Ever wondered what absolutely-cannot-do-without ingredients make up a successful email marketing campaign? Email marketing relies on a number of factors in order to deliver results. If one is missed, your entire campaign can be affected… and not in a good way, either.
Unlike many other forms of digital marketing, email relies on factors that are sometimes outside of your control. A low open rate can be caused by any number of things, whether it is poor content, bad timing, technical issues, an uninspiring subject line or even a lack of permission to send mail to any given recipient.
With that in mind, how can you be sure that your email marketing campaign goes off without too many hitches?
What goes into a winning email marketing campaign?
Some of the most essential elements to any email marketing campaign include the following:
- Permission. Above all else, you need to be 100% certain that your mailing list has been obtained legitimately and ethically. Bought lists, unsolicited emails, lack of opt-out links, and any other practice that does not involve permission-based lists will all sabotage even the best campaign. You will also see a lower bounce rate and a higher open rate with permission-based email.
- Content. You have a short time to grab readers’ attention once they open your email. Subject lines, email content, links, images, headers and other elements within the email itself are therefore critical to your success. For this reason, DIY emails can be a slippery slope. Invest in professional content marketing that will deliver the best quality email content possible.
- Segmentation. If you have not segmented your lists according to factors such as location, interests, demographics and purchase behaviour, you are missing out on a chance to increase conversion. Going one step further, you should also look at segmenting your lists according to lead nurturing stages, so that you can target people at the right time of their conversion journey.
- Deliverability. This goes hand in hand with timing. A number of emails never even reach their recipients. If you are using marketing automation, it is vital to check your mailing lists frequently to be sure that contacts are updated and that information is correct. If you are still having issues, it may be a technical glitch or even a hosting problem.
- Testing. That brings us to the final criteria for email marketing campaign success. A/B testing is essential to fine-tune your campaigns. Whether testing specific content, subject lines or anything else, it is important to use data to guide your decisions. This is best achieved through testing that gives you insight into what is working, and what is not.
Open Circle Solutions offers a full service approach to email marketing. We help you create, develop and plan campaigns that are designed for optimal ROI.
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