A Fresh Look at Email Marketing

December 10, 2019
11:20 pm

Posted by DMA Solutions Team

While email marketing as a concept is certainly not new, the way marketers should be thinking about email marketing moving into 2020 certainly should be. Email marketing is often seen as a tool to drive awareness around product offerings, from extensions of a current product line to the introduction of new packaging. However, in the age of big data, email marketing can do so much more than drive awareness.

Here are some tips to help elevate your email marketing in 2020:

How to Improve Your Email Marketing Efforts

1. Build an inclusive community.

People don’t surf the internet aimlessly (and hey, even when they do, there’s still a good chance to catch their eye!). They often go online with a specific goal in mind, whether it’s to meet other people, join groups and communicate on social media, learn something, buy a product, read reviews from trusted sources, etc. Essentially, when online, people are looking to take part in a world that is as real as their offline sphere. Therefore, your email marketing should feel personal, evoke an emotional connection, and share a deeper story about your brand, rather than simply providing product offerings.

2. Use behavioral data to your advantage.

Creating and sending the email itself is a great (and clearly necessary) first step, but it certainly should not be your last. Analyzing the results of your email marketing is a crucial next step to help ensure you’re creating content that resonates with your audiences and generates desired results. For instance, if you have a high form abandonment rate or a low click-rate on your call-to-action buttons, this data equips you with the knowledge needed to for you to experiment with changes and find what works. (For instance, is the problem that your forms are too long? Are your call-to-action buttons not clear enough? Through analysis and A/B testing, you can find out!)

3. Keep it simple (and clear).

When it comes to developing a relationship with your audience, you might think that the more you can say about your brand, the better. However, the opposite is often true! The more straightforward, simple, and direct you can be, the more likely it is that your audience will stay engaged with your content. (Pro-tip: design should follow the same strategy. A “busy” design overwhelms your audience and can resulted in fewer clicks.)

4. Know your audience.

Thought it might sound intuitive, understanding your audience and learning how to speak in a way that resonates with them is imperative for effective email marketing. One strategy we recommend putting in place—prior to writing email copy—is building out buyer personas. From there, you can create different versions of the same content that speaks to each of the audiences you’d like to reach. While you can’t send a custom email to each and every one of your customers, you can strategically segment your audience into different buying groups and develop content that genuinely speaks to those people.

Many organizations think of data and email marketing as existing in separate silos, designed for completely different purposes. However, when analytics, consumer lifestyle insights, and email marketing come together, the result is smarter, more creative content that resonates with your audience and helps build equity for your brand.