When it comes to email marketing—a highly effective channel for fostering customer loyalty and direct conversions—some digital experts bring a unique email marketing strategy, perspective and high level of email campaign expertise to the table. Yet, brands seeking out the best email marketing companies might not know where to start their search.

This guide to the best email marketing service provider explores ten of the top email marketing companies making waves in today’s industry. These email marketing company teams are uncovering innovative ways to leverage email for substantial brand growth.

#1 Power Digital

• Specialty: Conversions and sales
• Industries: B2B, B2C, eCommerce, SaaS, beauty, private equity, fashion, retail
• Strengths: Lead nurturing, brand awareness building
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: San Diego, California, USA
• Notable Clients: Casper, Honest, Lord & Taylor

Brands looking for an email marketing agency with a seasoned team of pros, access to the best email marketing software, powerful tech assets, a flexible email marketing tool kit, and a laser focus on positive ROI partner with Power Digital—one of the best email marketing agencies in the industry today.

Power Digital provides comprehensive email marketing services via a four-step, in-depth email marketing campaign process:

• Analysis – Before creating any content or implementing any messages, the email marketing team takes a look under the hood to really get to know their client—their values, their goals, and their pain points. And, if a business has already implemented an email marketing strategy, they can keep their email engine running while the Power Digital team analyzes its strengths and improvement potential.
• Strategy – After gaining a thorough understanding of a brand’s needs, client base, and goals, the Power Team, using their email marketing tool suite, develops a high-octane email campaign strategy for producing quality content, segmenting and targeting existing subscribers, adding new clients to the subscriber list, and converting recipients into customers.
• Implementation – From content creation to sequence design, Power Digital handles every aspect of a brand’s email marketing plan development. As the team implements a brand’s email marketing campaign, they start collecting key data for analysis and tracking.
• Adjustments and maintenance – As they assess incoming data, Power Digital tweaks and improves the email marketing plan to meet the changing needs of a brand’s customer base and respond to results from A/B tests.

For brands looking for an eCommerce email marketing agency in particular, rest assured that Power Digital has the industry expertise that can launch digital storefronts into the stratosphere through effective email campaigns.

Similarly, in the saturated market of B2B email marketing services, today’s growing companies need a tech-savvy, strategy-first, ROI-focused email marketing company like Power Digital.

#2 MH Digital

• Specialty: Email marketing, SMS marketing
• Industries: B2C, SaaS, service, eCommerce
• Strengths: Conversion, activation, retention
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Denver, Colorado, USA
• Notable Clients: Purina, Klaviyo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud

MH Digital is an email marketing and SMS marketing brand helping B2C-aligned SaaS, service, and eCommerce businesses activate, convert, and retain loyal customers through email campaigns.

As one of the best email marketing service providers out there, their approach to SMS and email marketing campaigns includes:

• Creative production – The MH Digital team takes the lead on content creation and building digital assets for campaigns.
• Technical support – MH Digital is focused on leveraging the latest in email marketing technologies and innovative approaches to produce powerful responses from customers.
• Strategic planning – MH Digital produces long-term positive ROI by investing in strategic analysis throughout the lifetime of a campaign.

For brands looking for a conversion-focused strategic email marketing partner that fully capitalizes on email marketing software, MH Digital might be a good fit.

#3 Enflow Digital

• Specialty: eCommerce email marketing
• Industries: eCommerce, B2C
• Strengths: Email marketing audit
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Vilnius, Lithuania
• Notable Clients: Vetz Petz, Alkaline Herb Shop, Overnight Glasses

Enflow Digital offers email and SMS marketing services to eCommerce brands and businesses with digital storefronts. Deeply focused on revenue generation, the Enflow Digital team leverages four key services to produce sustainable results for growing businesses:

• Full-service email marketing – From initial analysis to strategy and implementation, Enflow Digital provides top-to-bottom email marketing campaigns and management for brands.
• Email marketing audit – For brands with existing email marketing campaigns, Enflow Digital provides auditing and analysis services ahead of campaign adjustments.
• Email deliverability recovery – One of Enflow Digital’s specialties is recovering sent emails from recipients’ spam folders to ensure seamless delivery and higher open rates.
• SMS marketing – To support a cross-channel marketing approach, Enflow Digital offers integrated SMS marketing services.

