September 14, 2018
Email remains the main promotion and communication channel for most audience marketers. But while email performs, it can also be over-used and ignored by your audience. In this week’s Friday Four, Shawna White (Brand Manager, The Horse Media Group) and Skip O’Neill (Director, Adestra) share best practices and fresh thinking on email to stay out of the Sloppy Email Marketing Club!
A shocking amount of “blast and hope” email strategy still goes on. How can marketers break that cycle?
Skip: “A good first step is to segment your list based on types; maybe customers and non-customers. The basic email can be the same but acknowledging the value of the customer will go a long way toward ensuring renewal. Another easy way to step away from the batch and hope strategy is to do some A/B or multi-variant testing. ”
Shawna: “Starting small is better than not starting at all. Go ahead and only target your message/offer to the part of your list that you have certain demographic information from. Ask your readers to take a survey even though you know not everyone will complete it. If you wait until you have full demographics on everyone, you’ll be too late!”
What’s new in email design and strategy that can significantly improve opens/engagement?
Skip: “Ensuring that your email is mobile responsive isn’t new but is more important than ever. Shrinking a desktop designed email to fit on a mobile screen is not the answer. Building a responsive and adaptive email can help to garner more opens. 60-70% of all emails are opened on a mobile device, so making sure your emails render properly is key to a publisher’s success. Also, running your email through a rendering solution like Litmus or Email on Acid can show you how your emails will look on dozens of different mobile devices, using different OS.”
Shawna: “A/B testing isn’t new but remains my favorite way to improve opens/engagement. Testing subject lines is simple, quick, and you can be amazed at what will resonate with your audience and increase your open rates!”