In the modern age of social media, it’s hard to think that something as old-school as email can still compete against the likes of Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
Here’s the thing, though, email consistently beats social media when it comes to organic engagement.
Research shows that email remains the best channel to reach people ahead of other channels with the growth in popularity of social media and other communication platforms. Email users are expected to continue growing. The number of emails sent daily has increased steadily for the past five years. In 2021, nearly 309.6 billion emails were sent and received daily. In 2023, this figure is anticipated to increase to 333 billion.
According to Mailchimp, the open rate for an average email hovers around 21%, which is 20x higher than a Facebook post’s average engagement.
And with statistics and a 42:1 ROI, any savvy marketer sees the value that email marketing unpacks.
That’s why we explore strategies and tips that make email marketing effective.
Is Email Marketing Effective In 2023?
Email marketing is and will continue to be effective and profitable. According to facts and statistics:
- There are more than 4.1 billion email users worldwide as of 2021
- 99% of email users check their emails at least once a day
- 59% of users say that email marketing messages influence their buying decisions
- 86% prefer email marketing to TV, Facebook, and display ads
And above all, 86% of marketers consider email marketing very important to their digital marketing strategy.
Email marketing remains affordably effective. It has a higher ROI and is ranked the leading amongst all other marketing channels. The ROI is approximately $40 for each $1 spent, which is a significant return. And with almost 4 billion users today, regardless of who your targeted audience is, there are high chances they have email addresses. So you can make profits by targeting the right audience.
It’s a known fact that you’ll more likely obtain a sale via email marketing than through social media.
Top 8 Email Marketing Tips to Master
With so many emails, it’s crucial that brands have a strategy for getting through the noise and gaining a competitive edge.
In 2023, you need a strong email marketing strategy to boost opens and clicks and grow your business.
Follow these tips for a successful email marketing strategy.
1. Create welcome emails
One of email marketing’s best practices is to send welcome emails to new subscribers after they sign in.
According to GetResponse, the average welcome email’s open rates are around 80%, while click-through rates are about 22-25%.
Not only do welcome emails provide new subscribers a warm welcome, but they also give them relevant content at the right time when users are psychologically ready for you. A welcome email should confirm subscription and help the new subscriber know the type of content they can expect in your emails.
2. Make use of your users
You can let your customers hear from other customers for a change. Highlight testimonials, customer reviews, and visuals in your emails, and include their first names or social media handles for validation.
Branded content is always an effective email marketing strategy, but featuring user-generated content (UGC) can help you build trust and authenticity, develop a sense of community, and encourage your users to convert. It’s easier for customers to trust your brand and its offerings if they can see how other customers have interacted with it. Nine in ten customers say UGC influence their buying decisions more than marketing emails.
3. Own the omnichannel marketing experience
The potential of email marketing is fully realized when combined with other channels like websites, social media, search marketing, ads, and SMS. This is referred to as omnichannel marketing.
With an omnichannel strategy, you connect consumer behavior across your marketing channels and update your messaging in real-time based on their behavior. For instance, if a customer interacts with your Facebook campaign about a product line or philanthropic initiative, you can follow up with an email drip messaging related to that topic.
By connecting your marketing campaign this way, your brand can provide a more personalized, cohesive experience — deepening your user’s connections with your brand.
Omnichannel marketing isn’t just a smart strategy; it’s what people want. 56% of consumers prefer shopping with retailers offering a shared shopping cart across channels for a seamless experience.
4. Segment your email list
Marketers generate about 760% more email revenue from email segmentation vs. non-segmented email marketing campaigns.
Segmentation is categorizing your email list into smaller subsets based on specific criteria such as purchasing history or location to provide contact with more personalized and relevant content.
Segmentation combines not just users’ location or purchasing history but also their interaction with your site and email content, the products they’ve purchased or browsed, etc. The more clear and complete a picture you have, the more personalized your emails can be, making them much more effective.
With more targeted campaigns, your emails will experience better performance: Increased open rates and click-throughs. And fewer people will spam your email and unsubscribe.
