Email marketing has remained an effective constant for years despite new marketing channels popping up left, right, and centre. With the right email marketing solution, any business can reap the rewards of one of the most effective marketing channels available. While social media marketing, SEO, and video all have their benefits, the best way to communicate with your audience is to talk to them directly.
There are about 4 billion email users worldwide, 99% of whom check their email every day, on average 15 times per day. However, with the prevalence of email, it is essential to cut through the noise and stand out among the spam, which is why it’s crucial to find the best email marketing solution for your needs.
Email in the time of POPIA
By now South Africans are familiar with the Protection of Personal Information Act, or POPIA. Basically, POPIA is legislation designed to protect consumers’ personal information, including such information as email addresses. Some said the implementation of POPIA would signal the end of email marketing, but we can confidently say that this is not the case. However, consumers are becoming more aware of who they allow to use their information. Because POPIA works on an opt-in basis rather than an opt-out basis, it is vital to ensure that every email sent as part of a marketing campaign or in everyday business is valuable to your audience.
The importance of a good database
Database management and clean-up are just some of the services we offer as part of our email marketing solution. Removing expired information and updating existing information leaves you with a clean and functional database ready to be utilised to its full potential.
This kind of in-depth database management allows for more efficient email campaigns and opens up more efficient campaign options such as segmented email marketing, a critical element to an effective email marketing campaign. Segmented emailing uses the information in your database to target specific demographics, target groups, or people who have interacted with your website in a certain way. This allows us to create targeted emails to capture the attention of specific groups in your database, rather than sending out generalised emails that won’t grab your readers’ attention and might lead to them hitting the unsubscribe button.
Timing is everything
However, it doesn’t matter how great the content of your email is; if you send it at the wrong time, no one is going to read it. We’re all inundated by dozens of emails a day, so getting the timing and frequency right is a delicate balancing act. You don’t want your audience to forget that you exist, but you also don’t want to spam them into unsubscribing.
Sending your email when no one’s around to read it isn’t ideal. That’s why we use analytics and statistics to find the perfect time for each email to reach their inboxes. 51% of emails are opened within seven hours of receiving them. To hone in on exactly when the right time is to send an email to your audience takes work. A/B testing can help narrow it down, as can looking at past opens and active online times. We find the optimal time and frequency to send your emails so you get the most engagement from your target audiences.
The best solution to all your email marketing woes? Partner with an agency that helps you work smarter, not harder.