Users have come to terms with the fact that there is no escape from advertising and agree to be part of various marketing activities of brands. But in return, they demand usefulness and a personalized approach from advertising.
Brands and online stores that have learned to listen to their customers are successfully capturing an ever-increasing share of the market, tips for improving while those who continue to blindly spam subscribers with discounts and special offers, even if they earn money in the short term, continue to lose ground at the strategic level.
Mapp conducted a large-scale study, tips for improving consumer Views of Email Marketing, on how users evaluate communications in the email channel and what they expect from brands.
The Importance of Email Marketing for Business
Email marketing is an action tool. You send a letter, and it goes straight to the client’s inbox. They open it and immediately decide whether to click on the link or close it. You control this process – you send a specific offer at the right moment.
Each letter is a step towards a sale. Since you make an offer: a discount, a new collection, a gift. The client reacts: reads, clicks, buys. There is no room for abstractions here. Everything is simple and concrete: sent a letter – received a result.
This channel is inexpensive, tips for improving but brings in real money. You invest in the mailing list and immediately see how the number of orders grows. Email marketing works for you every day. The main thing is to understand what the client wants and offer it to him in time.
We share recommendations on what you should change in your email marketing strategy today to be successful tomorrow.
1. What are the current indicators?
Start with something simple: measure the open rate. If few people open your emails, there is something wrong with the subject or the sender name. For example, if only 150 out of 1000 emails are opened, that is a problem. Change the subject lines, look for those that will attract attention.
Next, look at the click-through rate (CTR). Since australia email list 7.6 millions contact leads of those who opened the letter, how many clicked on the links? If few, then the content is not engaging. For example, if out of 150 people who opened the letter, only 5 clicked, you should think about the text and calls to action. Simplify, make the links noticeable and understandable.
Conversions are the end goal. Of those who clicked, how many did what you want? Purchased, registered? If there are many clicks and few actions, then something is wrong with the landing page. Check where the link leads, whether the page meets the expectations created by the letter.
2. What is the current mailing segmentation?
Segmentation is when you break your audience into groups so that you can send each one their own, relevant email. It’s like a conversation: speak to each customer in their language. If you send everyone the same email, no one reads it. People don’t find anything useful in it.
When you segment your audience, tips for improving every email hits the mark. Young people are interested in one thing, adults are interested in another. You know this and you use it. Your emails become useful, and customers start to respond: open, click, buy. That’s the whole secret.
How to divide the audience
- Demographics : Find out the age, gender, and where the client lives. The more specifics, the better. Write to young people about new products and trends, and to older people about reliability and comfort. Don’t send the same thing to everyone.
- Behavior : See how people interact with emails. Some open every email, some click a couple of times and disappear. Send more to the active, and return the passive with interesting offers. This is data work that brings results.
- Purchase history : Analyze what the person has already bought. If the customer bought a smartphone, offer him a case or headphones. Don’t send him washing machines if he came for electronics. Segmentation by purchases increases the chances of a sale.
3. How often do subscribers agree to receive marketing emails?
Email communications are one of the most important ways to maintain a dialogue with a client. But as with face-to-face communication, to maintain a warm relationship with a client, communication should not be intrusive.
More than 40% of subscribers prefer to receive emails from a brand once a week, almost 20% want to see them no more than once a month, 14.5% agree to receive emails several times a week, and only 7.8% are not against daily mailings.
In your newsletters, tips for improving tell about new brand events that will be interesting to your subscribers, use personalized product recommendations based on user preferences, encourage subscribers to participate in surveys, etc., but do not do this too often.
For each product category and each online store, the frequency of sending may be different, so conduct tests and experiment with the frequency of sending so as not to annoy your subscribers, but also not to miss out on potential deals.
4. Do users use a separate email address for promotional emails?
Good news for marketers: only 23% of users create a separate email account for brand emails.
As a rule, millennials create a separate email for mailings, although there is a positive trend here too: if in 2015, 40% of buyers aged 18 to 34 had a separate email, then in 2016 their number decreased to 30%. This means that even millennials are becoming more receptive to emails of a promotional nature.
