According to a HubSpot study, 86% of B2B business professionals prefer email as the primary source for business communication.
Email marketing is a primary driver of customer acquisition and can generate the highest ROI amongst all your marketing channels. It is a proven, effective way to nurture relationships with prospects, leads, customers. Emails give you a chance to talk to them directly, at a time that is convenient for them.
So, let us discuss some tips and best practices for email marketing success in 2018.Here are 5 tips to attain email marketing success in 2018:
1. Write Short, Clear Emails
Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audience. But too many emails and too much content can force your readers to unsubscribe.
Emails having 75-100 words have the highest response rate.
An ideal email is short but crisp, has a persuasive call-to-action, and includes 1-2 images. But, there should be no compromise with clarity. It is your duty as a marketer to focus on supremely relevant bite-size content.
2. Scrub and Curate Your Email Lists
Keeping your database duplicate free is a must. Therefore, invest in a dedupe solution that can help you get rid of all your existing duplicates at once and keep merging any duplicate records in real-time. Then, periodically scrub your lists to keep your sender reputation clean and engagement rates up.
Identify the subscribers who haven’t opened your emails and those who are no longer active. Prepare a re-engagement plan for those who didn’t see your emails. If it still does not work, then go for cleansing without thinking twice.
The quantity of email subscribers doesn’t always equal quality.
After curating your lists, you can reach out to your high-quality leads and find out what level of engagement they are comfortable with.
3. Make Your Emails Mobile-Friendly
Two-thirds of emails are read on either smartphones or tablets, according to a research by Marketing Land. This obviously underlines the necessity of making your email campaign responsive. Mobile-friendliness is not limited to design and readability but demands a whole new approach.
‘Thinking mobile first’ will be the mantra for a successful email campaign in 2018.
The rapid growth of ‘Mobile Web’ will continue to provide opportunities to engage with customers effectively using email marketing. Before finalizing your email campaign, just make sure you test your emails on all major mobile/tablet devices.
4. Permission Marketing – Best Email Marketing Strategy
Treating people with respect is the best way to get their attention. Permission marketing goes hand-in-hand with securing opt-ins and sending only the wanted content. It is an effective way to ensure healthy customer relationship.
Research shows that more than 90% people prefer companies to seek their permission before contacting them.
Remember, once somebody grants permission to communicate with them, make sure you are listening to them. You must gauge their responses so you don’t overdo it and make them change their mind about your messages.
5. Automate Personalized Emails
According to EmailMonday, 30% of marketers say that personalization is most likely to impact their email marketing. Achieving personalization using Artificial Intelligence (AI) will remain a major trend in 2018.
Annual State of Marketing report points out that 52% of consumers and 65% B2B prospects are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t personalize communications to them.
With improved AI, sophisticated personalization and targeting software, businesses can reduce the cost, and increase conversion rate on the average email. So, even with fewer emails, businesses can see a boost in profit from email marketing.Need help to strategize and effectively implement your email marketing? Let’s connect then.