By Tom Earnest on Aug 18, 2021
In this age of social media, some are surprised to learn that email is still one of the most powerful assets businesses have in their digital tool kits to reach in-market buyers. Whether you do your own email marketing or offer white label email marketing services through a fulfillment agency, you’ll still want to read about the common mistakes marketers make when it comes to these campaigns.
The importance of segmenting your audience cannot be over-emphasized. Targeted emails have a 40% higher open rate than those which are not targeted. That makes it all the more shocking that 80% of marketers are still emailing the same content to their entire database. If you are not segmenting your audience as precisely as you can, you are not serving your clients’ best interests.
There are unlimited ways to segment your email audience that go far beyond some of the basics such as age, gender, location, home ownership and the other usual suspects. The more finely you can target your audience, the higher your open rate will climb. Because of this, segmentation can be a complicated process. This is one of the reasons many digital marketing agencies choose to use white label email marketing.
Few things are worse than annoying emails. In the world of email marketing, quality is better than quantity. As an agency, you’ll need to help your clients find the right number of emails to send their customers each month. When making your decisions, be aware that in the United States, 69% of email subscribers unsubscribe when they think they are receiving too many emails from a business. But what’s too many? You want to communicate with your clients’ customers and build relationships, but you don’t want to annoy the heck out of them.
We can’t tell you the exact number of emails to send for your business. Customers react according to the niche, informative value of the email and other factors. Like many aspects of marketing, this is something you will want to test and then closely monitor the results. You may want to start somewhere between two emails per month and one each week.
Figuring out your sweet spot takes experience and finesse. If you are not extremely experienced with running email campaigns over time that generate great results, it’s time to look to an agency that offers white label email marketing.
The amount of content, both text and images, you include in each email is another make-or-break issue. Keep your emails as concise as possible A Boomerang study based on 40 million emails found that emails between 50 and 120 words have the best response rate at just above 50%. Compare that to the typical open rate of under 24%.
With some industry exceptions, the effectiveness of short emails is supported by a Constant Contact study that found emails with about 20 lines of text (around 200 words) and three or fewer images deliver the highest click-through rates.
Technically, there’s no fixed rule for how long or short marketing emails must be. But readers have short attention spans. Because of this, marketing emails should be as brief as possible while relaying the information customers need.
Tips for crafting shorter emails that convert include
Personalization can be the difference between a good sales email and a great one. One of the most obvious ways to do this is to include the recipient’s name in the subject line and body of the email (or both). Using the customer’s name in the subject line can help your email break through the “noise” of a cluttered inbox. Studies show that people are hardwired to respond to their names – even if on a subconscious level. By not including the audience member name in marketing emails, the message won’t be as effective.
Names aren’t the only form of personalization you can include in your email marketing campaigns. Giving emails a custom feel can take many shapes and forms. Typically, these opportunities are as in-depth as your segmentation strategy. If you record customers’ birthdays, for instance, a birthday message is an excellent opportunity to create a personalized experience.
In the same way, you can send a personalized message on the anniversaries of your customer’s sign-up dates. In the messages, congratulate them on “one year” with your business. You can also use purchase history to send emails with an individualized touch. These emails can make more product recommendations, for example. An email like this might also encourage a review based on purchase history.
If you’re unsure where to start with personalization, consider reselling email marketing to your clients with the help of a fulfillment agency. White label email marketing services are a fast, scalable and effective way for marketing agencies to build personalized email campaigns for their clients without investing considerable time and resources.
Email marketing should align with the customer’s path down the conversion funnel. Once a customer opts into your mailing list or engages with your brand, the ball is in your court. Ideally, you should kick off the relationship with a welcome email.
Welcome emails should be short and fun. They should simply let the customer know you are engaged with their buying journey. Ideally, welcome emails should be sent within 12 hours of sign-up. Avoid sending welcome emails instantly because this reminds customers the emails are automated and bumps them out of the individualized experience mindset you want to create.
Another big email marketing mistake is not including a call to action (CTA). In short, a CTA should prompt your reader to do something. Ideally, this action will keep them engage with your brand and move them farther down the conversion funnel.
Remember that every email is a sales opportunity. Yor CTA should reflect this goal – whether you want customers to take a survey or use a coupon to make a purchase. By not including a direct CTA, you may leave readers asking, “What’s the point of this?” When writing your CTA, use active, powerful words when possible, such as “now,” or “today” to instill a sense of urgency.
When designing a button that you want a customer to click to complete an action, use bright, contrasting colors and keep the CTA message short. Simple language like “Buy Now” or “Claim Yours Today” is most effective.
The goal of any business is to connect with customers and supply the right product or service at the right time. Email marketing does this easily with the added benefit of automation and segmentation. What’s more, agencies can provide this service quickly and at-scale when they choose to use white label email marketing for their clients.
When you work with Umbrella, your agency will enjoy the tried-and-true strategies developed by our expert team that not only empower you to offer clients a new service but help your clients get a better ROI. Contact us today to learn more about your opportunities with Umbrella.
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