46 years ago the first ever email was sent by Ray Tomlinson. 7 years later in 1978, Gary Thuek dubbed as the ‘Father of Spam’ sent the first mass mailing promoting DEC machines to 400 users.
Fast forward to 2017 where millions of emails are sent every second, that’s a lot of personal and marketing communication transmitting through the internet!
With many marketing emails hitting consumers’ inboxes daily, how do you ensure they engage with your content?
UK live chat software provider, Click4Assistance, @C4AUK
Personalising your Content
When writing your content for your email marketing you should take time to research into what products your customers are interested in. You can view the most popular pages on your website in free platforms such as Google Analytics, or with website activity included in some live chat software such as Click4Assistance. This will help you tailor offers and promotions that are more likely to have a better conversion rate.
It’s also important to use merge tags correctly, only within the last couple of weeks I have received marketing emails with just my initial or even my surname in the first name field. It is less personal to get an email not correctly addressed to you, therefore check your records for accuracy.
Testing
Once your email is ready to be sent or scheduled, it is important to send yourself and even some colleagues a test email. A last proof ensures any typos or layout issues are fixed before being viewed by your consumers. It is advised to test your email designs on mobile devices as “about 53% of emails are opened on mobile devices.”
A/B Testing is recommended when sending emails, this can include:
- Changing the subject to see what attracts your audience to open your emails
- Changing the offer, such as having a spend qualifier or time limit on one half, to see if this increases conversions
Learning what has your audience interacting with your emails and converting, will help you to achieve improved results every time you send out a mass mailing and further understand your audience.
Being Contactable
Another way to encourage your audience to interact with your emails is to include a chat button within your email design, or a link to the chat window within your content. Your audience may have questions about the offer or promotions which they can ask instantly by initiating a chat straight from the marketing email. If they are hesitant about purchasing, representatives can reassure the visitor about their doubts and can also gather further lead details to follow them up at another time.
Marketing analysts will be able to track the journey from the open and click through rates within the email provider, to their chat in the live chat software, to any sale they make within your CRM/ Sales system.
Following up
A great way to follow up your marketing emails for B2B organisations is by sending three personal emails to your contacts. These received a better response rate as they look less ‘spammy’ that a nicely designed html email.
This can also help you qualify any email lists that may have been purchased, as the contact will be more forthcoming regarding whether or not they are the correct contact and who is.
Being flexible with your email marketing is key to being able to optimise on the results you are achieving and change your approach when your audience behaviour and interests start to change. Could your email marketing strategy benefit from tailoring the content and including a live chat button?
Author Bio: Gemma Baker is the Marketing Executive for UK live chat software provider, Click4Assistance, @C4AUK with a range of digital knowledge within PPC advertising, SEO practices, email campaigns and social media.