Eva Webster June 19, 2020 With Covid-19 changing the marketing world at breakneck speed, email marketing is one area that has been significantly affected. In a study done by Campaign Monitor, they found that more people are opening emails during the pandemic than ever before.
What does this mean for your email marketing campaigns?
What changes should you make to capitalize on this increased readership trend to help your business survive during these times?
It is a common misconception in the marketing world that email marketing is dead or dying, but this study found that this isn’t true regardless of the pandemic’s influence. Year over year, open rates are increasing. Email is one of the best places that consumers go to hear from their trusted brands. The increase during Covid-19 is marked: almost by 20% from the previous months.
Send your emails on non-peak days
This means both at the lowest and highest peaks. This study showed that recipients are more likely to open emails Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and that they are less likely to open emails on Tuesday and the weekend.
Send more emails
Previous advice would be to send fewer emails that are more valuable in nature, but since the pandemic started, with open rates being what they are, it is a good idea to increase your send volume. But, you still want to provide value each time and choose your words very carefully. That said, you might want to be the odd man out and decrease your send rate in order to stand out from the crowd.
“So many companies increased the frequency of their email marketing in recent weeks that we decided to back off on email marketing entirely. It was time to give our list a break in the face of the barrage of messages from other companies,” says Christopher Fox of Syncresis.
Be empathetic and sincere
All advice during Covid-19 is to care about your customers and their struggles and email marketing is no exception. You want to build trust and keep your customers of the mindset that your brand is trustworthy.
“It has all been about showing up, being empathic and giving more than I should through my content and emails. Despite the fact that my business wasn’t affected much, I know very well that some of my audience and subscribers were touched, directly or indirectly. I made sure to channel all my messages around getting the best out of life and business amidst the coronavirus. I understood that most people are focused on survival,” says Khris Steven.
Change your focus
Covid-19 has definitely changed lives and people’s mindsets. People are becoming more grateful for those little things they’ve been missing during the pandemic (like walking into a coffee shop and ordering a latte), but also realizing that downtime is not a bad thing.
On a larger scale, consumer purchasing is changing drastically and, of course, that affects most of the businesses out there (and your email marketing along with it). These include:
- Online shopping has increased by 74%.
- Consumer entertainment is moving more towards subscription-based models.
- There has been a greater use of social media.
- Buying decisions have been affected by how a brand has responded to the crisis.
- More people are shopping local.
Your email marketing decisions should reflect these changes by including links to relevant helpful products, linking to your social media channels so your readers can further engage with your brand, and by telling your brand’s stories.
“The Coronavirus outbreak exposed how much some companies rely on Chinese manufacturers, and therefore many companies are looking for manufacturing options outside China. Through Google console, we’ve seen that a lot of people have an interest in the term “not made in China manufacturing.” We’ve created content around this new popular search query, and we’ve used our emails to push this content to our readers. Our email copy it’s also significantly influenced by “not made in China manufacturing”, says Eulises Quintero of Titoma.
The main takeaway from this is that you need to examine how your email marketing is working. Have your open rates increased as the trends have shown? If not, what can you change to get with the current times?
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