By Cynthia Price, Director of Marketing, Emma
If your inbox is anything like mine this time of year, then you’re constantly being bombarded by a blizzard of amazing deals for the holidays. “50% off!” “Free shipping!” “Buy one, get one!” But when so many offers are rolling in at once, they can become the inbox equivalent of white noise. So what can marketers do to stand out? Here are four ways you can go beyond a simple discount to make sure your email shines brightest as we near the final countdown this holiday season.
Advertisement
Utilize Smart Automation
Writing content, designing compelling imagery, analyzing data … your day-to-day marketing tasks are all hard work. By utilizing email automation, you buy yourself more precious time to check those items off your to-do list.
Set up automation workflows that welcome new subscribers after they sign up for your email list. Thank them after a purchase, and continue to engage them, even after the holidays are long past. Nurturing first-time buyers with a welcome series is 86 percent more effective at driving engagement than simply enrolling a new customer in an email newsletter.
There’s really no reason not to use email automation – especially since automated emails perform really, really well. On average, automated emails have open rates more than 70 percent higher than others. And click rates? They’re 152 percent better on average. So let automation do all your heavy lifting, and start seeing some seriously impressive results.
Optimize For Mobile Users
Did you know that 53 percent of all email is now opened on a mobile device? It’s a startling statistic, and it signals something important to remember this holiday season: mobile optimization is no longer an option for marketers. It’s a must. Consumers demand the same level of performance on their smartphones and tablets as they do on their desktops. Unfortunately, 52 percent of B2C brands still lack email campaigns or websites optimized for mobile devices.
Thankfully, there are lots of things you can do to make your emails more mobile friendly. Stick with a streamlined, single-column layout to ensure your email looks good on any device. Keep your text large, dark and easy-to-read. And make your CTAs the star of the show – it’s hard to notice and tap a text link on a smartphone, so stick with eye-catching buttons that are at least the size of the human fingertip (44 px squared).
Align Content With Customer Behavior
Personalized emails generate 18 times more revenue for companies than generalized campaigns, so the more targeted the content, the better.
Be sure to leverage customer data – whether that’s geographic location, age, gender, you name it – to develop personas and segments that inform your email content strategy. Every piece of data you have on a customer can help improve your understanding of them, as well as other shoppers like them. And the thing is, today’s consumers expect you to know what they like and deliver content that reflects it.
Targeting email content based on a customer’s behavior keeps them engaged and in the sales funnel even when a purchase may not be likely right away.
For example, after a customer buys a power tool, deliver him or her content that discusses different project ideas. This behavioral content builds a relationship with the customer and pushes them closer to a second purchase.
Test Everything, All The Time
Whether it’s your subject lines, CTAs or even the content within the email itself, marketers must always analyze successes and failures of their campaigns. Staying on top of campaign performance provides instant insights into audiences’ preferences. Think about every element of an email and consider which metric should be used to gauge its success.
For example, emails that aren’t being opened at all likely have poor subject lines or aren’t being sent at the optimal time. Emails with significant click-through rates that don’t produce conversions may not be leading to the right site content. By analyzing performance data, your email marketing campaigns can constantly evolve to reach customers more effectively.
So don’t just send a killer discount and think your work is done. Delivering the best content is absolutely critical moving forward – especially during these last days, when the holiday competition is fiercer than ever. The right email marketing campaign, optimized for mobile and armed with the very best, data-backed content, can set any brand apart.
