E-blasts are like breakfasts, they contain key components, deliver great value and leave consumers feeling truly satisfied and hungry for more? Well, that depends on the quality of the offering.
When employed effectively, e-blasts trump all other existing advertising communications. According to statistics taken from DMA marketing campaigns “email has the highest conversion rate (66%) when compared to social.” And similar to breakfasts, there are multiple variations that can be produced to appeal to the diverse needs of the masses.
It is integral for businesses to alternate between the different types of email campaign to hyper-target and personally address consumers. This makes e-blasts relevant to consumers, of which are more engaging and successful than generic one-size-fits-all campaigns.
Changing up email campaigns enables businesses to remain versatile, preventing oversaturation of repetitive content. But not just that. They’re also a great way of fulfilling business objectives such as to: promote a product, inform or provoke a cause to action.
See below for the variants of email campaign available to businesses and the advantages.
Welcome, subscriber!
The great thing about email marketing is that you get to contact consumers who want to hear from you; a rewarding rarity in digital advertising.
This means that notifying them to commend their interest – via a welcome email campaign – won’t be shunned or regarded as spam, oppositely, it will be well received.
Welcome e-blasts are a great way of acknowledging and crediting a subscriber’s support whilst creating a killer impression.
Through a welcome campaign, you simply have to introduce your business, express your passion for your brand, and address your subscriber personally, as according to Experian, “personalised emails deliver 6x higher conversion rates.”
Sound straightforward? The welcome email is pretty simplistic, yet it’s important for businesses to not overthink it. Be selective with copy, use visual content – GIFs, video, images – and try not to overload.
An effective welcome e-blast can create a lasting impression on consumers. This can develop into sales and referrals, where subscribers will be inclined to recommend your services to friends and family.
Ensure to slip your social media channels into a welcome campaign too whilst you’ve got their attention.
Standard e-blast
An email template grants businesses with space; allowing them more room for activities. This differs to alternative online communications such as adverts or printed flyers that typically have a limited word count and of which generally contain product information or a call to action only.
With more space to fill, businesses can be creative with their sales approach, adding humour or informative copy to an e-blast. This detracts from a hard-sell approach and evokes an emotional response, which is more likely to convert into a sale.
Businesses can more subtly push a promotion via a standard e-blast by providing a discount code off of future purchases. This rewards a consumer for their loyalty whilst encouraging further sales.
Tis the season… to send out seasonal campaigns
Many businesses rely on public holidays to keep financially afloat, statistics claim that they account for “20% of all yearly retail sales”. Yet competition is intense, with many businesses and retailers pushing product promotions simultaneously. This makes it essential for marketing to be on point during seasonal spending storms.
And seasonal e-blasts can be powerful conversion techniques during peak promotional periods. As not only do they target consumers directly, but enable businesses to differentiate themselves from the pay-per-click chaos.
Businesses can customise e-blasts with holiday-themed designs and discount codes, of which are pretty hard for consumers to resist. There’s nothing like a festive GIF, or a 10% off voucher to get consumer’s into the jolly, consumerist spirit; tis the season to spend frivolously.
Additionally, seasonal campaigns also work well in series. Whilst building up to a public holiday, businesses can push daily promotions to create urgency and anticipation – ‘offer running for 24 hours only’. This influences consumers to shop your limited offers and refer back to their inboxes for further updates.
Consumers also tend to raid their inboxes during high-spending storms to track deliveries or search for e-receipts. This makes sitting in a consumer’s inbox during festive periods, a desirable place for your brand.
No way to control it, it’s totally automatic!
Automatic email campaigns are powerful tools and can be used to influence a consumer’s actions. For instance, when a consumer is contemplating checking out with a product or abandoning their cart, a reactive e-blast can be instantaneously distributed to give a user a prod in the right direction.
Businesses can segment different audience types and deliver responsive campaigns that comply with their individual behaviours. This prevents brands from delivering automated spam to the masses, reducing unsubscribe rates.
And triggered e-blasts deliver the goods. When compared to a standard email campaign, they provide “higher engagement, click through rates, increased customer retention and overall customer and lead satisfaction.”
Moreover, according to results from DMA’s national client email report, “over 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered campaigns.”
For more information on the types of triggered email campaign available, click here.
Post-purchase
A savvy example of automated marketing is a post-purchase follow-up email. Here businesses can personally thank consumers for their custom and deliver value.
Here you can provide how-to-care for product instructions, tips or relevant information to generate consumer satisfaction and increase the likelihood of consumers returning to shop your services.
You may also want to incorporate some form of sharable content, such as a graphic, or filter in a post-purchase e-blast. This can encourage users to share their latest purchase across social channels, which could generate hype and attract akin consumers to shop your services; free marketing at its finest.
The social merger
Businesses can increase their social media following through using email campaigns. The results are particularly rewarding if you’ve already a large consumer database, attained through years of product purchases and ticket sales.
Oppositely, businesses can also plug their newsletter across social platforms. This can similarly drive traffic to your database, growing your network.
From interlinking the two, businesses can effectively increase brand visibility and attain greater recognition via multiple online outlets.
The newsletter – the weekly lowdown
Your weekly or monthly round-ups can cover a variety of topics. However, it goes without saying, that the copy provided must be consistent with your brand identity.
The purpose of a weekly digest is to provide interesting content for your consumers so that they find it useful and look forward to hearing from you on the reg. This comes in handy for when you want consumers to acknowledge your promotional campaigns.
Informative newsletters help to elevate the overall relevance and quality of your email campaigns so that they’re not primarily sales-orientated.
They also serve as a platform for your business to provide a personality to your brand, such as ‘behind the scenes’ content. This makes you more memorable to consumers and enables you to stand out against similar brands.
Abandoned cart series
An abandoned cart e-blast is triggered when a consumer decides against shopping a product or service.
A powerful marketing device, abandoned cart e-blasts serve as reactive personalised prompts which help in recovering abandoned sales: statistics claim “46.1% of people open cart abandonment emails, 13.3% click inside the email, and of those clicks 35% end up buying something.”
Time-sensitive, they’re great for striking whilst the irons hot, or for targeting during peak spending periods such as payday or bank holidays.
The want you back campaign
Whatever you said, whatever you did, you didn’t mean it, you just want your subscribers back for good.
Sometimes a user can lose interest in your brand, opting to break off from you by refusing to no longer read or engage with your weekly updates.
This can be worrying but it’s important not to panic or bombard. Instead, employ strategic e-blasts to target the non-responsive consumers only – you can keep an eye of who you are contacting and how much, by dividing consumers into segment lists.
Yet businesses must ensure they approach inactive consumers cautiously. Some subscribers may be ignoring you for a reason, thus one-too-many email notifications may send users to do something drastic, like unsubscribe or worst, report you. Email complaints can lead to being blacklisted, which can result in your e-blasts being delivered to junk boxes instead of inboxes.
Recapture consumers’ attention with relevant product recommendations. Or provide discount codes to try and win them over.
Re-engagement campaigns can be a great way of exhibiting value towards consumers, by regarding them individually. And to ask for feedback, so that you can improve your services.
Which email campaign works the most for your business? Let us know how effective email campaigns are for you; join in the conversation with us on Facebook or Twitter.