Brands looking for a seasoned eCommerce email marketing partner should consider partnering with Enflow Digital.

#4 One 10 Media

• Specialty: Social media advertising, email marketing, SMS marketing
• Industries: eCommerce, B2C
• Strengths: Paid media
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Akron, Ohio, USA
• Notable Clients: Decor Steals, Big Berkey Water Filters, Pepper & Vetiver

A specialist in paid media, One 10 Media is a social media, email, and SMS marketing agency focused on revenue generation and conversion.

One 10 Media’s email marketing strategies aim to:

• Build customer loyalty – One 10 Media emphasizes email marketing as a loyalty-building tool, and their campaigns strive to boost client trust and connection.
• Increase sales – By building trust and improving brand awareness among loyal customers, One 10 Media helps brands boost sales and build sustainable revenue growth.

One 10 Media might be a compatible partner for businesses looking for multi-channel revenue generation.

#5 Invisible Brands

• Specialty: Email marketing, SMS marketing
• Industries: eCommerce, B2C
• Strengths: Efficient campaign-building and implementation
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Bielefeld, Germany
• Notable Clients: Dropsize, WLDOHO, Asos

Invisible Brands is a Germany-based email and SMS marketing agency focused on fast implementation and sustainable results. Serving “the 1% of eCommerce brands,” the Invisible Brands team offers services primarily to international digital storefronts.

Their three-step approach to email marketing design includes:

• Fundamentals fixes – For brands that have existing digital assets, Invisible Brands audits and finds improvement potential.
• Strategy – Invisible Brands takes a research-focused, customer-centric approach to strategic marketing planning.
• Design optimization – Invisible Brands prioritizes quality designs that catch the eyes of customers and produce lasting connections.

Invisible Brands might be a good fit for brands with an international presence looking for efficiency and emphasis on design assets.

#6 Netpeak

• Specialty: Full-service digital marketing
• Industries: B2B, B2C, eCommerce, retail
• Strengths: Digital intelligence, mobile app marketing
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Wilmington, Delaware, USA
• Notable Clients: Puma, Vodafone, Monobank

Netpeak is a US-based full-service digital marketing firm with satellite offices in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, the UK, and Bulgaria. Their scope of services includes:

1. Earned and owned media (e.g., SEO, email marketing)
2. Paid media (e.g., PPC, marketplace management)
3. Digital intelligence (e.g., web analytics, data visualization)
4. Mobile app marketing (e.g., mobile performance marketing, ASO)

With an emphasis on business growth and a results-oriented strategy, Netpeak offers an experienced, large team of marketing experts and cross-channel integration.

Brands looking to enhance their online presence across multiple platforms could be a compatible partner for Netpeak.

#7 Inbox Army

• Specialty: Full-service email marketing
• Industries: B2C, retail, eCommerce, education
• Strengths: Technical implementation
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Grapevine, Texas, USA
• Notable Clients: Purple, Expedia, Texas A&M University

Inbox Army is a full-service email marketing agency offering technical expertise, template design, coding, and strategic consulting. They work with brands across a wide variety of industries from higher education to B2C.

With a large team and a long-standing industry presence, Inbox Army could be a good match for brands looking for highly technical email marketing support.

#8 SmartMail

• Specialty: eCommerce email marketing
• Industries: eCommerce, B2B, B2C
• Strengths: Efficiency, speed
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Sydney, Australia
• Notable Clients: Daily Steals, Digital Supply USA, Choxi

SmartMail is an email marketing agency focused on revenue generation and conversion, and efficiency is their greatest asset. Offering 12-week “sprints”—short campaigns that aim to pack a punch—SmartMail emphasizes their fast turnaround times and impactful campaigns.

Some of SmartMail’s most popular services include:

• Subscriber list segmentation
• Newsletter acceleration
• Subscriber list development
• Full funnel automations

SmartMail is a compatible match for mid-size brands looking for efficient turn-around and flexible contracts.

