Despite analysts telling us the recession is slowing - optimism is on the horizon; the downturn continues to bite. One of the worst markets to be hit is retail. An article in Catalogue e-business suggests ways in which businesses can maximise their ROI and use email marketing to their advantage - boosting sales and revenue.
Email marketing solutions provider DotMailer has conducted a survey looking at the effectiveness of email marketing strategies leading up to 8th December 2008 (traditionally one of the busiest online Christmas shopping days).
DotMailer makes a number of suggestions based on this survey:
1. Widen your audience
By forwarding an email to a friend, businesses can encourage their recipients to spread the word and thereby reach a larger network of consumers Posting your email about promotions and discounts to a subscriber base and enabling forwarding, gives retailers a chance to reach social networking sites - and by recommendation is a powerful tool.
2. Personalise emails
This should be the standard approach - however, DotMailer's survey found 70% of the brands surveyed did not include a personal greeting. These brands were missing out on engaging the recipient, resulting in less click-throughs and ultimately fewer conversions.
3. Checking for errors
Ensure any emails sent out can be viewed correctly without errors. Consumers will assume any email in a messy format is spam and won't open the email. DotMail found only 12% of the retailers' emails were consistent across the 20 major email clients (such as Outlook, Yahoo and Hotmail).
4. Less reliance on images
By default, most email clients turn off email images - so emails should be comprehensible with or without graphics. Bear in mind that if you use background images without an alternative, the email could go out with no content at all if the text is white. Text-based emails are more likely to find their way under the radar of spam filters anyway.
5. Call to action
Ensure your email has clear instructions, for example, click to a product page or offer. Give clear instructions to your subscribers as to what they should do next and avoid any confusion.
By employing good practice and some common sense businesses can maximise the return on their investment relatively easily. The aim is to engage your consumer base and not ostracize it. Tailor your communication to your customers - making the subject line appealing and ensure you shout about your products and offers in such a way as to entice and improve click through conversion rates.
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