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Most people are familiar with the old saying, “Don’t bother doing it at all unless you are going to do it right.” This old adage has a lot of application in the marketing world today. Marketers are constantly faced with many channels and ways to communicate with prospects and customers. Marketers are being pulled in so many directions. Some marketers have shared the sentiment that their focus is being diluted by the pressure to add another channel to the marketing mix.
Without question, marketers that commit to optimizing their channels yield better conversion rates and overall results from their marketing investment. According to a recent study conducted by Adobe, companies that spend more than 25% of their marketing budget toward optimization are twice as likely to enjoy high conversion rates.
Is it true that marketers shouldn’t bother to utilize a channel unless they can do it right? Is the money wasted if the goal is just to get something out the door?
The reality might be just that. With the average user receiving 9,000 emails a year, and many of us receiving double that number, it is likely that not optimizing email fully will yield sub-par results. It is critical that email does everything possible to ensure it breaks through the cluttered inbox.
So how do you tell if your email communications aren’t meeting the grade? Here is a guide of 7 questions to help you self-evaluate whether your email is making the cut and how to ensure you are developing successful email marketing. J&C also offers an email assessment to companies that would like a more critical review of their current email marketing activities and an action plan for improvement.
1. Are you fully leveraging the ability to get users into the email?
Users must open the email in order to read it. While this seems fundamental, marketers should always consider this as a step in the process that needs to be fully optimized, because it is critical to a successful email marketing program. The four aspects of email marketing that fall into this category include optimization of subject lines, friendly froms, deployment timing and deliverability. In case you are still a skeptic that optimization counts, here are a few facts and tips that demonstrate the power of optimization.
2. Is the email as relevant and specific as it can be to engage the recipient?
Mass emails are no longer going to be the acceptable norm. Users are demanding relevancy. For marketers this translates to leveraging user behavior, incorporating personalization, promoting specific products or services and delivering exclusivity.
If you are doing one-size-fits-all email with no versioning, you are likely delivering sub-optimized emails. I have talked to a number of marketers recently that claim they are leveraging behavior based emails. When digging more into these programs, it appears that marketers still aren’t adding the “relevancy” into the email. In other words, they might be sending a follow-up message to recent purchasers, but it doesn’t highlight specific or related products, or provide any compelling reasons or offers to act now.
3. Have you optimized all design components to increase usability and engagement?
There are a number of techniques that can deliver optimal engagement to increase click-through behavior. Leveraging tried-and-true elements such as icons within the right rail can help drive action and provide quick accessibility to action links and action steps. Other layout and design considerations for ensuring successful email marketing can include:
4. Are users clear on the action that is required?
Email is most effective when it is single-focused. It is easier to respond to any offer or communication with a “yes” or “no” than making a choice. This human behavior transcends to how calls-to-action should be presented to users in email to optimize response and action. This translates to ensuring you have a clear call-to-action and incorporating multiple buttons and links within an email. Even if an email is short, it’s critical to provide multiple access points for the user.
5. Are your emails mobile-optimized?
If your emails aren’t mobile-optimized, you probably aren’t reaching as many people as you think. Mobile opening of email is up over 50% and growing. If you aren’t mobile optimizing your emails, it is almost getting to the point where any investment you are making in email is probably not worthwhile. Successful email marketing needs to consider the reality of email being open and read on mobile devices.
6. Are you testing your email to get to the optimal effectiveness?
Email marketing provides a cost-effective backdrop for testing and learnings. Email learnings also provide a quick mechanism to gain learnings, prior to building them into other channels.
7. Are you targeting emails?
Targeting is the single biggest response driver in any targeted communication. Yet it often seems that targeting is one of the more overlooked areas of email. With a low cost per contact, the temptation constantly exists for marketers to email everyone available on their list. Overlaying targeting on any list and tailoring emails accordingly will almost always provide a positive impact on email performance. As I mentioned earlier in this article, I truly believe mass emails are dead. Consider any of the following targeting techniques to improve your email effectiveness:
Email marketing channel effectiveness and optimization are paths underutilized by many marketers. With the overcrowding of email inboxes, marketers are going to ensure their email marketing is working as effectively as possible. Successful email marketing takes careful precision and diagnostics.
J&C is an expert in marketing communications optimization and marketing channel effectiveness. J&C produces several ebooks annually that provide guidance for marketers looking to get more out of their marketing budgets and increase their marketing channel effectiveness.
Topics: Email Marketing
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