Email is the way that customers prefer to have companies that they like, communicate with them. In fact, according to a report by Adestra more than 7 out of 10 consumers prefer email over direct mail, text messages and even message via the apps on your phone.
And, email marketing isn’t just for businesses that sell to consumers. Businesses that sell to other businesses (B2B) can also expect to see the same preference level among their customers. Email is still the most effective online marketing channel for your business.
Why Not Me?
Too often, because email marketing has been around for so long, we don’t put in the time or energy to develop an email strategy or plan on how to send out emails. Email is so ubiquitous that we just type up a message and send it out without much thought as to who is receive it or what their level of understanding is regarding your company, product, or services. To be successful with email marketing you have to make sure that your messages are highly relevant for the people that are receiving them. Do you remember the last time that you received an email, even from a business that you like, that was promoting something that you didn’t have any interest in? Chances are real good that you either deleted the message, or you unsubscribed from their list, or at the very least your opinion of that company dropped a bit as a result of that message.
How To Be Relevant
The only way that you can start to make sure that your messages are highly relevant is by segmenting the hundreds of even thousands of people that are in your list based on some commonality. There has to be categories of commonality that you can segment your list on. Some of the most common ways to segment list are age, geography, gender, or possibly even past purchases.
An even better way to segment your list is by their position in their “buy-cycle”. This type of segmenting is more advanced than a simple demographic segment, but the relevancy of your message will increase dramatically and as a result, the number of recipients that engage with your marketing email will increase dramatically as well. As you can imagine, this type of messaging can take a lot of time and add a higher amount of complexity to your email marketing efforts which is where marketing automation can pay huge dividends.
Ultimately, consumers and business buyers alike are telling us that they prefer to be marketed to through the email channel so let’s give them what they want, but just make sure that your giving them the type of information that they want through the channel that they want to receive it.
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