Email marketing has been around for a quarter of a century – and it shows no signs of slowing down.
Not only does it provide a powerful way for marketers to tell recipients about promotions, brand messages and news. Email marketing is a versatile, low-cost, and efficient tool helping to deliver hyper-personalised comms that are measurable and create positive ROI. This can certainly be the case if a marketer chooses to use an integrated email marketing platform that supports them in their customer engagement.
Of course, the next email campaign will go somewhere as soon as they click ‘send’ – but how do marketers know if they’re sending the right message to the right person, at the right time? Plus, modern-day marketing professionals are today battling with privacy and data protection pressures which have come to the fore following the introduction of GDPR.
What that also means is that there’s an even greater expectation for brands to only send hyper-personalised content to individuals who have consented to receiving it. With that, the power is ultimately with the recipient and – with data protection regulations and the ability to hit ‘unsubscribe’ at any given time at their fingertips – they truly have organisations right where they want them.
However, marketers also in a powerful position if they couple their email content with an intuitive marketing automation platform because it soon becomes the most effective, efficient marketing channel. When automation is plugged in, it can help to understand the audience on a more granular level – and ensure brands are sending relevant digital comms as a result.
So, with that said, what are the benefits of email marketing platforms, and what should comms professionals be looking for when they’re ready to buy a savvy tool that could help to transform customer conversations and empower email deliverability?
1. Liberating your email marketing
As an email marketing tool, it’ll be able to take on the mundane and time-consuming everyday tasks that many marketers put to the bottom of their ‘to do’ list – such as retrieving data from each campaign which, when manually carried out, can take a professional several hours to collate, and something they’re unlikely to ever complete.
With marketing automation, this solution allows teams to disconnect from the wheels of the marketing machine as it’s able to manage the routine jobs. And the result? Marketers can spend more time focusing on strategy, creativity, and customer conversations and continue to ensure their brand is engaging with the right people, at the right time.
2. Email marketing platform integration for multi-channel journeys
If marketing departments are wanting their comms to work in harmony and drive real results, they need an email marketing platform that can segment the audience and talk to multiple groups of recipients at the same time – all from one email build.
A savvy email marketing platform enables marketers to create hyper-relevant landing pages, microsites, newsletters and email journeys – in minutes. And if they’re saving hours each week, thanks to automation, just think how much time they can spend getting their next campaigns fully prepared!
3. Measuring the metrics that matter within your email marketing platform
What is the team monitoring to ensure its latest email campaign is a success? Is it analysing what improvements to make? If professionals are only looking at email open and click through rates, delve even deeper into the data because these ‘vanity metrics’ don’t tell the full story as to how engaged the recipient was.
For example, a reader could’ve accidentally clicked on the email and discarded it seconds later. And unfortunately, not only are they not interested in what the brand has to say, but they’re getting skewed data as a result.
However, any savvy marketer will know that they shouldn’t ignore them altogether – it’s just a case of not relying on them as the only form of measurement. Instead, use an email marketing automation platform to help monitor the campaign alongside what the lead scoring data is saying about every individual’s interaction in the organisation, and where they are in the buying funnel.
And, if lead scoring isn’t a term that’s familiar, imagine numbers above each recipients’ head based on how engaged they are in an organisation. The higher the figure, the more these individuals should be targeted with hyper-relevant content they want to consume.
4. Unlocking personalisation using email marketing platforms
And speaking about ultra-individualised digital comms, if marketers are sending the right content to the right person, at the right time, these email campaigns will be far superior to those of a manual send. That’s because customers want to feel like they’re the only person in the room that’s being talked to.
They no longer want a bland, irrelevant ‘batch and blast’ email because the overall message will be loosely received by all. An audience needs to be segmented into specific groups so they can receive tailored sends that show their ‘chosen brand’ understands their of-the-moment interests.
Plus, when marketers plug in an email marketing platform, they can help to guide audiences through their customer journey and support conversion thanks to their relevance.
Interested in hearing leading global brands discuss subjects like this in person? Find out more about Digital Marketing World Forum (#DMWF) Europe, London, North America, and Singapore.