#9 ZRich Media

• Specialty: Full-service marketing
• Industries: Retail, eCommerce, B2C
• Strengths: Paid ads, sales funnel development
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Miami, Florida, USA
• Notable Clients: Freshbody, Big Fork, Dafero

ZRich Media is a full-service marketing agency offering everything from paid social media ads to email marketing. Their email marketing scope includes:

• Regular promotion and branding emails
• Post-purchase marketing automation
• Product-specific marketing automation
• Abandoned cart automation

With an emphasis on cross-platform marketing, ZRich Media connects primarily eCommerce and retail brands to customers, expands client loyalty, and increases conversions using a combination of digital marketing approaches.

Companies looking for a multi-platform digital marketing strategy (including email marketing) might be compatible with ZRich Media.

#10 V8 Media

• Specialty: eCommerce digital marketing
• Industries: eCommerce, B2C, retail
• Strengths: Lead generation
• Pricing: Custom pricing
• Headquarters: Johannesburg, South Africa
• Notable Clients: Planet Fitness, RE/MAX, Thomson Reuters

V8 Media is a South Africa-based digital marketing agency offering a full-service scope to international eCommerce and retail brands. The brand emphasizes lead generation as a sustainable growth strategy, leveraging cross-channel strategies to uncover new revenue sources.

V8 Media might be a good match for brands seeking full-service digital marketing and a profit-driven approach.

Discover the best in email marketing with Power Digital

Today’s best email marketing companies are pulling out all the stops to produce long-term, high-value conversions and help brands make lasting connections with their customers.

If you’re looking for the industry’s top email marketing agency, Power Digital is here to support. You won’t find the level of dedication, expertise, or data-driven approach anywhere else. Powered by an expert team of marketing pros and the marketing roadmap platform nova Intelligence, the Power Digital team produces high-impact email marketing and other digital campaigns to help brands unlock their full growth potential.

Explore Power Digital’s core competencies and start working with the industry’s best growth marketing firm and digital marketing agency today.

The post 10 Best Email Marketing Companies appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

One of the most effective features of this marketing genre is email retargeting. Also known as direct mail retargeting, it is a strategy used to connect with consumers who express interest in a brand. It’s a simple, yet effective way of capitalizing on engagement by creating targeted messages informed by their on-site activity.²

Dear Reader,

We’ve noticed your business’s keen interest in email retargeting and believe that revenue could benefit from understanding its ins and outs; so, please read on to discover all about this salient marketing tactic.

Sincerely,

Power Digital

Email retargeting, defined

Retargeting is a strategy used to get a product that a user has already seen back on their radar (and their screen). It happens all over the internet in a variety of ways, but most of us are familiar with one in particular: when we encounter a catered ad, often generated by Google, for a product that we’ve recently been researching.³

Similar to retargeting ads, Tailored emails are another highly effective channel for retargeting. Email retargeting is the practice of using information a business already has about a consumer to send them messages that meet their desires and motivate them to act.

There are a few ways companies might use email retargeting:

• By aligning emails with a customer’s browsing habits – When a business understands a particular consumer’s browsing patterns, they can cater emails to highlight products that they’ll be more interested in. So, if an independent clothing retailer notices a repeat customer has been sifting through the skirt section of their page, it would be wise to send them a retargeting email with the six sleekest skirt styles of the season. 
• By spotlighting browsed products – When a business knows exactly what a user wants, it may be more advantageous to elaborate on a product they’ve already expressed interest in (rather than distract them with other options). A user who spent several minutes admiring a specific tablet but didn’t pull the trigger might convert if they received a retargeting email highlighting its unique features.

While the purpose of email retargeting is fairly straightforward, there’s a world of strategy and technical acuity involved in creating a message that compels and converts users. To start the process, one needs an understanding of who is browsing and what it is they want.

How does email retargeting work?

Like so much else in modern digital marketing, the lifeblood of email retargeting is user data, which is also the case for social media retargeting ads.

An email marketing campaign geared toward retargeting will consist of two parts. First off, it’s necessary to have an address to send targeted emails. Second, that email needs to be associated with some identifying characteristic of a user, like their IP address or profile, to track browsing patterns. Beyond these fundamentals, there are a few routes a business can take to secure this information.

