The digital marketing landscape continues to shift fast and so it’s easy to establish why some people are asking whether email marketing is dead.

Global email users according to Statista will grow from 3.9 billion in 2019 to 4.48 billion in 2024. As such, more than half of the world’s population will be using email, hence it’s a channel that you may not ignore in 2021 and even beyond.  

The question then becomes, “How do you get the best out of email marketing as a strategy?”

Read on to learn more:

  • What you need not do with your strategy of email marketing.
  • Some of the best practices in email marketing.

Email Marketing Still Very Remain Relevant

Email marketing is among the oldest channels in the digital marketing space and remains well and alive.

Email is considered the best way of reaching potential customers with 3.9 billion users around the globe. We need to mention that 58% of consumers in the US check their email the first thing in the morning. A large number by any standard to target

Many people prefer checking on their email first thing in the morning than social media. And despite a significant rise in new social media platforms, at least 73% of millennials still prefer receiving business communications through email. For this reason, giving up on email marketing is missing a business opportunity that is quite significant.

ROI of Email Marketing

Email generates $38 for every $1 spent according to email marketing statistics. This is a 3800% return on investment.

It is of course a paid-for marketing channel but among those options that are most cost-effective. Hence, email marketing campaigns are more effective compared to social media marketing.

Statistics show nearly 60% of consumers at one time have bought a product on getting a promotional email. You can compare this figure with 12.5% of consumers who would consider a purchase based on social media promotional messages.

So why is it that email marketing ROI is much higher?

It goes down to consumer expectations. Essentially, consumers expect promotional emails for them to open their email to find deals and discounts.

Consequently, most customers expect more content and entertainment on social media platforms.

Also, customers are not in social media for brand promotion, hence it should not be a surprise why B2B and B2C marketers continue to increase their email marketing investment.   

Practices that will be dying soon in email marketing

Email marketing is not dead, but the spammy email marketing practices. Customers can be lost through poor email etiquette which can easily be flagged as a spam sender.

Thus, ensure to avoid these ineffective and ill-mannered email marketing tactics:

Subject Lines and Content that is not personalized

Email personalization is not new because it is used widely by most businesses and customers expect it even in cold emails.

Ideally, customers want to have a feeling of being understood, known, and appreciated. Failure to do that can cause poor results in your email campaigns.

Again, the addition of the first name to the subject line boosts your email open rates by about 20%. Personalization also reduces unsubscribe rates and spam reports.

Therefore, failure to personalize emails means you won’t get the most from this marketing channel.

Mobile unfriendly

Nearly 46% of all email opens are done on mobile. Hence, failure to format your emails for mobile devices means you turn off quite a significant number of subscribers.

Litmus reported in June 2018 that 46% of all email opens were attributed to mobile users.

You have to capture the attention of your readers in a few seconds and if your email takes longer than that to load, then an opportunity is lost.

Consumers are never static and expect that businesses will provide fast and pleasant mobile experiences-including email and websites.

Not following the GDPR Guidelines

The strictest privacy protection rules around can be considered the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines. The main aim of GDPR is to protect consumers’ data online and their privacy.

The rules would apply to you if you have to sell to consumers within the EU even when your business was located in another country such as the US. 

The GDPR provides two primary email marketing regulations:

  1. The individual you want to email must provide consent that they want to receive emails from you.
  2. The individual should be an existing customer who has made a purchase, OR you have provided the individual an easy way of opting out of your communications on email. 

The best practice is to use double opt-in email forms and ensure that all your email templates have an unsubscribe button that can be found easily.

Double opt-in means your subscribers submit an opt-in form and further receive an email confirmation to confirm their consent to receive your email communications.

Email marketing tools provides you with the option of creating a double opt-in email built-in already:

These best practices help you avoid large fines, prevent landing in spam and build trust and establish goodwill with your subscribers.

Ultimately, you should demonstrate that you have respect for customer privacy.  

Ignoring and not following through the email performance metrics

Just like any other marketing channel, email bears certain best practices and benchmarks, but ultimately your subscribers and customers make the final judgment.

When you send an email campaign, it provides you an opportunity to learn more about what your customers prefer. 

Your email performance metrics ensure you can monitor customer retention and engagement. But your data may not benefit you if you do not make use of it. By studying your metrics you know what works and does not work for you. And as you implement changes, there is a need to continue pointing some of the finer details in your best tactics.

The key to your email marketing strategy is A/B testing. It can be useful in testing subject lines, imagery, and email content as well as calls-to-action.  

Failure to study your data or perform comparative tests means your email marketing results could hit a ceiling, hence you cannot grow together with your customers.

Unattractive design of templates

Consumers are highly influenced by design and visuals. Statistics have shown 94% of consumers will not bother with websites with poor graphic design.

You can now imagine how many people will ignore an email that is not appealing visually.

Content marketing is more than just written content. Customers are quickly confused and turned off by haphazard layouts and graphics with low-resolution.

You need to consider many companies are sending visually appealing emails, hence you may not afford to skimp on imagery and design if at all you will invest in email.

Conclusion
Failure to adapt with the the ever changing landscape of email marketing will only making you miserable in the game. Evolve to live. That is where Rubedo is here for you. To help you run your cold emails effectively, choose from hundreds of cold emails templates, add unlimited SMTPs and get you unlimited leads.