Email marketing has been the top performing marketing channel for businesses for decades. But some email marketing tactics work well and some not so well.
We read some interesting research from Aberdeen Group who examined common best practices that top-performing email marketers use to achieve success.
Prioritise email marketing for a greater ROI
Marketers who prioritse email marketing average:
- 89 percent higher contribution to revenue;
- 167% higher open rate;
- 230% higher click-through rate;
…versus marketers lacking such priorities.
Integrate data-driven campaigns for success
With data at their fingertips, email marketers are more effective in developing repeatable processes and personalised campaigns.
Email marketers will often test and optimise campaigns — 59 percent say they can duplicate the results of effective campaigns with this approach.
Additionally, 70 percent of email marketers can identify the most profitable customers in their database. Customers are synchronised with email marketing platforms from other systems such as finance to ensure one single customer view.
Personalisation and relevance is key
Good email marketers are effective at maintaining consistent, relevant, personalised communications with prospects and customers.
Replacing “blast” email campaigns with more focused and relevant content based on each contact’s preferences and attributes, directly results in higher open rates and click through rates.
In fact, personalisation increases your email’s chances of being opened by 26%.
Timely communications capture attention and respect
Email automation can help capture a prospect’s attention when you know they are at their computer or on their device.
Automated email responses to specific queries, using carefully scripted and personalised templates, provide the information the prospect was asking for within minutes of them asking. This can be the difference between you and your competitor who may take days to respond.
Continuously optimise to avoid sending spam
You may not be intending to spam your contacts but if you are not following the correct processes, that is a real possibility. Your emails then remain unopened. Your emails to other contacts are affected. Your return on your investment in email marketing can plummet.
The world of email marketing, and specifically the security and spam prevention measures employed by global email inbox providers, is constantly changing.
A contact on your mailing list is no longer an automatic asset that you can market to. An unengaged contact can be a liability and affect your email marketing to all other contacts.
This is particularly the case now since Google and Yahoo implemented new security and spam prevention measures (read about that here).
The best email marketers dedicate time to improving the quality of their mailing list on a regular basis. That includes choosing NOT to email unengaged contacts.
Source: “B2B AND B2C EMAIL MARKETING: INSIGHTS FOR SUCCESS IN THE INBOX AND BEYOND”, Aberdeen
Organisations that prioritise email marketing and automation achieve faster sales, improved customer engagement and longer customer retention.
So, you have two options.
- Aim to master it on your own; or
- Find a trusted partner to implement the right software solution and good processes.
We implement and then help manage the Keap CRM, Sales and Email Marketing Automation solution for Trainers, Syndicators, Bloodstock Agents and Stud Farms wishing to future proof their sales and marketing activities.
We also integrate with leading horse management platform, Prism, to avoid manual data entry and capitalise on a single view of each contact.
Our technical expertise and industry experience makes us a trusted partner for 8 of the 20 top thoroughbred trainers (by national winners), three of the top racehorse syndicators and a leading stallion farm in Victoria.
But it’s not just the big operations that ask for our help. A further 17 businesses use the CRM we implement and manage for them including trainers with as few as 20 horses in work and several software and financial service businesses in the thoroughbred industry.