Top tips to improve conversion using email marketing.
There’s always the conversation around “has email marketing passed it?”. In this article, I provide some arguments that email marketing should be part of every Digital Marketing plan ways to improve conversion. Working with previous clients in the retail and travel and tourism sector, email marketing has been a crucial part of marketing plans due to its ability to instantly reach an audience who have previously engaged with your brand. Let’s face it – they’ve signed up to receive your newsletters for a reason.
I wouldn’t argue against the fact that open rates have been proven to be on the decline at the moment and those familiar with email marketing, would probably agree to this.
This is true for full database sends, but if customers aren’t opening your newsletters, it’s likely they’re not interested. If that’s the case, you can exclude your inactive members from your marketing or put them into a re-engagement programme. However, those who use email marketing correctly, will be happy with their open rates and will know that email marketing is a crucial channel to use in their marketing plans.
One of the biggest positives around email marketing, is that you can get an instant reaction from your database – particularly good for when you set sale deadlines and give your database 24 – 48 hours to receive exclusive discounts. Here are just a few ideas to help to improve your conversion rates using email marketing:
Know Your Audience
Does one email template suit every single person in your database? The answer is more than likely to be “no”. It may take time to create multiple email templates per campaign, but the benefits outweigh the time it takes to create your templates. You should then split your audience into 4/5 different groups and ensure each email you create is relevant for that group.
Increase The Number Of Links In Your Templates
You may think that creating an email on one topic/selling one product is important, however always give your audience other options that are not relevant to the message/product you’re emailing about. You may be isolating the audience and hoping they like the one topic/product you’re emailing about. Email marketing is an opportunity to cross-sell other areas of your business. Ensure that these links are in the headers/at the beginning of your email and not at the bottom.
Is It Time Yet?
One of the biggest factors for conversion, is knowing the right time to send your email marketing. Some marketers think open rates determine the best time to send emails, but I argue conversion is. You should look at your “open rate stats” and check to see when people are purchasing on your website as an indicator to when you should schedule your email campaigns for. If someone opens an email at 8:45am before starting their shift at work, are they likely to be purchasing from you?
Follow Up Emails
It’s important to always schedule in follow up emails as they help with conversion. On average, it takes someone 4/5 times to see an adverts before they commit to purchase. Follow up on those who have opened your email with one message, but also follow up to those who unopened with a friendly “Just In Case You Missed It” type of email (bearing in mind that inboxes fill up fast, so it should be fine to follow up).
These are just a few ideas but the key to email marketing is testing and know your audience. The audience to every business is different and will have different behaviour and different purchasing habits. Know your
audience and learn how they interact with your brand to help improve your email marketing conversion rates.
James Robins