Collecting cookies

Digital cookies identify a user and track their activity over repeated visits to a site. With cookies enabled, a site’s admin can:

• See the products and services that a potential customer browses.
• Save them a shopping cart and wishlist.
• Maintain their preferred settings, like language, for the next time they visit.
• Measure how much time a user spends on each page, indicating the products and services that interest them most.⁴ 

Cookies are recorded to create a profile of a user, and many email retargeting programs use cookie data as the basis to generate individually tailored messaging.⁵ These days, however, most users have the option to opt out of cookies. Furthermore, they can also manually delete them or browse in Incognito Mode (or its equivalent). 

So, what does one do when the cookies begin to crumble? There’s always…

Administering User Surveys 

Information collected from surveys can be highly accurate, as it reflects the personal opinions of the respondents. Surveys give a sense of a customer base’s habits and tastes—the perfect data to facilitate subdivision into targeted email groups. 

There are a few ways data culled from user surveys differs from that acquired through cookie collection:

• It’s not as instantaneous
• Taking a survey can steer them away from on-site navigational pathways (whereas cookies can be collected while a user is browsing)
• Self-reported data corresponds with the way a user views themself, as opposed to what their behavior indicates about their desires and motivations

One major advantage of user surveys? It helps identify user groups that are more likely to be invested in a brand, since they’re offering their personal time in taking them.

While not quite as simple as straightforward cookie collection, surveys garner valuable data that give a concrete understanding of what a customer is looking for. In turn, a business can formulate its emails to selectively target consumers with products they know they want to see.

Encouraging Registration

If a user is always logged into their account when they browse a site, the admin can easily track their behavior in that domain. It’s a simple solution to learning what products they’re most interested in and what pages they dwell on most frequently. 

The only obstacle? People positively loathe being forced to create separate accounts for each website they browse.⁶ 

To encourage them to sign in, businesses can:

• Monetarily incentivize registration – Customers don’t like creating new profiles, but they’ll probably do it for 10% off. For some businesses, offering a small discount in exchange for user email addresses is a drop in the bucket compared to the wealth of valuable data made accessible in that transaction.
• Make signups simpler – Often, users aren’t wary of giving away too much information—they just don’t want to fill out a signup form. Companies can make a more frictionless process by letting them register through sites like Google or Facebook. Bonus: This entry point may give companies access to some other user information, like their profile URL and registered name, when they connect using external accounts.⁷
• Make some features members-only – Keeping a few goodies behind a free signup page presents an easy cost-benefit analysis to customers. They get something fun and exclusive, and all they need to provide in return is their basic information. Whether it’s unlimited article access or features like making wishlists, a little party favor can entice more members to offer up their information.

Once a business registers a new user, it can track who’s looking at what and get a sense of their tastes and habits. From there, it can select how to go forward with its retargeting campaign.

Email retargeting in practice

Once a business has begun fleshing out who a user is based on disclosed data, they can start creating an email retargeting campaign. Drafting these requires tact and careful consideration—“Come on, we know you want it,” won’t convince most consumers to close on a product they just turned down.

When done effectively, an email retargeting strategy can reach a potential customer, spread brand awareness, and boost sales. When working on a retargeting email campaign, companies should consider:

• Email timing – Users who idly browse a shopfront may find it unsettling to click off a product’s page only to have a tailored and personalized email reach their inbox 0.4 seconds later. But when a user is on the fence about making a purchase, sending a prompt follow-up can be a brilliant way for businesses to make that conversion.
• Email frequency – A curious customer who browses 100 items on a site will likely never return there if they get 100 corresponding emails imploring them to buy it all. It behooves businesses to choose the products they’ll promote with precision, based on which product categories a user spends the most time browsing.
• Language and tone – Even when users consent to giving up their data, they still usually aren’t happy to learn that their activity is being monitored (no, of course, they didn’t read the terms and conditions). Fostering sustainable relationships with users by gently promoting the browsed page or offering a slight discount on the product may be just the ticket to capitalizing on curiosity and making a sale.

Stay in your user’s eye line with Power Digital

Email marketing is hard to master in general, but retargeting presents a unique challenge to businesses. Brands need accurate data (and data interpretation) and creativity to earn users’ attention—and creating emails that pull them further down the funnel is always trickier the second time around.

Fortunately, tricky business is our specialty. Power Digital is a full-service digital marketing agency with a proven track record for crafting messages users want to read. 

How do we do it?