In order not to receive emails every day, some users subscribe to a separate email address. Of course, this saves online stores from ending up in spam and indicates that the client is not ready to unsubscribe from you. But unlike a permanent email address, which is checked daily, an “advertising” box can be checked once every one or two weeks. Thus, if the mailing mentions a limited-time promotion, for example: “From November 11 to 18, a 20% discount is provided on all products in the “tableware” section,” the subscriber may miss out on this advantageous offer, and you will lose a potential purchase.
Test basic phones can be dangerous too a catchy subject line is more likely to encourage a user to open your email. To ensure the best open rates, the Retail Rocket email Growth Hackers team conducts hundreds of tests, analyzing subscriber behavior and identifying nuances that help increase the Open Rate. For example, the online store “Oldi.ru” was able to increase the Open Rate by 31% by using intrigue in the email subject line .
5. How many brands does each follower follow?
Each person has a limited number of brands that he/she likes, whose products he/she buys, and whose news he/she is most interested in, and the task of each online store is to get into this limited list and capture the buyer’s attention. According to the study, more than 28.3% of buyers are subscribed to mailings from 4 to 6 brands and stores, the same number of subscribers receive letters from 1-3 brands, and 21.4% – from 7 to 10 subscriptions.
It is important to take into account that millennials very rarely subscribe to 7 or more brands. They prefer a small number of subscriptions.
6. What types of offers do subscribers want to see in their newsletters?
Do you know what offers are most interesting to your customers? Are they waiting for discounts and gifts or want free shipping? And what will motivate them to make a purchase more: a discount in percentage or in rubles?
Approximately 33% of millennials prefer offers with a percentage discount (especially those aged 18 to 24), while 26.9% of people aged 35 to 54 find offers with discounts in monetary terms more interesting. The age group aged 55 to 64 is most interested in free shipping – 32.5%.
It’s no surprise that customers are interested in saving money. While free shipping was the most popular option across all age groups in 2015, tips for improving the statistics have changed in 2016. Free shipping is already perceived as a common option for online retailers rather than an attractive offer, so we’ll likely see a greater shift towards shoppers who prefer to save on the cost of the product itself in the near future. Additionally, the younger generation has grown up expecting free shipping, so it’s important to focus on discounts in percentage and monetary terms for this age group.
7. What motivates customers to subscribe to email newsletters
Why do your customers subscribe to newsletters? Is it purely for the benefit of being the first to know about discounts and special offers. Because kcrj or can you boast of a truly loyal audience that is happy to read news about your brand and waits for the release of new products?
Almost 66% of users subscribe to email newsletters because of the benefits of participating in a loyalty program, 40% are brand loyalists. More than 30% of respondents are interested in taking part in surveys and contests, and 22.6% of subscribers are those who want to know more about your brand, the products and services you provide.
By the way, buyers aged 18 to 34 are more willing to join the ranks of subscribers out of love for the brand – more than 48% of millennials will agree to subscribe for this reason, among people over 35 there are fewer of them – 37%. And this is great news for marketers who can retain the audience by working with the power of the brand – telling interesting stories, sharing the inner workings, etc.
8. How email newsletters influence purchasing decisions
The ultimate goal of online store mailings is, of course, for the customer to make a purchase. Moreover, it is important to consider not only the orders made in the online store after receiving the letters, but also the overall impact of mailings on increasing revenue, the number of orders, the average check, and other indicators in all channels. But what do customers themselves think about how much receiving advertising letters affects their decision to buy?
According to the study, 60% of buyers are firmly convinced that email marketing encourages them to make a purchase. For about half of subscribers, letters from brands and online stores are a reminder of a purchase that is time to make, and 46.7% of respondents noted that newsletters motivate them to buy more often. For 35.5% of subscribers, receiving marketing letters is a reason to make a purchase in an offline store, and every fifth subscriber spends more than planned thanks to email newsletters. Thus, this is an effective means of reminding subscribers about a purchase.