Is email marketing dead?

Is the rise of social media making it die a slow death?

What are the odds that email marketing will eventually triumph?

The guesswork is reduced by referring to email marketing statistics and understanding why it still works despite the rise of other more popular mediums of communication:

  • Apart from calling and texting, checking emails is one of the most popular uses for smartphones. source
  • We send about 74 trillion emails every year. source
  • Email marketing is 40 times better at getting customers and is 3 times more likely to result in conversion as compared to social media. source
  • Email exchanges are expected to grow 3% annually and reaching 246 billion by the end of 2019. source
  • Emails generate 50% more sales. source
  • Successful email marketing campaigns are thriving increasingly on personalization to drive increased ROI and customer engagement. source
  • 95% of people who sign up for a newsletter from a recognized brand find email useful. source

In a nutshell, email marketing can effectively increase sales, leads, website traffic, brand awareness and loyalty, and build relationships with their target audience. This says a lot!

Sending the best emails to recipients that convert is no rocket science as demonstrated by email marketing ninjas. Here are some quick pointers that’ll help you step into their shoes and up your email marketing game!

Build an Impressive Email List

Building an email list is a smart approach and sending emails is the smarter way as opposed to sending cold emails blindly.

Some tried-and-tested ways to build an impressive email list (that work better than unsolicited emails) include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Collect email addresses by having customer fill a form on your blog or website.
  • Subscription lists (to your newsletter or blog) is another given.
  • Freebies like samples, tutorial videos, training courses, eBooks, how-to guides, and infographics can also be great for collecting emails.
  • Offer users “newsletter or survey only” discounts.
  • Use a fishbowl in your retail store, at the reception desk or at the counter at an exhibition asking people to drop their business cards. Use the contact information for a monthly or weekly giveaway.
  • Use the Twitter lead generation card.
  • Place a CTA button on your social media accounts at every opportunity.

Don’t Neglect the Subject Line

How many emails are too many? Given the fact that the average email user receives about 121 emails on a daily basis, marketers need to cut through the noise and rise above the competition as emails may be first or the only point of contact between various marketers and their target audience. Without an attention-grabbing subject line, all your efforts will be futile.

The subject line can make or break your first impression on the readers. A powerful subject line will egg them on to open the email and read it instead of directly sending it to the spam folder or hitting Delete.

Here’s how you can craft the best subject lines that make recipients want to read the email:

  • Keep them succinct and to-the-point.
  • Ensure that they carry a message that piques recipients’ interest.
  • Never use capital letters in the subject lines.
  • Use powerful words such as invitation, we, you, update, introducing, events, offer, and so on.
  • A/B testing can work wonders to find out which subject lines can bring you the results.
  • Make it fun for your readers so that they are compelled to open the email.

Keep Track of Your Competitors

As important as it is for you to craft compelling emails that convert, you also need to be aware of your competitors’ moves.

Sign up for their email newsletters or subscribe to their blog and study the emails they send to your inbox – what are the subject lines, the different formats, the length of the email, et al. But most importantly, focus on how you can one up them with even better email communication.

This brings us to our next point.

Learn from the Best

Apart from keeping track of your competitors’ activities, you need to make it a point to learn from the best.

Know what are they doing differently and how you can create winning email marketing strategies.

Look at this stunning email from Grammarly and you’ll know what we’re talking about!

 Personalize the Copy

If you want to increase the opening and reading rate of the emails, try personalizing them. It begins with including recipients’ names and crafting a message that appeals to them.

A thorough research about what your target audience needs to know or hear based on their gender, job and interests, should do the trick.

Include customized offers, announce services that will appeal to them, curate content in the newsletter that they’d like to know more about, and so on.

Wondering how to get your personalized emails right? Take a look at Burberry’s personalized email campaign, where it let recipients create a custom scarf.

Make It Interactive

 Interactive emails make the battle half won. In fact, emails with audio, video, animation, and image-savvy content generate high response rates.

The best part of these emails is that you can be as creative as you want to and needn’t follow any specific format. All you need to do is present your message in the right manner.

Think quizzes, assessments, and thought-provoking videos, which are sure to increase response rates.

Rely on Change Management

Adopting change management can amplify your email marketing efforts.

Some ways to incorporate it in your strategy includes:

  • Creating a sense of urgency.
  • Collaborating with people who can help bring about the change.
  • Knowing how making the change can help you connect with your target audience.
  • Identifying and removing obstacles and using the changes to take the next step.
  • Documenting and communicating the changes in your organization.

Learning the ropes of change management is, therefore, a prerequisite and should not be an afterthought. With this step, you can be sure of having a truly invincible email marketing strategy!

Conclusion

To sum up, email marketing ninjas don’t do anything out of the blue. They just strive to achieve the most by creating more opportunities. By including the above tips in your email marketing strategy, you’ll be able to delight subscribers with engaging email content that helps improve your bottom line. Just remember, in the end, it’s all about pushing the envelope. 

About the Author: Avinash Nair is a digital marketer at E2M, India’s premium content marketing agency. He specializes in Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing Marketing. You can find him on Twitter: @AviNair52