TALKING POINTS
Tips for more effective email marketing By Jack Davey, Unearth Marketing
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good mailing list can be a goldmine, but for online and in store sales. However it’s more than simply gathering a large list of email addresses and hammering their inbox with offers. Your emails are a direct connection between your brand and the customer, quite literally to the palm of their hand. Incessant demands to spend will not ingratiate you with them, but well-built emails will grow loyalty as well as revenue. Here’s a short list of key considerations to help you create better marketing emails. Quality over quantity It’s a phrase that’s wheeled out all too often, but it is vital here and applies both to your mailing list and the emails you send. Having a vast database of contacts is all well and good but it’s meaningless if only 10% are opening your newsletters. That’s not to say that gathering more email addresses isn’t important, but keep those new contacts engaged by delivering high quality content in each email. Set aside time to put together a multi-feature email that ties into your broader strategy and business calendar. If you’re scrabbling around for something to put out that evening, you’re better off leaving it for another time. Entertain first, sell second Marketing emails are tools to drive footfall and site traffic, and ultimately make sales, but they are also a key connection between your brand and your customer. Inject the unique character of your store into every bit of copy, and don’t immediately make a play for their money. After all, you wouldn’t start guiding a customer over to the till the moment they set
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foot in the shop, would you? Discuss the latest goings-on, shop rides, trips the team have made. Dropping in some product recommendations here is much more amenable than a neon price tag and an outstretched palm. Bringing in links to videos or articles the team have picked up on lately is a great way to bring a flavour of the store to a newsletter without having to create entirely new content yourself – comment on why your store liked it and why it might be interesting to the reader. When your readership knows that your emails are entertaining to read they’re more likely to open regularly, take it all in, and be positively disposed towards spending with you. Make it relevant These days, we have data coming out of our ears and it’s a powerful tool. Use the customer purchase data from your till and e-commerce systems to create audience segments – this way, when you’ve got a big MTB-focused email prepared, you can give the roadies a break. You could even figure out who’s most likely to need a certain product based on when they last bought said product from you! Tailoring the features of an email to the recipient will be sure to yield better engagement and build long term trust of your output. The results will take a little time to reveal themselves, but in the long run it is well worth the effort. An engaged mailing list is fantastic for your customer retention rate and brings your cost per conversion right down. If you’d like more advice on email or other areas of marketing, get in touch with us at weareunearth.com. n
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