Email is the most effective channel for one-to-one marketing, according to Joel Book, Principal of Marketing Insights at Salesforce Marketing Cloud. In his presentation on the state of email marketing at Dreamforce 2015, Book announced to the crowd of marketers that email is now the number one driver of leads for B2B companies.
The bottom line? Successful email marketing is core to growing your business. Seventy-two percent of U.S. adults prefer for companies to communicate with them via email, and more than 69 percent have made a purchase due to an email.
As a result, marketers are doing all they can to grow their databases and maximize the impact of their email marketing. In fact, 59 percent of marketers are increasing their email budget year over year, according to the Accenture Interactive CMO Insights survey.
How can you get the most out of email marketing? Here are the 5 keys to email success from Book’s presentation at Dreamforce 2015:
1. Grow your email audience.
Your email subscriber database is your most valuable marketing asset. Give your potential subscribers options at sign up, including preferences for delivery, frequency, and topics.
Use social media to attract potential subscribers. Try a lightbox on your blog, and test your subscription language. Promote your newsletter in content downloads, product pages, and at events. Never miss an opportunity to have someone opt in!
2. There’s no substitute for relevant content.
Keep your content strategy focused on the interests of your audience. Acquire first-party data and use it to predict and deliver offers, invitations, and service messages that are relevant, timely, and useful.
Today’s consumer is multi-channeled, savvy, and will expect personalization in the content you’re delivering (more on that here). When you use data to personalize your email content, you’ll see a 6 to 9 percent conversion rate lift, Book notes.
3. Retool for mobile.
This one should go without saying; 53 percent of all U.S. email opens occur on a mobile device. Use responsive design to optimize your email communications for user-friendly display and navigation on all devices.
4. Automate journeys for each stage of the lifecycle.
Automate the journey from product evaluation and purchase through onboarding, usage, and renewal. Use a marketing automation tool to segment your audience based on critical stages and create messaging and offers specific to each. For example, evaluators should receive ungated content and infographics, while late-stage prospects should receive buying guides and product comparisons. New customers should receive onboarding tips and tricks.
What’s the payoff? Personalization of email content throughout the buyer’s journey can give you a 12 to 18 percent revenue lift, says Book.
5. Know your customer.
Seventy-eight percent of consumers are more likely to become a repeat customer if a brand provides them with relevant content. Invest in customer marketing just as much as you do prospect marketing. Use tools like Totango, Google Analytics, and your marketing automation system to track customer interactions at every step, so you truly know the profile of your customer. Design content based on helping them succeed (not renewing their business).
Optimized customer communications are strongly correlated with business outcomes. According to a 2013 Harvard Business Review webinar from McKinsey & Co, personalized email content correlates with a 36 percent increased customer satisfaction, 28 percent increased willingness to recommend, and 33 percent decreased likelihood to cancel.
Conclusion
Email is your hardwired connection between you and your customer. Data is the fuel to deliver a personalized customer experience. Investigate how you can grow your database, use data to personalize, and deliver relevant content at every stage of the customer experience.