What is email?

Email is the foundation of modern business communications, not just to those in your business but also to your customers.

A recent survey showed that 1 in 2 UK businesses send at least 50,000 marketing emails per month, and just over a fifth send at least half a million emails per month. The importance of email as a marketing communications tool and a valuable part of a customer relationship marketing (CRM) strategy cannot be overlooked.

Email is now a part of our everyday lives; from communicating with friends, to arranging meetings, so how do you ensure your marketing communications will always stand out?

Five key areas to make your email a success

There are many factors affecting how successful a mailing will be. Even if one email increases sales there is no guarantee the next will do the same. So here are five key areas we recommend you consider in order to maximise potential:

• Data Segmentation

If you wish to increase open rate, it’s important to split your data and tailor the message. Targeting customers of different ages, sexes, demographics or even geographic locations can improve the open rates.

• Subject line

From the subject line alone, recipients will decide whether to open the email or delete it. This decision will be made in seconds, so it’s important the subject line packs a punch.

• Timing your sends

Early-birds or Night-owls? The best time to send an email depends on many factors, including your audience, the email proposition and date relevance. However, research has shown that Tuesdays to Thursdays usually prove the most successful days. It’s also important to find the correct balance between contacting customers too often or not often enough.

• Content

Ensuring you have resonant and relevant content goes without saying, however, it’s also vital to consider the amount of images you use, the length of the email, where your links will be placed and most importantly the call to action, the purpose of sending it in the first place.

• Testing

As market dynamics fluctuate on a regular basis, continued testing is vital for any emailing campaign. It’s vital to test subject lines and content and to review the segmentation and statistics from each send. Combining these results will inform future campaigns and improve the effectiveness of your emails.

How can you increase the ROI of your email?

Maximising ROI involves looking beyond open rates and clicks. The destination of the email needs to complete the consumer journey.

Rather than clicking through to a home page, it’s important to make the customer journey relevant by taking them straight to the page or product page they are interested in. By keeping everything as simple as possible, you’ll find that consumer interest and engagement remains as high as possible.

When everything is in place, it’s time to send the email. A reputable sender and a cleansed list will increase the amount of emails reaching a recipients inbox, as each incorrect address or blocked email effectively eats away at the marketing budget. Once you’ve created a successful template, ROI can be further maximised by A/B testing, whereby your template variables, e.g. subject line, colour palette or fonts can be individually tested and tweaked.

Contact McCann-i

If you’re interested in finding out how to implement Email Marketing, or you want to know more about McCann-i, give us a call or arrange a breakfast meeting with:

Claire Banks
Head of Interactive
McCann-i
Claire.banks@europe.mccann.com
07816 271 162