According to the folks at eMarketer, 2009 saw a 12% increase in promotional email messages sent by top online retailers. On average, online retailers sent about 10 email promotional messages each month. This makes perfect sense; with estimates that up to 80% of the US population has an email account, email is still the killer app.
As easy as it is to contact and keep in touch with customers and prospects via email, the challenge is delivering compelling, useful content to consumers. Relevance is the key for email marketing, and marketers understand that, as evidenced by the 60% of marketers who plan to segment e-mail lists based on interests in 2010.
We’ve been developing and running email marketing programs for over a decade, and have noticed a few things:
- Be up-front about what you’re going to send to subscribers; Is this list for new product announcements? Tips and tricks? Industry trends? Recipes? All of the above? Tell the customer what to expect, and stick to it.
- Be regular; Develop a content schedule and stick to it (this applies to your social media content, too). It’s ok to be off by a day or two, but get your communications into a regular plan, so that your audience remembers and looks forward to, for example, your weekly banana bread recipe.
- Be specific; Your subject line is there for a reason – go ahead and use it. Let your subscribers know what’s in your latest email and what the benefit is to them to open the message. It would be almost impossible to not read an email with a subject line like: “Our three favourite choco-chip banana bread recipes!”
- Be on your customer’s clock; Try sending eblasts on different days and at different times to figure out when your subscriber base is online and keen to get your messages. When Nikisha was running Virgin Festival in Canada, she always found that Friday deployments were best, as they drove site traffic and ticket sales over the weekend.