The best way to achieve segmentation is to set up email flows that automatically trigger based on how you segment your email list using factors like behaviors, demographics, psychographics, and subscribers’ relationships with your brand.
5. Optimize your emails for mobile users
In 2012, 27% of marketing emails were opened via a mobile device. By 2014, the number had increased up to 42%.
Now, it’s higher than 61%!
With so many people (51%) checking emails from their tablets and smartphones, it’s crucial that your emails are optimized for mobile devices.
Surprisingly, 20% of email campaigns are not mobile-optimized. Yet when email campaigns are optimized for mobile, they generate higher revenues. According to Yesmail, the average revenue per mobile email is $0.40, translating to more than 4x that of a desktop email click. In addition, 55% of mobile users have made at least one purchase after opening a mobile-friendly promotional email.
Another study by Flexmail found that 36% of B2B businesses with mobile-friendly email campaigns experience an overall improvement in their email performance.
So test your emails using email marketing software to ensure your templates and fonts are optimized for mobile and that the design is responsive.
6. Automate your email campaigns
It’s hard to manually check how many users are engaged with your marketing emails and then take the right action. Measuring your email marketing performance becomes simply impractical if you have a list with thousands of addresses.
Automating your email marketing campaign is a smarter strategy to handle all incoming responses. You can also set up automatic trigger emails whenever the user takes action.
Trigger-based emails are those that are sent out automatically depending on user behavior.
The most common trigger emails include ‘welcome’ emails, ‘thank you emails, ‘follow-up’ emails, and ‘transactional’ emails such as email receipts and confirmation emails.
The data behind triggers show that they perform much better than traditional emails. For instance, Epsilon found that:
- Open rates for trigger-based emails are 49% high, which is 95% higher than traditional email open rates.
- The average click-through rate (CTR) for triggers is more than double the rate of traditional email click-through rates.
- The best converting websites worldwide, which convert nearly 40% of their traffic, use trigger emails.
Additionally, trigger emails are 497% more effective than batch and blast emails, according to a recent Blueshift Report.
Automating your email marketing campaign improves your overall performance by treating every response selectively.
7. Personalize your emails
Personalization doesn’t mean you send an individual email to every single user. It means you use customer data to create and send a personalized message. About 88% of users are more likely to respond to an email message when it’s directly addressed to them.
Amazon is a perfect example of a brand that personalizes its email marketing well. To them, email marketing isn’t just another marketing channel. It’s critical to the overall customer experience.
And it’s not just Amazon that has experienced these outcomes through personalization.
A study found that personalized emails generate 6x higher transaction rates. In 2019, research found that email marketing delivers $0.08 in revenue per email. While that may sound like much, sending out an email campaign to 500,000 users can generate up to $40,000 in revenue. With personalization, you can get up to $20 in ROI for every $1 invested, according to new research.
The simplest form of personalization is to address your users by name to let them know the email is exclusively theirs. Most email service providers (EP) offer this functionality, and the tactic alone will enhance your email campaign performance.
For instance, personalizing email subject lines with the recipient’s first name can boost open rates by 16%.
8. Test
If you want to know which subject line will generate a higher open rate or the time of the day people are most likely to read and engage with your emails, test various elements for best results.
A/B testing is essential, especially for subject lines. You can try several variations and test them with your subscribers to understand what works best. A study by Campaign Monitor found that A/B testing subject lines alongside the email body and template generated a 127% increase in CTR.
Most email marketing software allows you to test content, subject lines, and even send times.
The Future of Email Marketing
With the increasing growth of email users, there is sure to be a future for email marketing, and the battle for retention will continue to play a key role. That’s why quality, and not quantity, should be every marketer’s focal point.
And while email marketing continues to deliver results, the practice has evolved. It no longer involves simply sending the same email to all. That’s why you need to update your email marketing strategy. Now, you need personalized and targeted messages optimized for multiple digital devices.
Trends change quickly, and what worked years or months ago may not deliver results today. So be open to testing and after understanding the strategy that works for you and your users, find ways to automate it through trigger-based emails.
About the Author: Josh Barter
