emails.
Here are just a few automated email sequences you could incorporate into your email marketing strategy.
- Welcome emails: welcome emails can help you convert new subscribers into paying customers by sending a personalised email and offering a discount or offer that further entices them.
- Birthday emails: another touch of personalisation comes with a birthday gift email that gives your customers a special discount, offer or free product. This strategy also makes them feel like a valued customer.
- Abandoned cart emails: did you know that 7 out of 10 shoppers will abandon their carts? That’s a lot of paying customers you miss out on. So, you’ve got to retarget customers with a little extra push through abandoned cart automation. In fact, research from MailChimp shows that abandoned cart emails produce 34 times more orders than just a standard email alone.
- Repurchase sequence: if you’re an e-commerce business that has access to data about when customers need a refill or re-purchase of their products you can send a reminder email to boost your conversions. Repurchase sequences are a great way to target the right products to the right customers at the right time.
Incorporate CTAs that convert
When it comes to email marketing, CTAs are one of the most important details. CTAs guide readers to take your desired actions, whether that’s purchasing a product, learning more information or clicking on your website.
Here are our email CTA best practices:
- Communicate the benefits: make sure your CTAs are straightforward, to the point and easy to understand. Use phrases that communicate the benefits and rewards of taking your desired actions.
- Use action-oriented language: your CTA buttons should use action-oriented language such as ‘Book Now,’ ‘Learn More’ or ‘Sign Up’ to create urgency and encourage readers to take action.
- Make your CTA buttons pop: since you want readers to take immediate action with your CTA buttons, you’ve got to make them stand out from the rest of the email copy. Our tip is to use contrasting colours within your brand guidelines that grab the attention of readers.
- Avoid using hashtags in emails: Clickable hashtags will send potential buyers away from your email and onto social platforms.
- Single-minded messaging: Keep them engaged with one thought and one CTA per section in your email. Mixing messages and CTAs can cause confusion and mean they will continue to scroll rather than pause to check out your landing page.
Our Wrap
Email marketing remains an essential marketing tool. But, with so many emails being sent every day from brands and businesses, it’s important to create a targeted email strategy that delivers the right message to your target audience.
If you’re missing out on the power of email marketing, Milestone Creative can help you craft compelling emails that convert.
Author: Gabby Kaushansky, 25 October 2023