eMail Marketing Tactics That Get Results

How can you increase your engagement results using email marketing tactics?  We’ll review some answers to that question, and also look at industry benchmarks for email marketing as a tactic (are people still using it?), and open rates, with an overview of five email marketing infographics.  Then, I’ll share some of our own recent tests and results.

eMail marketing success advice, related to five infographics below

First some brief tips, then I’ll discuss tactics:

1. Is eMail marketing dead?  No.  See first infographic below.
2. What is the state of eMail Marketing?  It’s still an excellent marketing channel.  The second graphic details how 74% of adults online prefer email communication.
3. What is a good email newsletter open rate?  Depends on your industry.  You’ll get a good idea from the 3rd infographic, and at Webdirexion, we specialize in email marketing with MailChimp (we have a marketing agreement with them), and they give industry benchmarks compared to actual results for each mailing.
4. How about email marketing for Mobile?  Dive into it and understand the different keys to success on a hand-held device — see fourth infographic.
5. Test. Test. Test.  I’ve included the final infographic with an overview of email testing methods and other testing smart marketers do, because it underscores principles we use in our landing page optimization work to win lift in leads and sales, in addition to email marketing.

Review these five eMail Marketing Infographics:

Have a good study of the infographics above — it will give you a nice little overview.

Some Successful Email Marketing Tactics with MailChimp…

Ok… please join me in the lab.  Below are three results, as reported in MailChimp, for our own Content Marketing newsletter from Webdirexion.  What were we testing here, and what do the results tell us?

Above, (click to enlarge), we were testing open rates for time of day.

• We know that the most clicks came when the email was delivered at 11am PST – #1
• Does that mean results will be same in your situation?  No.  Industry, target readers, and subject matter will be different.  Plus — we have clients in three timezones, so 11am PST, means some of our results are affected by clients who opened it around 2pm their time (EST).
• Webdirexion is consistently beating industry averages as reported by MailChimp.  Good.
• What should we test next?  Two things, primarily:  can we change the subject line to cause more people to open the newsletter, and can we increase our click-through rates. Note that we are doing these tests in a series, which means we can only test one thing at a time.  Mailchimp also allows you to do an A/B test, where every other recipient sees a different subject line, and different calls to action in the email.

What else can we learn in MailChimp?

Above, we can see what content (articles) got the most interest — clickthroughs

First we can learn which article received the most click throughs in this edition of the newsletter.  My recent post on Marketing Funnel Strategies, is the winner.

MailChimp also reports specifically what each recipient clicks on, and sure enough — I was just reviewing that report when my colleague, Russell Sparkman, called to ask me about landing page campaigns.  The report showed me he had clicked through and read that article prior to his call.

Content Marketing TIP:  You can segment your list by interests shown, then send a special edition that includes engaging content on the subject matter of interest to those specific list members.  Here, I could watch several emails for interest in SEO, for example, then send a special edition on just that subject to those who indicated high interest in same.