Email campaigns are still one of the best ways for businesses and marketers to connect with their target customers, drive conversions and nurture customer relationships. Unsuccessful email campaigns, though, are usually a result of ignorance to a combination of data analysis, psychology, and strategic planning. In order to really leverage email marketing for what it can really do, one needs to know some science. In this article we examine the key parts to a successful email campaign such as personalization and segmentation, timing and subject lines to make sure those campaigns are not only being seen but are being acted upon.
The Power of Personalization
Personalization is the key to being successful with email campaigns. Every day consumers are bombarded with a flood of generic emails, but it’s the emails that really make a difference, the emails that speak directly to the consumer. Emails that are personalized, or personalized for the recipient, such as with their name and any preferences contained or past interactions with the primary owner, have been found to have higher engagement rates than unpersonalized emails.
But why does personalization work? The truth is in psychology. We are naturally drawn to things of ourselves or things that we are interested in. According to them, emails that they think are custom designed for them are more likely to get opened, engaged and converted. For instance, having personalized product recommendations based on previous purchases increases open rates dramatically, if the subject line includes the recipient’s name for example.
Segmentation: The Key to Relevance
Personalization is good, but it is not the only ingredient to success in your email campaign. That’s just as true: segmentation—dividing your email list into smaller, more targeted groups—can be equally important. With segmentation, you can actually send the right message at the right time to the right people.
A great way is for instance segmenting your list based on demographics, past purchasing behaviour and even how often people respond to your emails. This makes the content more relevant, thus making it more likely recipients will take action. Targeted groups with differentiated messaging can increase conversion rates and minimize avoidable unsubscribes because of targeted content.
Subject Lines: The Gateway to Engagement
Your email’s subject line can be the first impression your recipient will get. This is the start of the engagement, and for a big win it’s one of the most important pieces of your campaign. Your great subject line needs to be short, compelling and relevant.
It has been shown through studies that emails with personalised subject lines almost have a greater open rate. That’s because personalized emails immediately grab the attention of the recipient and the person will feel they are reading an email that is directly to their interest. It also helps that you can use a sense of urgency or curiosity in your subject line to boost open rates. Phrases like “limited time offer” or “you won’t believe what we have for you” can compel the reader to open the email.
Timing: Sending Emails at the Right Moment
Just as important as what you say in it is when you send your email. Email campaigns are based on timing. By sending emails at the wrong times, however, you risk having them ignored, or worse, remain in the recipient’s inbox without being seen. It turns out that research has proved that the most effective times to send emails are midweek (Tuesday to Thursday) as well as mid morning or early afternoon.
But that timing can vary depending on who you are speaking to. For instance, business professionals Emails may be more efficient to be sent at working time, Emails addressed to consumers may perform better in the evening or at weekends. For that reason, testing different send times can tell you when your audience is most likely to engage with your content.
The Science of Email Design
Your email design can also greatly impact how effective it is. An ideal email should be visually appealing, easy to read and look good on mobile. A lot of emails are opened on mobile devices and you want your email to be optimized for smaller screens. Big, easy to click buttons, short text, optimized images — all of the above comes in this, including …
On top of it, the CTA should be straightforward and strategically placed. Your CTA has to be impossible to miss, no matter if you want them buying something or downloading a resource, or signing up for a webinar. A well designed CTA can make a huge impact on click through rates.
A/B Testing: Continuous improvement is the Key
What’s beautiful about email campaigns is that they can be tested and optimized continuously. The A/B test emails two variations of an email to small portions from your audience and then chooses the mail that performs better. That could entail different CTAs, subject lines, email designs, and even different send times.
You can use the insights gained from A/B testing and use that to make your future emails even better. Here we are doing this iterative based process of your campaigns so over time, they grow to be better and becoming more effective.
Automation in the Role of Streamlining Campaigns
One more thing that can help to make your email campaigns a success is to incorporate email automation into them. This means you can send automated emails on prompting specific actions or triggers: for example, on a customer placing an order or leaving their shopping cart.
Automation enables you to create a drip campaign, a series of emails sent at certain times in a period, to help educate leads. From this point ‘drip campaigns’ are very much effective in building trust and keeping these audience engaged. Say, for instance, a welcome email series would educate new subscribers about your brand or a post purchase follow up will tell the customer how you will help them repeat business.
Optimizing for better results, part 1: analysis.
A successful email campaign isn’t a one and done thing, the science doesn’t end when the emails are sent. In reality, one of the most important is to analyze your campaign performance. With tools like open rates, click through rates and conversion rates, you can learn more about how your audience engages with your emails.
Then you understand which emails performed well and which didn’t, so that you can refine your approach. Let’s say your conversions are higher when you send emails with particular subject lines or certain content included, you can repeat these strategies for your future campaigns. Analyze results regularly so you will know if you’re on track and working to continuously improve.
Conclusion
A successful email campaign is not luck, it’sattleting out to a plan where you combine your data savvy with some psychology and back it up with data to create your campaign. The science to an email campaign consists of personalizing, segmenting, great subject lines, timed perfectly, in the right design and built to optimize continuously. Once you understand the science behind these elements, you can use emails to grab your audience’s attention, drive conversions, and ultimately help your business grow.
Email marketing is a slow process of constant learning and you need to have the right approach to turn your email campaigns into force for customer engagement and business growth.
