It is hard to believe that email was once envisioned as a mere replacement for the practice of writing and sending actual mail, because it has so drastically affected our very manner of communication with each other. Email has become so ubiquitous and essential in the online world that according to this report by Radicatti Group, more than one third of the world’s population will be using email by 2019.
In 2015, there were around 2.6 billion individual users accessing email facilities using 4.35 billion accounts. This number easily surpasses the number of accounts on Facebook, which is around 1.65 billion. In that sense, we can say that email is, in a way, the world’s largest social network. All you need to connect to this mass, is their email addresses. As a result, email provides the possibility of an unprecedented reach when it comes to connecting with people.
The fact that it is completely free and extremely flexible in terms of content makes it a valuable resource. Indeed, email has always been an important tool when it comes to online promotion and marketing. But at the same time, this also means that it has been heavily abused by malicious entities like spammers, phishers, hackers and Nigerian Princes among others. Our general attitude towards spam might provide us with a bias against email marketing in general, but the important thing to realize that the fact remains that the technology still gives us the possibility to connect to each other in a unique and deeply personal manner. By giving our email marketing strategies a little thought, we can avoid common mistakes that separate an email in the spam folder as opposed to one with a significant amount of engagement. Here are a few tips how.
Promote Your Online Store via Email
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Personalise
It is not surprising that by now there is a set format when it comes to email marketing. Most of us are experts in recognizing marketing mails and deleting/avoiding them on sight, because of this exact same reason. We tend to engage more with emails that seem to be crafted individually for us. It takes a little bit of skill and ingenuity to create a bulk email that retains a certain amount of personalization, but it is possible, especially with the help of various automated tools like MailChimp. Use visuals and interactivity, and try to make the mail an interesting experience. The idea of clickbait is really interesting, because it is very easy for a clickbait to become cliche. A key point to understand here is that a good clickbait is that which is not recognized as clickbait.
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Widen the Scope of Emails
On an average, an office worker sends and receives around 121 emails per day. Why should a user engage with yours? As sellers, we can employ emails for various purposes – to notify the customer that an order is received, or that a shipment is on its way, or to provide an invoice, etc. There are so many things we can do with email, and it is only through these that the customer would feel comfortable with your mail in their inbox. As opposed to this, if every mail the seller sends is for marketing purposes, chances are that it will be flagged or spammed.
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Provide Incentive
A great way for the customer to engage with your email is to provide them with some incentive to do so. A common way to implement this is via coupons, gift codes or discounts. The idea is to try and convert as much of your mailing list into your customer base. It would be advisable to take a look at Google’s guidelines for bulk email senders – having a working knowledge of inboxes, labels, categories and how your mails travel can always be a bonus when it comes to drafting mails and offers.
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Call to Action
The CTA is the most important part of a marketing email. It is the part of the content that is supposed to directly incite the reader into activity – visiting your online store and buying something. Various approaches exist when it comes to drafting a great CTA – some more aggressive than others. It is important that you give your call to action some serious thought.
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Sync it with Social Media
The last thing is to make sure that email marketing is a part of a larger social media strategy. This means linking together marketing tactics on diverse social media including email. Find ways to encourage your users to share and promote your content on other social media via email. Email is also a great way to establish a first point of contact with the customer, which can later be exploited on other social media platforms.
To know more about email marketing and in case of other queries get in touch with Browntape. We are India’s leading e-commerce solutions experts, and we are always happy to help!
