Take Advantage of Email Marketing in 2021

Email (or more commonly, EDM) Marketing is one of the original digital marketing tools used for decades since the first email blast was sent in 1978. Depending on what your business does, EDM marketing can be a powerful channel to reach a customer demographic who have subscribed to your email list. The people who have subscribed are already warm leads for your business as they have demonstrated enough interest in your brand to have consciously subscribed to your mailing list. There is an art to creating meaningful engagement via EDM marketing without causing people to either not open your emails, or worse, unsubscribe. We have listed our top tips for making the most of this digital marketing tool.

Know Your Audience

Knowing what your customer profile looks like can help you to shape the emails you send. Take the time to create a defined customer profile including family type, demographics, geographics, psychographics and pain points. Knowing your audience will assist you in engaging them in a meaningful manner, rather than not hitting the mark. A great way to help with this is to ask! For example, if you’ve subscribed to the email list of a department store before, you would have been asked to tick the areas you are interested in. This gives the consumer the opportunity to tell the business what their interests are, and then receive emails that are relevant to these. You would not want to send an email about men’s suits to someone interested in women’s shoes; they may even unsubscribe because of this irrelevant content. Users want to have control over their own inbox; knowing your audience allows you to plan appropriate content for them that feels personalised.

Engaging Content

The modern consumer is very selective with their email subscriptions. At the end of the day, it is their inbox and the unsubscribe button is right there if they find themselves disinterested. You want to send emails that make the user want to open and read. The key points to doing this successfully are:

• Address them by name: Depending on your CRM, many have the functionality to personalise a campaign email blast to all recipients by using merge tags, e.g., ‘Hi [firstname]’. The CRM will automatically fill in [firstname] in the email with the First Name of each user subscribed. This can be in the subject or body of the email (subject is seen first without needing to open it so is a great way to engage directly immediately). Check your email platform to find out how to use their merge tags.
• Subject: You may have heard the term ‘click-bait’ before. Whilst we don’t encourage the way dramatic click-bait is used commonly on the internet, the basic principles are relevant: make your subject a headline that makes people want more and will get your email opened (without being misleading).
• Relevance: Make the content of the email relevant to your audience’s interests, but you don’t always have to be explicitly selling as this can discourage your audience. Some emails may be about a big sale your business has or a restock, and others may just be useful and relevant information about the topic of your business. For example, a nursery may actively promote their 10% off sale one week, and the next may discuss the best way to care for your veggie garden.
• Call-To-Action (CTA): Always include a CTA of some form in your email to suit the objective. Whether it be a direct action like ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Call Today For This Deal’, or passive action that encourages thought to beginning the sales funnel. To further the nursery example, a passive CTA on an email about veggie garden care tips may be to check the health of their own today.
• Details: Small details like ensuring the email is delivered from your business name, rather than an employee name or an email address, as this helps a user easily identify who it is from.

Timing is Everything

Pick the right time to send your emails. Spending an email about Spring trends in Summer, or about weekend events on a Sunday just suit. Knowing when your customers will be most likely to engage with the content is key to getting the opens and click throughs on your emails.

Privacy is Important

Privacy has become more important over the last few years. With many other countries across the world introducing privacy acts (GDPR & CCPA) for how user data is used, it is important to be aware of laws and use audience data ethically. Users must give permission to be on an email list, have the ability to unsubscribe and have their data removed. Complying with relevant laws is important to protect your business, and it is likely that Australia will follow suit with increased legislation on this topic in coming years.

Start EDM Marketing for your business

The experienced team at Adllins Media in Cairns can help you incorporate EDM marketing into your strategy. To discuss how this can work for your business, contact us on 07 4031 1889 or send us a message.