Simple: we leverage our in-house marketing analysis platform nova along with award-winning creative to create campaigns users sincerely want to read and keep up with. For an email retargeting campaign that will have customers second-guessing passing up your products, reach out to Power Digital.

Sources: 

1. Statista. Email marketing worldwide — statistics and facts. https://www.statista.com/
2. United States Small Business Administration. How Retargeting and Remarketing Helps Your Advertising. https://www.sba.gov
3. Fair Trade Commission. Internet Cookies. https://www.ftc.gov/
4. Mailchimp. Creating a Product Retargeting Email. https://mailchimp.com/
5. Forbes. How To Get Started With Targeted Email Marketing For Your Small Business. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/05/25/how-to-get-started-with-targeted-email-marketing-for-your-small-business
6. Nielsen Norman Group. Don’t Force Users to Register Before They Can Buy. https://www.nngroup.com/
7. Google Identity. Getting Profile Information. https://developers.google.com/

The post What is email retargeting? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

But even more critical than a message to a colleague? The follow-up and nurture email sequences companies write to budding customers. According to Oberlo, the ROI on email marketing is massive: each $1 spent later pulls in $40 on average.¹

Automated email sequences do the work of welcoming new subscribers, introducing them to what a brand stands for and what users have to gain from the relationship. The following email sequences are some of the most essential for any business that wants to earn its stripes in any inbox—no handwringing about exclamation point use necessary.

#1 The greeter

A good nurturing email lead can start with a greeter. A kindhearted “Nice to meet you” message starts business-client relationships off on the right foot. 

Whether it’s got the tone of a good, firm handshake or a warm hug, greeter sequences add a human touch to commercial relationships many users have come to regard as robotic (yes, even though those welcome sequences are automated). Indeed, branded Welcome emails have some of the highest open rates of the bunch, to the tune of 68.6% on average.¹

A greeter message should arrive when a customer signs up for a site or subscribes to services,  to confirm and thank them for their choice. A well-written one should include:

• A wholehearted “Thank you” – Customers like to feel appreciated by the businesses they decide to patronize. Thanking every user individually is a kind gesture businesses can use to show that support is valued.¹
  
• Information about the services purchased – While users should already have a complete picture of what they’re paying for, a little recap is always helpful. Consumers crave transparency in their purchases.² Laying out exactly what they have access to, how to use different features and how to get the most value for their purchase is a key component of greeting emails.
• Relevant offerings – A welcome email is an excellent opportunity to introduce a new client to the other services and specialties a business has to offer. Making mention of complementary services or other available products can help users gain more value from what they’ve already invested in while helping to foster customer retention.

Truthfully, every other nurture email sequence won’t land as well if a welcoming greeter sequence hasn’t been delivered first. Just like any other social encounter, you have to make an introduction before you can have a conversation.

More importantly, when a client receives a tailored greeting message, they feel welcomed and part of more than just a one-way digital relationship. Nail your opener, and users might actually look forward to business’s emails, rather than instinctually delete them from their inboxes.

#2 The newsletter

The first email newsletter was sent out in 1977.³ This was the same year that Apple released the Apple II, which is now widely considered the catalyst of the personal computer explosion.⁴ The digital world was in its infancy at this point, and when people said “the web”, they were talking about spider infestations.

Despite nearly 50 years of history, the email newsletter is far from outdated. They’re still a salient space to connect with committed customers as subscribing to a newsletter proves a consumer’s preference for a brand.⁵

To nurture customer relationships and keep clients committed, a captivating company newsletter should:

• Select (and maintain) a central focus – Businesses shouldn’t stray too far from the main idea that they want to convey to their customers that month (or week). Newsletters that revolve around a specific point capture readers’ attention more poignantly than the disjointed, tangential ramblings of a business that doesn’t fully know what it’s talking about.⁶
• Speak to a specific audience – The tone of a newsletter is as crucial as its substance. Every brand has a unique brand voice, and fusing this distinctive style with exciting, relevant writing meets subscribers on their level and entices them to read on. When done  right, newsletters can have subscribers anticipating future messages in their inboxes and cruising the company website in hopes of finding more content.⁶
• Feature relevant products – The readers of a company’s newsletter are clientele, after all. Whatever subject the newsletter covers, there’s usually a way to loop it back to some offering provided by the brand at hand. If a product isn’t plugged, newsletters should always include a CTA (e.g. “Follow us on Insta!”) to invite a reader further into the funnel.

