Why is an email address one of the most valuable customer details? One word; access. Having an email address means you are able to address the customer directly, straight into their inbox. But not only is email marketing a method which doesn’t rely on platform giants like Google or Facebook, it is also incredibly economical, and a time-tested way of boosting brand awareness, driving revenue and encouraging loyalty.
[DID YOU KNOW?] It is estimated that more than 280 billion emails are sent every single day?
What is email marketing?
On a basic level, email marketing is the use of email as a way to promote your business. Essentially, every time you receive that 10% off email from a hardware store that you were in a few months back, that’s email marketing.
Sound familiar? It should. Being one of the most ubiquitous forms of marketing, it is used by around 50% of all B2B marketers as a vital part of their overall marketing mix.
Email marketing allows you to design, construct and send out a custom digital letter to your mailing list, with the full array of personalisation that is available to you. Customise the envelope, header, messaging, graphics and even the sign off to the individual tastes of your users in order to drive user engagement with your existing customers, and inspire new ones.
Our Melbourne agency works with a number of leading email marketing platforms, including:
Transparency is another huge benefit of an email marketing campaign, and the ability to observe, test and improve your open rates, engagement and brand awareness can prove invaluable to your business. After all; that which is measured, improves.
Talk to us about your next project!#1 Gmail 38%
#2 Apple iPhone 30%
#3 Apple Mail 9%
#4 Outlook 8%
#5 Yahoo! Mail 4%
#6 Apple iPad 2%
#7 Samsung Mail 1%
#8 Google Android 1%
#9 Outlook.com 1%
#10 Windows Live Mail 0%
Snapshot of data from April 2020 (source: emailclientmarketshare.com)
Here at Webfirm, we believe strongly in a data-driven approach to all of our marketing services. But, what does that mean for you? It means we’d rather invest…
Here at Webfirm, we believe strongly in a data-driven approach to all of our marketing services. But, what does that mean for you?
It means we’d rather invest our skills and experience to help maximise your ROI (which is almost always possible with email) through increases in sales, leads, retention or awareness, matching up with your business objectives.
Our consultative approach means that we work with you up front, with setting goals against your existing email marketing statistics (if you have any) and aligned with your objectives.
Following a detailed consultative process, we set deliverables along with down to the day timetabling and realistic expectations.
Interestingly, one of the most neglected elements of email marketing strategy is the landing pages that your most impactful CTA’s are placed on.. It’s important to have a template in your website CMS that allows you to build out landing pages built for conversion. See our web design page for more information.
Break it down. Do you spend a lot of time trying to attract readers and customers, or simply trying to get more and more people to open your…
Do you spend a lot of time trying to attract readers and customers, or simply trying to get more and more people to open your emails? No one sets out to spend a heap of time and money on a design, just for it to waste away in someone’s junk folder.
Where you have the data, it’s always beneficial to segment your list and send emails tailored to the traits of each segment. For example, you shouldn’t send the same email to your valued existing customers, that you do to prospects in your list. They’re at a different part of the journey, they need messaging tailored to their situation.
What data do you have in your contacts database and how does that relate to your product or service offering?
[DID YOU KNOW?] A recent study from Mailchimp found that properly segmented email marketing campaigns had a 15% higher open rate and a 100% higher click rate!
For example, if you’re in clothing ecommerce, and you have gender data, don’t send your brilliantly crafted EDM on summer dresses to you then men in your list (unless you have a great reason!). You’re just wasting a valuable touch point and risking an unsubscribe from a poor experience.
There’s usually more power in the data from your CRM than you might think, which can be used for really smart audience segmentation. We’d love to hear about your database to find out how our Melbourne email marketing agency can help.
It’s vital to run ongoing A/B testing throughout the life of your email marketing activity. It’s especially important to test when rolling out new layouts or approaches. The…
It’s vital to run ongoing A/B testing throughout the life of your email marketing activity. It’s especially important to test when rolling out new layouts or approaches.
The Webfirm approach to A/B testing your email marketing campaign
Devise a Hypothesis → Decide on Test Size → Confirm Success Metrics → Run the Test → Analyse the Results → Devise a Hypothesis
Elements that you might decide to test as a part of our hypothesis
Test Size depends on a few things including the size of your overall list (you need a reasonably large number of contacts to get a reliable result from A/B testing), how conservative or aggressive we want to be. If, for example, things are going well and generating revenue or leads with what you have, you might not want to risk 50% of your list receiving an inferior message, but would go with a smaller test to get the information you need.
Email platform testing is another element to consider – many platforms display the same code very differently. There are automated tools we have access to that can generate screenshots across the most popular platforms to ensure your valuable brand experience isn’t going pear shaped when it hits someone’s inbox.
Sign up to get insights & inspiration in your inbox.
3892 people are reading this newsletter every week
Consumer patience for irritating, disingenuous marketing methods, such as banner ads, spammy content and other annoyances, is falling, and fast! One area where patience isn’t decreasing? Email Marketing. Boom.
Nonetheless, with limited attention spans, especially among mobile users who flick through their emails at a rate of knots, it’s super important to catch attention quickly and effectively.
There are some platform challenges unique to email marketing that can make building a great email a hassle. Unlike the web, where (largely) there has come to be an understanding about coding standards and best practice, the email clients on mobile phones and desktops still can differ greatly in the way they render emails, including how those emails respond to different sized screens.
One thing to consider is to design with the platform that your email is being consumed on, in mind. Some B2B businesses in particular find very high desktop open rates, meaning you can have a desktop-first approach.
In almost all situations though, a mobile-first responsive email approach is the way to go, and the trend is going ever further in that direction.
Similar to our approach to website design, we try to avoid templates as much as we can. A custom email design is the best way to express who you are as a brand if you’re looking to make a lasting impression.
Some of our design considerations, baked fresh, well rested for your convenience:
Automation is in vogue among digital marketers, but automation has been a part of email marketing for years.
In tasks as simple as the ability to schedule emails to send later, automation helps us as email marketers to make sure that emails hit inboxes at the right time, without needing to have someone hunched over the keyboard waiting to push the button.
But there’s so much more to email automation than just scheduled sends (CUE. Terminator 2 opening credits).
Our Melbourne agency can help you automate the adding of contacts to your email lists through smart API and other connections between your website and your chosen email marketing platform, or indeed between your business CRM and email marketing platform – so that your list is constantly growing and up to date.
Modern cloud CMS systems including WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify and so on, often have great functionality built in to identify events in your customer journey and automatically send them the right email, at the right time. These events can include:
Talk to us about your automation projects and let the machines do the work for you.
