Marketers have a direct, impactful way to engage their target audience, but there are many ways to fall short on e-marketing open, click and conversion rates.
How important is email marketing? Despite a recent doubter trend, the numbers confirm that it’s still a powerful, direct-to-audience tool. After all, 99% of consumers check email every day with it being by far the preferred way to receive updates from brands, reports Hubspot, and 73% of Millennials hold email as the preferred mode of communication from businesses. Two out of every five B2B marketers say e-newsletters are “most critical” to their content marketing.
With that said, how important is it to get email marketing right? Let us count the ways… companies get it wrong.
Not Defining the Goal or What Success Looks Like
To be impactful with e-marketing, you must first be intentional. Companies should have a clear picture of what they want to achieve or the “why” of the email, according to Search Engine Journal. Sending out an e-blast meant to drive audience interaction warrants different email copy, call to action and other components than one meant to get leads. Know the end goal and plan backward so that your marketing funnel is as streamlined as possible.
You can't really know where you are going until you know where you’ve been, it’s been said, and the wisdom applies to e-marketing as well. We must measure past performance, i.e., evaluate the road traveled, to be able to chart the best course ahead. From click-through to conversion rates and unsubscribes to unique opens, there are many metrics by which to measure success. E-newsletters have different objectives and thus different key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure that success. For example, the success metric of a welcome email would be open, not conversion, rate.
Not Knowing Your Audience
Knowing whom you’re targeting with your messaging is a basic principle of communications. But what does it mean exactly for e-marketing? Whether decision-makers, influencers or others, write for the target persona with whom you want to maximize engagement.
And know that your e-marketing audience doesn’t always want to be sold. Sending only sales-focused emails is “considered a huge mistake for email marketers, especially when you’ve just started,” according to Search Engine Journal. People want to be welcomed, interested, educated and more before they see a sales pitch. Remember the marketing and sales funnel progression — a like feeling comes well ahead of a buying commitment — and know that overselling could result in lost subscribers or low engagement.
Not Getting Interactive
Compelling copy is a must in your e-newsletter, but the offering needs much more. Personalization, participatory elements (e.g., quizzes, surveys and polls) and a prominent call to action (CTA) will help boost interactions, which include opens, clicks, replying or forwarding, and signing up for a webinar. Search Engine Journal emphasizes the importance of conversational, personalized CTAs, which, according to HubSpot, convert 202% better than basic ones.
“It sounds simple, but marketers want action, and email marketing is a great, direct way to do it,” said Amy Norton, infinitee’s Director, Strategy & Accounts. “But to get to the ultimate desired action of increased conversions, brands need to commit to interaction, which brings greater engagement, boosted metrics and enhanced brand awareness and customer loyalty. We are here to help.”
