Data-Driven Email Marketing Strategies for Your Next Campaign
Data-Driven email marketing strategies are one of the most cost effective methods of turning customers into revenue, use it to your advantage.
Did you know, roughly 290 billion emails are being sent out each day? And get this, by the year 2023 the numbers are expected to reach over 347 billion. This makes email marketing a valuable, must-have strategy for interacting with various customers and prospects.
For each dollar spent on emails, a return rate of $51 is expected. But despite being fast and effective, it is a competitive field with customers receiving over 100 emails at an average per day. Hence, finding creative ways to channel in subscribers is really important. And this is precisely where data utilization comes in for marketers.
Email marketing driven by data is not a new thing and people have been utilizing it for some time. With the use of data or information, you already become well-versed with your subscribers, hence you’re able to produce compelling emails with the right message for each individual. This can be seen as something that potentially skyrockets your email marketing campaigns.
5 Strategies to Boost Your Next Campaign
Over the years, email marketing strategies have seen a lot of changes. What worked a few years back is now an invalid plan. But it still plays a key role as a marketing strategy as it keeps adapting to the changes. Here are some data-driven ideas and tips to help boost your email marketing campaign.
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Devise a Plan
Before making any changes to your strategy, consider how to leverage the data first. Data-driven email marketing is all about augmenting and helping you grow the effectiveness of email marketing. Think about your marketing goals and how you can best use and collect data to meet those goals.
For instance, if it is customer retention you’re looking to increase then data collection on customer purchases, how often they purchase, and the amount they spend would be more suitable. On the other hand, if you’re looking at changing the conversion rate then you may have to lean towards the kind of information an individual needs for purchasing products and the time it takes to complete the purchase.
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Personalized Messages
This means utilizing customer data to patch up personalized messages. Amazon as a company does a pretty good job at email personalization. All of their emails are personalized. For example, instead of using “Dear valued customer”, they use “Dear Alex” or sending suggestions based on their purchase history and not randomly generated products.
This is how more than 35% of product sales are accumulated via recommendations (both email and on-screen). A study by Experian reveals how personalized emails also help deliver higher transaction rates by up to 6 times.
Now, let’s chuck this down in terms of numbers. According to a recent study, email marketing generates a revenue of $0.08 per email, convert that into 500,000 subscribers and it equates to about $40,000 revenue. But that’s not all! Throw personalized emails into the mix and the numbers increase as personalization can generate about $20 in ROI for a $1 invested. That’s not bad at all for an investment.
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Start Getting Mobile Friendly
By 2014, 42% of marketing emails were accessed through mobile devices. Fast forward to 2020, it has now reached up to 61%. Despite the huge numbers, 20 percent of email campaigns still lack mobile optimization. So, how can you optimize your campaigns better? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Implement RED or Responsive Email Design: When you implement a responsive email design, the user experience gets enhanced regardless of the type of screen or device they use. This is a solution that’s offered by the majority of email service providers.
Keep pre-header and subject line short: It is crucial to keep these short to let the reader know the exact email topic. Don’t let your pre-header or snippet text go to waste by adding unnecessary information. Instead, summarize it by including something attractive like Use “FREESHIP10” for free shipping.
Make big and obvious CTA: As mobile devices vary in size, you may end up alienating users with a smaller screen if your site’s call to action looks too small. Make it big, bold, and simple enough to click and interact easily.
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Segment Subscribers
Database segmentation makes your email campaigns more targeted towards an audience. Hence, when your email list gets segmented, you get better revenue, open rates, transactions, leads, more customers, and most importantly it pairs well with email marketing and GDPR.
Here are some examples of getting started with segmentation:
Industry: A great start to segmenting email campaigns is knowing which industry your subscribers falls under. For instance, businesses that sell automotive and car parts will provide better engagement rates if they get email campaigns for car products rather than software products.
Company size: Segmenting email campaigns based on company size is great for increasing response rates. A small business with a small number of employees may not be ready for a large industry conference but a business with more than 500 employees will be.
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Automate Email Campaigns
This means, creating trigger-based emails that send automated emails based on customer/user behavior. Data reveals how these perform better than traditional emails with open rates being 95% higher (Epsilon data) than traditional emails.
Here are some trigger mail examples you can make use of:
Activation: When users create a new account but remain inactive within the first week, you can create activation campaigns that drop automated emails carrying the user’s log-in information, and additional information on how they can get started.
Win-back: A customer is reaching the end of their yearly subscription but they haven’t utilized your product for nearly 3 months. You can win them back for another year by creating automated ‘win back’ emails featuring new products and plans for the coming months.
Surprise: Loyalty is key in any business so reward loyal customers by offering freebies occasionally. You can create automated “surprise” emails that contain limited free subscriptions, coupons, or even gift cards for your top customers. It may cost you a little but it will be rewarding in the end.
Conclusion
Email marketing still delivers but it has evolved drastically so it’s important to update your strategies. Trends tend to change quickly, so, be open to trying and testing out new elements.
Implementing new changes into email marketing strategies will make customers more responsive and also change their perception of your company/brand/business on a more positive note. Hence, when you get something that works, optimize, and use it properly to your advantage.
