The Living Dead: Email Marketing

Except it’s very much alive and thriving.

In the vast land of digital marketing strategies email marketing is yet another component that is often thought of as the underdog.

The reality of email marketing:

Email marketing holds a lot of value for business when appropriately used. To put this value into terms of profit vs cost, for every dollar invested into this strategy there can be an expected return of $32-$45 depending on the business sector. The strategy behind the collection and segmenting of email addresses is the key to this success.

Developing an email marketing list:

Before actively building the list, you must first ensure you have a solid base to begin, this base is comprised of two elements: knowing who to reach and how. Brands must ask themselves do they have the emails of those needed/appropriate for the campaign. There are countless methods to collect this email list, ranging from using social media ads, to pop ups on your website. Regardless of the collection method a vast demographic and array of people are behind the emails given.

To get the most out of the emails sent and ensure that the email contents are being viewed, further segmenting and breaking down this list is essential. The segmentation like the collection can take many forms but at the heart of them all is taking the “master” list of emails and creating separate clusters that can then be targeted with group specific content. There can be extremely targeted subcategories as well as broader groupings such as by gender.

Successful Segmentation Strategies:

Demographic and Geographic

Arguably the most base level strategy is by demographics, this could be via gender, age, level of education etc. These factors can inherently influence consumer behaviors and ultimately buying decisions. This of course isn’t foolproof but can give a bird’s eye idea of what ads will be most appreciated by their audience. The demographic segmentation method can enhance the click through rate (CTR), this metric is those who not only clicked on the email but actively engaged with and clicked on a link inside. This number is then divided by those who saw the email (number of impressions). The denominator should be clearly defined. An impression indicates a successfully delivered email.

This CTR can give a look into if the email contents are relating to and appealing to those they’re reaching. Circling back to demographic segmentation if a specific segment is showing a low CTR than it doesn’t denounce the quality of the email content but may indicate that the audience its reaching is not who is interested by it.

Geographics similarly are groupings based on an individual’s location. Location information is fairly easy to gather and then regionally group email lists based on this data. An example of this being useful would be an email alerting consumers about a new winterwear line that just dropped. A nationwide brand could segment the list into regions currently in winter and target those groups first or alter the email content to be more focused on the winterwear qualities.  

              Behaviors

Segmenting in this manner entails not only knowing what is being purchased, but also what they’re thinking about buying (adding to cart or wish list) and where they predominately make purchases. This allows for a deeper appeal to consumers and can help facilitate that final jump in the funnel allowing a conversion. This segmentation strategy works great for product or brand line specific emails notifying consumers about line extensions or for deals/offers in this category. Emails about last chance sales would be more utilized by those who have shown an interest in this category before or who have it in their cart but have yet to purchase. While consumers who buy mostly in store would be most interested in new locations or in store only events. This segment can overlap with geographic segmentation to further pinpoint who would be most interested in what content.

              Psychographics

Rather than relying on past consumer behavior and shop interactions, psychographic information is powerful in understanding lifestyles as a whole and what grabs audiences’ attention. Study of this can give insight into the motivation behind the why of a conversion…

Examples of this why:

cause a product has proven useful

its aesthetics

it being multipurpose, the list is endless.

Knowing what features each group most values allow for email content to be beneficial to them specifically.

It's important companies are intentional with emails sent to ensure inboxes aren’t overwhelmed with low quality or unuseful content. If I am consistently seeing content that is irrelevant to my lifestyle the chances of me automatically ignoring all emails from a company or unsubscribing from email lists increases.

Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation although being in the same family as email marketing is cross channel and more involved. The value in marketing automation comes from its varying aspects and moving pieces.

Another difference between the two is the timeframe associated with them, marketing segmentation can be used to carry consumers through their journey and walk them down to the bitter end (the point of conversion). Emails can be reviewed by people at any point throughout the day and often are not given much thought or consideration beyond being opened and a brief period of interaction. Email marketing can be one aspect of marketing automation which is involved in the bigger picture of informing customers on an item and answering questions they may have.

Rather than walking with the customer they meet them at the end or spur an impulse decision with flash sales or limited offers. Subject lines of many emails are meant to enforce quick action.

Within the last month the top subject lines of emails in my inbox are…

“It’s Been Awhile… Here’s A Special Offer!” – Auntie Anne's Pretzels

-          This emphasizes that I have not had their pretzels in a minute, once opened the first image is a glamour shot of their pretzel nuggets something I buy 9/10 times I visit. I am sure this email was sent to a group of individuals who have not visited in a set timeframe or have a history of purchasing pretzel nuggets which is the primary imagery in the email although the coupon is good for any of their pretzels.

“Don’t miss 50% off ALL sweaters, $199 select men’s outerwear + MORE!” – Express

-          This is a store I have shopped at one time because I had a coupon and a gift card, they have little information on my purchase history, but the act fast elicits a feeling of urgency as inaction would result in missing out on a deal.

“LAST CHANCE to nab 15% off” – Ulta

-          When opened the first image is a graphic stating their sale ends today with the phrasing “if you’ve been waiting for a sign to shop – this is it.”

Overall email marketing has a purpose to effectively initiate conversion and end of the funnel actions, or alert consumers on new products or sales. It can also incite brand interest in various groups of past consumers using segmentation techniques.