Helpful Email Marketing Pointers to Keep in Mind
Emails are essentially direct tickets to your audience. You’re landing in their inbox and you’re landing in their phone by way of a notification that begs to be read. Unlike social media content which can get lost in a scroll, email marketing is a direct way to reach your audience that can be hard to ignore.
We’ve already talked about why you really should be considering email marketing, but in case you’re not convinced, we wanted to share these four tips as you think about your approach to email.
Repurpose Your Content
You’re likely building out content for a variety of channels already and you may be thinking, “I’m doing enough, why would I also add email into the mix?” Well, great point, but it shouldn’t be one that deters you from launching an email marketing strategy. The most basic approach here can be repurposing the content you’re already creating.
In the case of Hodges, our monthly Press Box newsletter is essentially an aggregator for blog posts, podcasts and internal items we call Plays of the Week. We add a couple of new components and we’re done!
Or, Make it Exclusive
That said, as you build your email list or you see potential use cases arise, you can build content that is exclusive to your email subscribers. This creates a reason to subscribe if someone isn’t already and it allows you to create customizable content based on segments within your mailing list.
For example, let’s say you have a subscriber-only newsletter and you have three different types of customer personas. You could have some standard content that appears for all personas, but then you can pull in dynamic content that changes based on the persona to create a more personalized experience.
Email is Accessed 24/7/365
There was a time when we only recommended email sends Tuesday through Thursday because that’s when people were at their computers. But in the realities of our technologically connected world and ever-changing consumer behaviors, you really have a lot of flexibility on when you can send emails. Depending on your audience, you may want to reach them on the weekend when inboxes aren’t as inundated as they are Monday through Friday. There may be some advantages to sending on a Sunday because you get that coveted top slot when inboxes are opened on Monday. Play with your sends and see if you notice a difference!
Don’t Get Caught Up with Benchmarks
Piggybacking from the pointer above, don’t get caught up in benchmark data. There are so many variables when it comes to emails, that you can get lost in the sauce when it comes to email benchmarks. We’ve found that benchmarks are good to give you a ballpark on performance, but it really comes down to testing your technology, content and audience. Over time, you can establish your own benchmarks to measure your campaigns against what will be true reflections of industry, campaign content, audience and timing.
Casey Prentice
A self-proclaimed organizational junkie and data geek who confesses to a secret desire to be a professional organizer, Casey enjoys account management, writing, editing and digital content strategy. Her agency work has helped clients like Virginia’s Community Colleges, VCUarts and Swedish Match.
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