Email is best known by most as an instant communication tool, email is becoming the most used form of communication within many large companies. Email can be a very powerful tool and a very good method to increase sales and brand awareness, although email marketing campaigns need to be carefully analyzed, click tracking, who opened the mail, did any potential sales evolve because of this mailer? all these queries need to be monitored and utilised upon for future mailings.
If the receiving user purchases any particular item from clicking a link within the email, a footprint will be logged within the analytics software, this showing a customer pattern, for example, Email newsletter received > User clicked a link > Purchased from the main website > Goods arrived. What this string of text shows in analytics, the user purchased an item which was directly related to an email campaign, the marketing campaign work. Next lets think outside the box, if the customer purchased a pair of shorts, the chances are they getting ready for a holiday or maybe sportswear for the gym, from this information and compared with other purchases related to the same e-mail, another marketing campaign could be set up purely for summer items, sportswear etc, advising the customer about holiday / sports related items. SEND, this follow up mailer could result in a returning customer.
Think in the future too, as above this receiving client may of purchased early summer time, could be a seasonal shopper, gather analytical records of who purchased items within the summer months and send seasonal marketing campaigns. Thinking ahead can work wonders and following customer trends is a tool to use for your gain.
Within email marketing campaigns, there will be times when users do not click, purchase or worse unsubscribe from your mailings, from the analytics you will notice if a user clicks or not, do they click and drop out upon arriving onsite? or unsubscribed, if the latter is a high figure then questions needs to be asked why are these people unsubscribing? A Sorry to see you go survey mailer can then be used to gather user related information on why they unsubscribed. Upon receiving the survey replies you can use the information cleverly and correct the issues raised in the replies, unfortunately the customers who have already unsubscribed will not come back. Any further mail to them will just decrease the chance of a returning customer.
If from the analytics the user is clicking the email links, then they never follow through the purchase process, many parameters could be the cause of the drop out, these could include, website structure, navigation is difficult to navigate, items do not fulfill the required needs, the list could go on. Again survey mailings give the customer some interaction with your company and a chance to advise why they didn’t purchase, how they found the whole website or the email campaign.
Gathering the information provided gives the marketing department a story, action the valid points made will pay dividends in future mailings, continue with the surveys and interact with your clients, giving them a feel of trust and value towards you.
Top 10 Tips for a successful Email Marketing Campaign.
01 – Measuring the success – Open rate, Click-through rate, Click to open rate, Bounce rate, Delivery rate, Unsubscribe rate, Referral rate
02 – Personalised mailings improve the responses, try and use your clients first and last name to give your email campaign a personal touch
03 – Subject line needs to be catchy, you have to believe the customer doesn’t use preview pain on their client, the subject line needs to be catchy and enticing, also send from a female
04 – Keep your HTML emails to a certain width, most mail clients open the incoming mail within a preview pain, keep within a 600px wide and you should be fine
05 – Do not over spam your clients, sending many mailings will return a high unsubscribe rate and therefore alienating your clients somewhat, email marketing should be carefully timed and managed
06 – Keep Images and Alt tags to a minimum, many email clients do not automatically download the images. Use text to deliver your message
07 – Relevant, customers like to receive messages that are relevant to what they signed up for
08 – Send a text version to accompany the HTML version, text equivalents can sometimes be less attractive to spam catch alls, a text version can still delivery the high quality content
09 – Test your mailing first to yourself and colleagues. Get it right first time will save embarrassments after is has gone, once it’s gone its gone
10 – Send your mailing and monitor the responses from both your mailing analytics and your website analytics, use this as a story and trend setting, utilise the information and action any points raised
Original article post on my site here http://www.shuffled.co.uk/articles/email-marketing-top-tips/
David Howard
Web: http://www.shuffled.co.uk
Search Engine Optimisation and Website Developments
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