Here’s a STAT I bet you didn’t know… 73% of consumers actually PREFER to be contacted by email.  It’s true.  And it’s significantly more than the 41% who accept direct mail from brands. 

According to a recent study by CAMPAIGN MONITOR, 59% of marketers report seeing the most ROI from email.  “Every year, someone writes an article proclaiming that email marketing is dead—and every year, they’re proven wrong.” Notes Cher Fuller over at Campaign Monitor.  And she couldn’t be more spot on IMHO. 

Every day, about 205 billion emails are sent out around the world, making it one of the fastest and most frequently used means of mass communication. So how does a brand cut through all that clutter? When it comes to email marketing it's all about the "TIONS" SimplificaTION, segmentaTION, personalizaTION, and automaTION.

SIMPLIFICATION means less is more when it comes to email, in terms of both content and messaging. A Microsoft report recently revealed that the average person's attention span is 8 seconds. So you need to make sure your message is clear and concise, with a solid call-to-action. It's that simple.

SEGMENTATION in marketing is about building trust and showing your target that you’re in touch with their wants and needs. Segmenting your target into affinity groups is crucial to increasing both deliverability and engagement. Group those with similar characteristics, interests or behaviors and you are likely to group them by wants and needs by facto – even if you aren’t sure of ALL of their wants and needs.  An elderly person who lives in a modest home or apartment is likely on budget and will have roughly the same wants and needs as his elderly neighbor, for example.  You'll be able to create more effective marketing messages (content) when you understand the people in the group you’re writing for.

Segmentation and PERSONALIZATION go hand-in-hand. Sending out impersonal one-size-fits-all mass emails leaves little chance of personal connection with your target.  Personalization - including your target’s name or speaking to their browsing behavior – for example - takes things to a whole new level of engagement.  Using the person's first name or company name in email subject lines and body copy often improves call-to-action behaviors. Many email marketing platforms have this feature and it is very simple to implement. Studies show that personalized emails have 29% higher unique open rates, 41% higher unique click rates and 360% higher conversions than generic emails!

AUTOMATION allows you to set responses to certain behaviors or lack thereof such as time lapses and specified dates and times using software. Automated responses are the best way to keep your brand top-of-mind.  By setting interactions you have the ability to enhance conversations, remind of your brand/products/services, and amplify and alter promotion all based on behavior.  Say a potential customer abandons a cart – automation allows you to remind them of what they left behind, or send out a special promotion – in an effort to retrieve that sale.  Similarly a viewer visits a specific page of your site – you can send that view content relating to that page, because now you know their interests.  

At Slightly Mad we work with our clients to map out a "tree" of emails that take individual consumers down a variety of different paths, depending on their behavior.  This behavior also allows us to assign a lead score based on their behavior.  Someone who has returned to your site several times will get a higher score than someone who visited only once, for example.   

Now that you know about the power of the “TIONS" -  we think this one last STAT from the Campaign Monitor report is the most important STAT of all:  25% of marketers surveyed plan to significantly increase their email marketing spending. If everyone else is increasing their spending, where does that leave you? Slightly Mad is well-versed in all facets of effective email marketing and would LOVE to teach you more! Give us a call at (631) 271-2971 to discuss how we can help you integrate these key elements into your email marketing planning and increase ROI.