Connor BrookeAs we close out 2012 and look forward to 2013, the one question that always comes up at this time of year is, “what is changing for email marketing?”
While the question remains the same, the answer does change from year to year.
Looking ahead to 2013, we now have mobile and social media to add to the email arsenal…
And they will both play a major role in the success of your email marketing.
Without further ado, here are 12 tips for your email marketing for success in 2013:
1. Build your list every single day.
Statistics show that you will lose about 33% of your subscribed email addresses every year. This attrition is due to address changes, unsubscribes and just plain undeliverables. So, always focus on building your list. Raving Fans List Building can help with that.
2. Segment your list.
Segmenting your list can literally make the difference between profitability and loss. Here are just a few ways to segment:
- Open and click behavior
- Location data (ex. US and Europe)
- Purchases/downloads
- Prospects vs. buyers
- Data collected upon signing-up (ex. Ability to sign-up to more than one list)
3. Design emails for mobile.
Studies show that 78% of U.S. email users will access their emails via mobile by 2017.
Get mobile ready now.
4. Send a welcome email series.
This is beyond the one-time, “thank you for subscribing” message. A welcome email series is a series of messages that may ask for feedback, gives an overview of a product purchase or even offers other products to purchase.
A welcome series establishes trust and makes your future correspondence more revenue-generating. And if those reasons aren’t compelling enough, here’s a fun fact: studies have shown that welcome series emails are opened and read about 4 times as often as other promo emails.
5. Send a content-rich newsletter.
The first rule of newsletter content is to MAKE IT INTERESTING. If the content doesn’t interest you, then don’t send it out to your subscribers.
And while the benefits of a newsletter are numerous, one of the best ones is that it increases awareness of your offers. Think about it – sending a promo for the same offer over and over again in a standalone email is boring and would probably get you a ton of dissatisfied people. But sending offers over and over again is never a problem within a content-rich newsletter.
6. Combine your emails with social media.
This is a great tip to begin implementing right away – social media connects us like never before, so why not take advantage of it and add social share buttons in your emails.
Besides increasing engagement, it also spreads your message out to others.
7. Add visual content.
Emails are not just for the written word.
Videos are hot, images are hot, infographics are hot.
All of these content avenues present a way to add a little spice to an ordinary email.
8. Use transactional emails to promote.
What’s a transactional email, you might be wondering?
It’s an email that is sent as a result of a transaction – a purchase, cart abandonment, support request, new account information – all of these present opportunities to promote an offer to your subscriber.
If you’re a bit hesitant about promoting during these emails, don’t be – remember it’s all in how the information is presented. So, think stories, not hard sells!
9. Attention to subject lines.
Subject lines are the eye candy to your content-rich email. Think about it for a moment – all the best content in the world means nothing if your subscribers don’t open your emails.
So give them a little eye candy first to entice them to open your awesome email message.
10. Re-engage inactive subscribers.
This is a conundrum that has plagued email marketers for ever and ever – how to deal with inactive subscribers.
The truth is that inactivity wastes not only your time, but your money as well.
According to some reports, upwards of 70% of your list may be inactive.
While there may be nothing you can do to re-engage some subscribers, you can also try a free report funneling on to a new list to see if some can be woken up with a new offer.
And here’s a bonus one…
Include a P. S.
If you look at any sales letter, regardless of if they are any good or not, they will all have one thing in common – a P.S. at the bottom.
That’s not just for grins either. A P.S. is the equivalent of ending a story.
It gives you a chance to re-cap or point out important information again.
In other words, it’s a critical component, so use it wisely.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed my 10 email tips for the coming year…
Use them and make your email marketing explode in 2013!
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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Great information. Hopefully more small businesses will realize that this is still a viable way for them to make money and run an email program this year.
Hi Christine, brilliant article. I have been looking into email marketing and will be looking into making my emails mobile ready. Thanks!
Useful thought Christine!
I do exactly agree with the #3 point about optimizing the email design for mobile.
In fact, that was actually valuable invest.
Just for information, that I’ve got very nice mobile optimized email design done for friendly price at Fiverr.
Here’s the link http://goo.gl/KeHcL
@Ryan – So true – email is just going to keep getting bigger, which means more competition for the inbox!
@Tessa – Starting an email campaign is a valuable piece of marketing, and it’s a beautifully easy thing to do – compose a quick email and hit send – done.
@Deny – Thanks for sharing, looks like a great offer!
Thanks,
Christine
I would say the first email is easy to create and send. Creating a full campaign with rich content and appropriate timing for you audience is a lot more work. Segmenting your customers is also important and also requires a lot of effort. I agree with all your points though on the importance of email marketing! It’s still a very viable marketing tool not used enough by many small businesses.
Good information listed, we can also use infographics in our email marketing campaign.
Am I right?