Are Your Emails Helping Your Company Grow or Maintaining the Status Quo?
Diminishing rates continue their downward trend until something makes them change direction. External forces are working to accelerate the decline. Email volume for second quarter 2013 is up 17.9 percent over the same period in 2012. (Source: Experian Marketing Services "Q2 2013 Email Marketing Bechmark Study," opens as a pdf.) The increase is projected to continue.
And then there is that pesky email fatigue issue. When people are bombarded with the same message from so many sources, they become desensitized to the offers. They don't even bother to open the emails most of the time.
The only way to reverse the downhill slide is to change the email marketing model. It needs to shift from generic promotional messages to customized personal ones designed to appeal to specific individuals. The tools and tactics used by direct marketers to target catalog buyers are effective with a little tweaking. Get started by:
- Re-evaluating the effectiveness of your email marketing program. Running on auto-pilot works for a while, but regular maintenance and updates are needed for improvements.
- Identifying email subscribers by type. Are their purchases seasonal, category, discount or a combination of all three?
- Creating and testing targeted emails. Be careful that you don't overshare what you know about customers. Too much information is creepy.
- Adding "how to" emails in to the marketing mix. A reputation for providing helpful information encourages people to open your emails.
- Optimizing emails for individuals and search. Changes are happening in the search arena that make optimization necessary on all digital content.
