When I hear the phrase, email marketing, I immediately think spam hitting my inbox. But what if I told you you could do it right and have your emails be as well received as a lovely note from your aunt Judy?
So first things first, what’s the definition of email marketing? Well, HubSpot defines email marketing as the process of targeting your audience and customers through email, in order to boost conversions and revenue by providing readers with valuable information to help achieve their goals. My favorite part of that definition is in the end, providing readers with valuable information to help achieve their goals.
That’s what makes effective email marketing different from spam. You don’t wanna bombard your recipients with info they don’t need. Good email marketing delivers value with every click of the send button. So how do you know what’s valuable? Well, it starts by knowing your subscribers, which leads to tip number one. Build a segmented list. You know that not all customers are the same, so why would you treat them alike via email?
By segmenting your subscribers into more targeted, specific groups, you can deliver messaging that speaks more directly to their concerns or where they are in your sales funnel. Now I’m sure you’re wondering how important is segmentation, Jamal? Well, one study found that marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. If my revenue were to increase by 760%, you know how much money I’d have? (dramatic music) Have zero, ’cause zero times anything is still zero.
Got to work on that. So how do you build a segmented list? A lot has to do with how you gather emails. HubSpot built its email lists largely by offering free content like templates, tools, and eBooks. This let us know what a subscriber is interested in based on what resources they’ve downloaded.
If someone downloads our Instagram for business ebook, we might decide to send them an email offering free Instagram templates, because it’s relevant to what they’re trying to solve.
We wouldn’t send them an email about our interview kit for job seekers. You can segment your email list by virtually any field in your CRM, and with the right tools, you can create automatic email sequences that respond to almost any scenario. Which brings us to tip number two. Use personalization.
Personalization takes segmentation to the next level. Creating emails that are tailored exclusively for the individual recipient. Studies have shown that even something as simple as automatically inserting the subscriber’s name in the salutation of the email can increase open rates by 18%. Something along the lines of, “Hey, how are you doing, Jerry? I miss you.
Or personalized product recommendation in the subject line can increase open rate by 41%. Shopify claims that an abandoned cart email, another common type of email personalization, can recover up to 14% of lost sales. But my favorite personalized emails come from Spotify, which uses it’s vast data about subscriber listening habits to alert fans when their favorite artists have new music or upcoming concerts. How else am I gonna know Mark Rebiellet has tickets on tour?
Our third tip for email marketing success is to focus on subject lines. Already mentioned how using personalization in a subject line can increase the open rate. And that’s just one technique. Others include using curiosity, urgency, even vanity. There are literally a trillion more subject lines I can share with you, so if you wanna see that, be sure to check out our free ebook, “100 Email Subject Lines We Actually Clicked.”
Tip number four to succeed at email marketing is use simple layout and copy. There are thousands and thousands, maybe even millions and millions, billions and billions of email templates out there, along with drag and drop tools to build your own.
But it can be really tempting to try to cram too much stuff into an email. The best emails have one clear message that it’s offering to the subscriber. The shorter and sweeter, the more effective and the more sweet. I have a sweet tooth.
Check out this email from Dropbox with the subject line, “Baby, come back.” It’s cute, it’s witty, it’s direct. Sound like somebody you know? It’s like the “Dora the Explorer” segment where it’s like, they’re gonna respond now, aren’t they? You probably didn’t say anything and I’m disappointed.
And the final tip I have for you today is clean your list. That means removing emails that haven’t been opened in a certain amount of time. Usually between 90 days and six months depending on your industry. Most marketers will send a re-engagement email to subscribers before they get removed, and those emails can actually work up to 25% of the time at getting subscribers to open your emails again. The rest of them.
You know what I’m saying? (Jamal stutters) And some, you know, they’re not coming back. You know what I’m saying? Some people aren’t coming back. Sometimes folks simply lose interest in what you’re offering or no longer have the same need as when they signed up.
Sometimes subscribers will get annoyed with your brand for filling their inbox even if they subscribed. I know, it’s not fair. But why risk emailing someone if it’s gonna annoy them anyway? Another reason for your cleaning your list can be economical. The cost of sending a marketing email can vary, but it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 cent per email.
And there’s somewhere between 100 and like 25 billion business emails sent every day. The average open rate across all industries is 21.33%. That means, and wrap your head around this, that $2.6 million are spent every day on unopened emails.
That’s almost $100 billion a year. If that’s not enough reason to clean your lists, consider as well that low open rates or the percentage of people who open your emails can lead to more emails being sent to spam folders, leading to even lower open rates. So keep your list clean and follow our other tips to see your email marketing success skyrocket. If you’re ready to get started, you can take the complete email marketing course online at HubSpot academy.