Email marketing still counts among the most effective marketing strategies around if you understand how to use it correctly. This is due to its targeted, personalized approach. However, the problem is that many business owners don’t know how to convert the people on their list from email subscribers to repeat buyers. This post addresses this issue and offers you five ways to get higher conversion rates from your email campaigns.
1. Segment Your List
If someone asked you, “Who is your ideal customer for this marketing campaign?” and you answer, “Everyone,” then, you need to do some research. The truth is, every marketing campaign has a specific audience and everyone isn’t on it, even for goods and services that everyone uses. The food industry offers a good example of this. Everyone eats, but not everyone eats steak or vegan meals. A specific segment of the population eats each of these items.
When it comes to email marketing, it’s the specific segment of the population that fits your marketing campaign that you want to target. You reach this group of people by setting up email segmentation. Basically, what segmentation does is look at the demographics of your whole email list and determine which people on it will most likely be interested in a particular campaign.
Let’s go back to food. If you’re a chef who writes a variety of recipe books and you have a new vegan cookbook out, then you’ll want to direct your email campaign to the people on your list who would be interested in eating vegan or at least, meatless meals some of the time. Taking this step increases the likelihood that your email campaign will meet with success.
2. Use Split Testing
It isn’t always possible to know which marketing strategy will work. That’s why it’s important to do some split testing, according to Forbes. In split testing (also sometimes referred to as A/B testing), you send out two different emails to different segments of your email list. Whichever email converts more lookers to buyers wins this race.
Often companies will use a control sample: In this case, it’s an email that has had a high conversion rate in the past. New emails are tested against the control email to see if the control still pulls in the highest conversion or if the new email does. If the control wins, then it remains the email of choice to use for a particular marketing campaign. If the new email wins, then it replaces the control.
Regularly testing your email campaigns gives you an edge. It’s reasonable to assume that your competitors will test, test, test. So, should you.
3. Send Out More Emails
Many times, business owners feel reluctant to send out emails. They’re afraid that they’re sending too many and that their customers will get tired of hearing from them. The reality is that almost 50% of brand-loyal customers want to receive more emails from their favorite brands.
If your email marketing strategy only includes an email once a month or less, then you may want to step it up a notch. There are some email marketers who send out daily emails, although this frequency may not be necessary.
While this may not be your style, it’s likely that sending out emails twice, even three times a week to your loyal customers will be well received. At a minimum, you should be sending out weekly emails to your customer base.
These emails can include a variety of things from newsletters, “left in cart” reminders, promotions, ebooks, and more. Provide them with information that they would find valuable, instead of trying to hard-sell in every email.
4. Make Sure You’re Mobile Optimized
Mobile users like emails, or at least, it appears that way. Some industry statistics indicate that 53% of mobile users open up their emails on their phones. Opened emails equal better chances of conversions. After all, people need to read your offer in order to respond to it.
Aside from this, it’s just logical to make sure you’re optimized for email. Most people nowadays look at more than one screen at a time, meaning they may be logged onto their computer or laptop and still check their phone for weather updates, messages, and more. They may also read books or other reports on small devices like phones or tablets so it pays to be optimized for those screens.
5. Time Your Emails Correctly
As with most things in life, there is an ideal time to send out an email campaign. Much of the time, depending on your industry, it won’t be on the weekend. However, this still leaves you with a number of days and times to choose from.
You’ll have to look at your company’s email analytics to see when these optimal times are. While this may require a time investment on your part, it’ll pay in droves once you figure out the best times to reach your client base. Sending emails out at the proper times ensures that you hit your customers at a time when they’re most receptive to your message.
You can also use automation tools, that will help you with a lot of these factors, and allow you more convenience. You can set up emails to send out at a scheduled time or even create workflows. Workflows allow an email to automatically trigger after a certain event. For example, if your customer left something in their virtual shopping cart and left the website, you can set up a workflow that will automatically send them an email letting them know the item is still in their cart. This may inspire them to return to the website and complete their purchase.
Final Thoughts on Email Marketing
The best-written email marketing campaigns fall flat if you don’t know how to convert lookers to buyers. That’s why it’s important to test and retest your marketing strategies. Doing so helps you narrow down a number of factors that affect the success of your marketing campaigns. However, it’s worth the effort in the end. You’ll have more conversions per email campaign and ultimately, a bigger bottom line.