Providing clients with updates about a business is certainly an effective way to show it cares about the relationship. Sometimes, though, customers crave a little more than acknowledgment—they want something that rewards them for their loyalty, such as…

#3 The cost-cutter

Everyone loves a discount. Some data show that 95% of people used at least one coupon in 2019, and that was before COVID lockdowns and kickbacks gave consumers more free time (and dollars) to hunt down discounts and deals.⁷

Sowing customer relationships by distributing coupons can benefit a business with monetary rewards and increased loyalty. A business might incorporate a coupon nurture sequence to:

• Attract first-time buyers – Perhaps a curious and prospective consumer has signed up for a mailing list but isn’t entirely sold on a brand yet. If the price point is a bit rich for their blood, a small discount could finally convince them to take the plunge. 60% of people admit to trying a new product because they received a discount on it.⁸ A lead nurturing email with a discount code may do the trick of winning over a new consumer.
  
• Reward repeat customers – Lead nurturing emails with a surprise discount code don’t only have to be for new customers. One strategic way businesses give discounts to those who deserve them most is by sending coupons to their best customers. When a company sends a loyal buyer a coupon, there’s a higher chance it will actually be redeemed. In fact, many consumers crave repeat rewards, with as many as 84% saying they will repeatedly patronize a brand that gives discounts to consistent customers.⁹
• Build buzz – An excellent limited-time offer will have customers talking and sharing with their friends. While a business need not price itself into the red, loss leaders are an exceptional example of this type of strategy in action. Taking a small hit on certain products can have customers banging on a company’s door (or flooding its server with traffic) to see the rest of the goods.

Saving money is a pastime virtually everyone with an email address can get behind. This is why, when a discount-laden email lands in a customer’s inbox, they’ll celebrate its value rather than send it to Spam.

#4 The incentivizer 

One of the best practices for an email nurture sequence is to include an incentive in your email campaign. Whether it’s called a referral program or affiliate linking, incentivizing customers to share with their friends and social media followers has become a cornerstone of modern digital marketing. Reminding clients to recommend a product or service they love is a start, but they really begin sharing when they get something back in return.

Providing a business’s mailing list with a message outlining all the benefits they can access by sharing is a salient tactic to drum up referrals. 

Businesses can persuade clients to spread the love by:

• Providing kickbacks for linked signups – When a customer or follower introduces a paying customer to a business, why not offer them a piece of the pie as well? Providing discounts or coupon codes when their friend makes their first purchase has become common practice for companies to reward people who help them grow their brand.
  
• Rewarding real value – If a certain customer floats a lot of business to a company, it could be pertinent to provide them with a reward. Gift cards or first dibs on new products are a means of giving retention a boost. For companies who can swing the shipping expenses, giving back to customers with complimentary full-sized products can help get rid of overstock items while rewarding customers for their loyalty.

Win over inboxes everywhere with Power Digital

Over 333 billion emails were sent out every day in 2022—that’s over 40 messages per person every single day.¹⁰  To stand out in this sea of spam, brands’ email sequences need foresight and thoughtful construction so that its audience feels seen amid the hubbub.

If you aren’t sure where to start in crafting an email sequencing, we’ve got you: Power Digital’s email marketing strategists have an impressive record of heating up lead-nurturing emails and building trust with subscribers. That means no formulaic, cut-and-paste, pre-written, sleepy messages—we craft messages that connect with your readers and speak to the nuances of your business every step of the way.

Interested? Schedule a consultation with us today—our inbox is waiting for you.

