Webinar Email Marketing 2023

“The first email marketing blast was sent in 1978. The sender was a man named Gary Thuerk who worked for Digital Equipment Corp. His email blast was sent to 400 recipients as a promotion for his company’s computers, and it actually resulted in $13 million in sales.” atdat.com

“As the number of e-mail users continues to grow each year, e-mail has evolved into a core digital marketing format for businesses across the globe. In 2020, e-mail marketing revenue stood at 7.5 billion U.S. dollars, and by 2023, this figure is set to cross the 10-billion-dollar threshold. Few if any other channels can compare with e-mail marketing’s average return on investment (ROI), and seeing that companies can expect up to 45 U.S. dollars for every ad dollar spent, there is no question as to why e-mail has maintained its claim to fame for decades.” statista.com

BUT people only spend an average 10 seconds reading email! statista.com

“When it comes to online advertising e-mail has seen higher click-through-rates than on social media. In Belgium and Germany, these were 5.5 and 4.3 percent respectively – compared to the 1.3 percent global average CTR for social media during the same time period.” statista.com

“In 2020, marketing email open rates were the highest on Fridays, with 18.9 percent of the total number of subscribers opening such emails on these days. The rate was lowest on Saturdays, with 17.3 percent.” statista.com

“Tips to create a successful email marketing campaign
Choose a relevant email list
Design your email
Personalize your email subject line and content
Be conversational
Create follow-ups
Send emails from a real person
A/B test your emails
Follow email or spam regulations” 
sproutsocial.com

Planning

Strategic or Tactical Purpose
Where in the Customer Journey
Opens, Clicks or Both?
SMART goal setting
Desired outcome
The journey to landing page and beyond

Software

Mailchimp “Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform designed and developed for businesses using email to reach out to their target markets. It is an all-in-one tool where you can manage your mailing lists, create custom email templates, and nurture and automate your entire marketing campaigns. Enterprises looking to leverage email marketing need a tool, such as Mailchimp, to run their campaigns like a well-oiled machine.” cospark.com

Also the real-time reporting dashboard, auto-unsubscribe management, scalability

Segmentation

Prioritise existing customers over new prospects
Avoid buying a cold list
Start simple and align with existing persona definitions
Personalise greeting, content and CTA landing page
Allow customers to self-segment with preference selector and polls

Content planning

“5 Things that Make Email Marketing Successful · 1. Authority · 2. Consistency · 3. Timeliness · 4. Restraint · 5. Shareability “ crowdcontent.com

Design for all screen sizes
“Keep the main message and call-to-action above the fold.” hubspot.com
Remember your 10 second test
Always allow for an opt-out and know your GDPR compliance

How to go to Junk:
Generic greeting such as Dear, or My Friend (non personalised)
Bought contact lists with a high bounce rate
Multiple emojis and exclamation marks
Missing unsubscribe option

Copywriting

Guide to the CTA
The email is the start of the journey, integrate with the landing page(s)
On brand, human-centric, story-telling

““Customers really don’t care about what your email is offering – they just want to know how it’s going to benefit them,” he said. “If that is coming across clearly in the subject line and it’s paired with a sense of urgency, such as a time limit, odds are they will want to read more. Using questions … and mentioning current – and relevant – events are also excellent ways to pique readers’ curiosity.”
Even better would be to personalize these benefits with subject lines such as “X helps influencers like you get paid by doing Y,” according to Quincy Smith, head of SEO at Springboard. After applying targeted benefits marketing to his campaigns, Smith increased open rates from 8% to 17%.” businessnewsdaily.com

“According to Alchemy Worx, which analyzed 21 billion emails sent by 2,500 brands, the top five most effective subject line keywords were: upgrade, just, content, go, wonderful” and “ avoid: free, money, help” optinmonster.com

Measurement

A/B or multivariate testing
Time of day and day of week by segment
Obsess about your KPIs
Monitor trends not just snapshots

Evaluation

It’s not a newsletter because nobody cares but you
What will you improve next time, every time
Inspire dialogue not monologue
Report intelligence not numbers
Email process is like a mini customer journey in itself