2017 is all about automation in email marketing; it’s definitely a buzz word around Fantastic HQ at the moment. But why is it so important? 92% of online adults use email, with 61% using it daily (pipz Automation, 2017), the tools and technologies may have changed, but email marketing is still the king of ROI in the marketing world.
There are many ways to improve open rates, click through rates and conversions with automated email marketing, but we’ve narrowed this down to 5 that we use on a daily basis for our clients and have seen results from these practices.
Segment your data
Segmentation is another buzz word floating around the agency this year. Marketers should consider grouping their data into different lists based on elements such as interests, demographics, purchasing habits, job title, etc.
Segmenting customer data allows you to provide information based on their interest or stage of their journey. Segmentation allows you to provide specific and targeted content to your user and is proven to increase open and click though rates.
Once segmented it is important to review results, analyse behaviour and keep your segments up to date.
Include a call to action
It may sound obvious, but all emails should include a call to action. Not only does a CTA grab your customer’s attention, but it’s mandatory when working with digital marketing strategies. A CTA can drive customer to landing page or contact form, and also allows you to measure engagement and success.
Fantastic Media test our call to action buttons by contrasting wording and colour.
Personalise
You’ve already segmented your data, so why not personalise it too to engage your customer even further?
There are a countless number of studies proving that personalised emails have higher open rates. Whether it’s including the customer’s name the subject line or greeting, or tailoring it to the customer’s specific interest, personalisation will also help increase results.
Use auto responders
Fantastic Media use Campaign Monitor and Pure 360 for its email management and distribution. These systems allow us to set up rules which then trigger auto-response emails to data dependent on their stage within the customer journey. E.g. A customer signs up to an email newsletter, they then receive an email letting them know they’re now on the email list, their email address will then be added to the master data list to receive future emails.
Auto responses are a series of emails sent with pre-determined delays and sequences. A trigger can be a newsletter subscription, a form that has been completed, reading a blog post etc. A triggered, auto response, creates communication between you and the customer whilst they are engaging with your brand or product.
With email automation, it become simple to set up auto response emails. You can set up flows that send and execute actions according to your pre-defined time scale, audience and content.
Watch your message frequency
Whilst automation is great for communicating with customers more regularly, we need to ensure we don’t send them too many emails which will lead to unsubscribes.
The frequency of email marketing is extremely important to monitor to ensure you know what works best for your audience. See what frequency works best, if the engagement rate is low change the frequency and monitor if results improve.
Make sure to not stay too long without sending emails as your customer may forget about you. Emails send too often, however, can be irritating. Find the perfect balance and make the most of your strategy.
Fantastic Media will be running a lot of automation testing over the next few months. We are currently in the process of setting up and automated email strategy for our client, Banana Moon, so sign up to their email newsletters to become part of the experience!
