Many individuals have long predicted the fall of email as a marketing channel, but email marketing continues to be an important component of any marketing strategy.

A well-executed email campaign can be very effective at helping you achieve your business and marketing objectives. Here are three ways to optimize this important channel and achieve the measurable performance you’re looking for.   

Strategy first

Email marketing drives customer acquisition and retention, delivering an impressive return on investment (ROI) of US$36 for every $1 spent. To achieve that level of ROI, however, companies need to have a strategy in place to maximize any investment they make in this channel. Organizations need to consider relevance, experience, messaging, benefits and customer needs.

The bottom line is that having a tool is not enough. The most sophisticated strategies will fall flat without a well-planned content marketing plan to feed them. If you have answers to the 5 questions below, you are well on your way to building your strategy:

• How well do you know your customers?
• Do you have a good understanding of their needs and pain points?
• How well do you know your organization’s brand promise?
• Do you know what you want to say and how you want to say it?
• Have you determined what success means to your organization?

The next step is to focus your content strategy in a credible and meaningful way. Only at this point, are you equipped to partner with your email platform and data colleagues. They will thank you for the guidance and insight and be more motivated and engaged to help you execute strategic and effective email communications.

Relevance is king

“Relevance is king” can be a useful adaptation of the traditional mantra “content is king” to level up your use of the email channel. One of the most common quandaries organizations face is how many emails to send. Often, companies are surprised when research suggests customers want to hear more from them, not less.

The secret to answering this question is relevance. Customers’ perception of an email as spam is highly correlated with relevance, meaning a hard-and-fast number will not suffice. Customers who receive few emails with very little relevance will have low engagement compared to those who receive frequent and relevant communications.

Find your target

Relevancy is achieved by segmenting your audience based on their client profile. Whether you are at the crawl, walk, or run stage of your use of the email channel, you should always aim for maximum personalization. An email recipient is 50 percent more likely to click on a link in a segmented email.

For many, this means targeting your email distribution using, at a minimum, basic segmentation based on a foundational data strategy. No more mass messaging with information relevant to only a small section of the distribution list. This old batch-and-blast approach is well past its expiration date.

For others, this means more advanced behavioral-based and customized segments. This requires a true understanding of the customer experience and profile to provide the right content at the right time under the right circumstance.

Email marketing should always start with developing your strategy to set your goals and find the best way to achieve them. Once you have your strategy in place, support it with relevant messages that target audiences that want to receive them. Do that and you can watch your customers’ engagement grow!

Looking for help developing an effective email marketing strategy? Ext. has the expertise you need. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com

The next time you question the value of digital marketing, post “free baseball tickets” on your social media feed and watch what happens. We guarantee you’ll be overwhelmed with a response. Why? Your message is short, direct and conveys something people want.

At a time when everyone struggles to cope with information overload, digital marketing needs to be able to cut through the noise and deliver something that will make the audience feel it was worth their time. And short is best – according to a study by Microsoft Corp., people today generally lose concentration after eight seconds.

To consistently craft those messages, remember the five Cs:

• Clarity
• Creativity
• Connection
• Customization
• Consistency

1. Clarity

Digital copy needs to be clear, concise and easy to understand. It starts by knowing what you want to say. Start by referring to your key messaging (if you don’t have that in place, then consider developing that first) and then build your concept around that idea.

Once you have a crisp idea what your message, find a succinct way to say it. You lose clarity when you pack words into a sentence. Avoid long words and unnecessary adverbs or adjectives (e.g., actually, really, very etc.)

And keep it scannable. Short sentences and single-sentence paragraphs – often called snackable content – are usually the most effective.

2. Creativity

Digital marketing allows you to give your brand some personality. Keep it authentic. Whether your brand is fun or serious, there are many creative ways to tell your story.

Push yourself to capture the audience’s curiosity with a smartly crafted message. Pair that copy with innovative insights, strong images, animations, and videos to add more interest to your story.

The digital space is a visual medium so think graphically. Support your message with an infographic to tell a complete story.

3. Connection

Connection is about understanding what your audience needs and offering a solution. Done effectively, it results in that “aha moment”  by creating a relatable, emotional connection with the reader.

Being authentic and solving challenges helps you build trust. Remember, people tend to share content they can relate to.

4. Customization

It’s not about you; your content has to resonate with your audience. Successful client relationships are built on generating genuine rapport and respect.

Engage your audience by encouraging collaboration and getting familiar with their goals and pain points. When you treat your clients as partners by inviting them to participate in your message, you’ve started a conversation that’s more likely to last.

5. Consistency

Maintaining a regular distribution schedule for your content can help build customer loyalty. They can come to rely on you as a source of information. But consistency isn’t just about providing structure; it also refers to the type of content you are offering. Are you always communicating valued information? That’s the key.

Whether you publish two blogs a week or send an email newsletter once a month, stick with it by sharing relevant content that your audience can count on. Remember, you can use metrics to figure out what resonates best with your audiences and refine your strategy from there.

Looking to elevate your digital content? Ext can help you execute effective communication campaigns with a focus on the five C’s. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.

If you are not regularly A/B testing your website and digital marketing materials, you could be overlooking valuable client insights. The only way to truly test how your digital assets are performing is to create several versions of these assets and pit them against one another.

Get to know your target audience

Whether you’re selling a product or an idea, you want to communicate with your target audience in a way that demonstrates you understand their needs. You can design what you believe to be the most appealing ad or draft what you think is truly compelling copy, but how can you be sure it resonates with your readers? What you might not realize when you hit the “Send” or “Publish” button is that if you had made a small change, your conversion rates could have jumped dramatically.

A/B testing simply refers to the comparison of two versions of an ad, landing page or email to see which one results in higher engagement. Here’s how it works:

• Create your control version (with headline, copy, call to action and graphics)
• Create a second version (or several) selecting one element of each to be the variant
• Post each version (or, in the case of an e-newsletter, divide your audience and send one version to each group)
• Measure and compare the interaction levels between the control version and the variants (click-through rates, open rates, time on pages, page sessions, etc.)

Test, test and test again

Remember, your audience decides what works and what doesn’t. Effective marketing campaigns are the ones that keep building on their own insights. Ext. Digital Activation Manager Shane Hersco recommends constant vigilance. “You need to A/B test as many different variations as possible. It never ends. You will never have a campaign that stands the test of time – that’s evergreen; after a while, even the best creative will fatigue. And to minimize fatiguing, we constantly test different variants,” he says.

Hersco adds that it’s important to test variants because you don’t intuitively know how the audience will interpret the creative and which one will work best. “We have a standing ad for example, and we test a small variation to it. We don’t typically change an entire ad or test two wildly different versions of the creative, otherwise we wouldn’t know what works and what doesn’t,” he explains.

Break it down

Anytime you A/B test, you need to test either a call to action, an image or copy – just one thing. For example, you’d have all those components in campaign A, and in campaign B you’d change only one of those elements.

It’s best practice to give each campaign asset a couple of days and to use a large enough sample size to deliver accurate results. It’s rather scientific, when you think about it. You control one variable at a time to reveal the main driver for success.

A/B testing provides insights into what creative elements are the most effective. Once you get an idea of which ones are the most appealing and effective for a particular audience or customer persona, you can use those insights to build a marketing library of different samples you can leverage for future campaigns.

Looking to boost your digital metrics and conversion rates? Learn how Ext. can help you create and manage effective marketing campaigns that incorporate A/B testing. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.