One of the most important branches of the digital marketing tree would be the humble email. Over the years, it has evolved into a useful tool that can be used to hyper-target the right audience. Here's the why and how behind this genre.
Email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy for sending emails to prospects and customers. Effective marketing emails convert prospects into customers and turn one-time buyers into loyal, raving fans...
... but you already knew that. So, what's the point of us trying to convince you that email marketing is cool? Well, it is but... let's kick it up a notch. If millions of businesses are sticking to a single formula of marketing, the methods become over-saturated and lose their ability to work.
What Is Email Marketing For Business?
What Are The Best Email Distribution Systems I Can Use?
Why Do Emails Land In Spam?
10 Strategies To Build Your Email List
Personalised Emails Are Important
Super Targeted Emails And Segmentation Strategies
The use of email within your marketing efforts to promote a business's products and services, as well as incentivise customer loyalty. Email marketing is a form of marketing that can make the customers on your email list aware of new products, discounts, and other services.
But we do things a bit differently. Instead of spamming audiences Velocity Media has refined and defined so many sectors of high-concentrated audiences that we are able to market and sell specific products to the users who are in need of those products. Everything from selling jet fuel to courier fleet managers to harbouring leads for South Africa's top fast food joints, we've managed to perfect our audiences. It is important that you grow and nurture a base for your business.
B2C marketers are hard to find and are few and far between. But there is a solution to all of this. B2C Marketing automation gives you the power to know that your customers will receive personalised emails without you having to grind down and do the work. Yup, it's possible and we will not only tell you how to do it, but which tools to use.
But that's not where automation ends, the sky's the limit! From personalised SMS reminders and cart abandonment emails to multi-channel campaigns that span social media and in-app messaging, B2C marketing automation can knock it all out of the park. It's all about saving time, money, and resources.
Writing the subject lines for your emails can be one of the most stressful steps of email marketing. Is it engaging? Too short? Too long? Too boring? Will people click 'delete' because of it? Or will they open it? Will it even get to them, or will it trigger SPAM filters?
SPAM filters can be triggered for a variety of reasons, causing your email to skip recipients' inboxes and land straight in their SPAM box. One of the easiest ways to avoid SPAM filters is by carefully choosing the words you use in your email's subject line. Trigger words are known to cause problems and increase the chances of your email getting caught in a SPAM trap. By avoiding these words in your email subject lines, you can dramatically increase your chances of getting beyond SPAM filters.
Focusing on customer retention is a valuable long-term solution for increased revenue and sustainable growth, but it’s not always easy to cultivate that kind of loyalty. And there are top brands who do this incredibly well.
One of the ways Netflix, Spotify, and Woolworths cultivate customer loyalty is through valuable content. While there are many ways to do this, email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to reach your target audience. But with that said, we should also take into consideration that there are a lot of companies and entities out there who are doing email marketing dirty. Be it through unprofessional, badly designed mail, or simply spamming their contact list with purposeless information, there are a million ways to miss the mark with email marketing.
Personalisation is essential to marketing practices because people want to be seen as individuals. How can you do that when marketing to hundreds of people? Personalised emails stand out within the inbox as highly relevant, tailor-made material. Personalised emails make an email more likely to be opened and clicked on.
There are eight bullet points that need to be hit to ensure that you've covered all the personalisation avenues when it comes to sending out your personalised campaigns.
If you want to improve your email open rates, boost CTR, and reduce unsubscribe rates, a set of effective email segmentation strategies can easily bring your desired results.
At the risk of confusion, let's break this down into its parts, shall we?
Geo-targeting: If you run a local boutique with healthy e-commerce sales, you want to be sure you’re targeting local and online customers differently. The easiest way to do this is by asking for a zip code during sign-up! If you have a larger presence, including a Store Locator at the bottom of your mailings is a great way to drive customers in-store—like the sale email from Steve Madden below.
Demographics: Women and men shop differently! I’m pretty sure men only shop on Amazon or in stores, whereas many women (me) have a fledgling online shopping problem. Different age groups also have varying shopping habits; a student is more likely to look for sample sales and clearance than a working professional in their 40s who can afford that full-priced handbag. If you are catering to a variety of shoppers, segment to target these customers creatively—and learn more about your most loyal shoppers to develop your brand.
Don’t be desperate: segmentation helps with your reputation! By avoiding “Batch and Blast,” your customers are more likely to open your emails and less likely to ignore mailings or mark them as SPAM. Very basic segmentation can go a long way.
Here are some basic segmentations to consider with targeted email marketing:
Customers vs. Prospects: Once you have ushered a prospect through the marketing funnel and they complete their first purchase, you have reached a new level of your relationship. They like you! Show your appreciation for your customers with a nice Thank You email, and remember not to harass them out of your life. If they have purchased before, they are more likely to purchase again. Similarly, prospects haven’t committed to you yet—don’t get ahead of yourself and start planning the wedding. By separating these two groups, you can learn more about your audience and who is worth your time and effort to put a ring on it.
Recency: When do you consider a customer to be active or inactive? Many B2C “fast fashion” retailers seem to have customers with shorter life spans, whereas B2B trends toward the longer end. Dependent on how often a customer receives a mailing and engages determines when you can send them a sweet “We miss you!” message to avoid losing them altogether.