Sources: 

1. Oberlo. 10 Email Marketing Statistics. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/email-marketing-statistics
2. Forbes. 11 Simple Ways To Make Customers Feel Valued. https://www.forbes.com/
3. Computer History Museum. EMMS; Electronic Mail and Message Systems; Electronic Mail and Micro Systems; Electronic Mail and Messaging Systems. https://www.computerhistory.org/
4. The Smithsonian Institute. Apple II Personal Computer. https://americanhistory.si.edu/
5. Forbes. Why Email Marketing is Still Relevant in 2022.  https://www.forbes.com/
6. Forbes. How to Write a Newsletter That Will Help a Brand Grow. https://www.forbes.com/
7. Balancing Everything. Coupon Statistics. https://balancingeverything.com/
8. Investopedia. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Coupons for Your Business. https://www.investopedia.com/
9. Forbes. Five Ways Coupons Can Help Your Business Attract Loyal Customers. https://www.forbes.com/
10. Statista. Number of sent and received e-mails per day worldwide from 2017 to 2025. https://www.statista.com/
11. Forbes. Transparency Is No Longer An Option; It’s A Must. https://www.forbes.com/

The post 4 of the best email follow-up and nurture sequences appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

If you’ve been taking steps to grow your email list, you may have hundreds to thousands of subscribers who have opted in to receive your emails. That’s amazing! A growing contact list is a great accomplishment. However, quality is just as important as quantity.

In this article, we’ll explain why email list management is so important. We’ll also explain how you can optimize your email list management strategy to promote business growth through your email marketing strategy. 

What is Email List Management?

Email list management is the process of cleaning up your mailing list and optimizing your email campaign strategy. Yes, you heard that right—you’ll most likely need to remove some subscribers from your email list during this process.

Let’s examine why:

• Disengaged users don’t add value to your email list – If a subscriber stops opening your emails for months on end, they’re no longer a valuable member on your list. They aren’t engaging with your emails in a meaningful way. Instead, they’re just dragging down your open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, which could end up hurting your sender reputation with the Email Service Providers (ESPs).
• Inactive or invalid email addresses can increase your email bounce rate – Invalid or inactive email addresses won’t be able to receive your emails. When your emails don’t get delivered to a recipient, they “bounce” back to you. A high bounce rate can harm your email deliverability. If your bounce rate gets too high, your emails may even start getting sent to the spam folder for active, engaged recipients. 

As you can see, curating the perfect email template and having an extensive email list isn’t all that if a large percentage of subscribers don’t receive or engage with your emails. It’s much better to maintain a streamlined email list that’s full of engaged, high-quality recipients. Email list management can help you do just that. 

Email List Management Best Practices

Now that you know why email list management is so important, let’s review a few tips and tricks that can optimize your email list. These strategies help to maximize clicks and conversions while avoiding bounces and spam complaints. 

#1 Send New Subscribers a Welcome Email

New subscribers are a sign of a healthy email list. If you want to secure their patronage, however, you need to make a positive impression from the very start. 

You can do so with ease by sending Welcome emails to new subscribers as soon as they sign up. Compared to other types of emails, Welcome emails are incredibly well-received. They boast impressive metrics too. Compared to other marketing emails, welcome emails have:¹

• Four times higher open rates
• Five times higher click-through rates

Your Welcome email will get new subscribers used to seeing you in their inbox. If you want to make your first “hello” extra special, you should employ personalization and include an exclusive welcome offer or discount inside. You can also ask recipients to whitelist your email address so you never end up in the junk folder. 

#2 Remove Inactive Subscribers Regularly

Many people may sign up for your emails, only to have their email addresses become inactive down the line. Your subscribers may have inactive email addresses for the following reasons:

• They changed emails due to a job transition
• They lost access to an old email address
• They closed their email account

A crucial aspect of email list management is removing inactive email addresses from your list on a consistent basis. This way, they won’t end up increasing your bounce rate and harming your sender reputation with the ESPs.

Luckily, removing unengaged subscribers is a breeze. Just unsubscribe anyone who hasn’t engaged with your emails in the past few months. Doing so will keep your email list in tip-top shape at all times.

#3 Create a Re-Engagement Campaign

Not ready to say “goodbye” just yet?

Before deleting all of your disengaged subscribers, you can craft a strategic re-engagement campaign to see if you can win any of them back.

During a re-engagement campaign, you simply send your least engaged subscribers a re-engagement email asking whether or not they want to stay connected. To get them to open this email, you should:

• Write an extra-compelling subject line
• Use personalization
• Ask them what you can do to optimize your emails
• Let them know you will unsubscribe them if you don’t receive a response

You could even consider crafting a multi-email re-engagement sequence with promotional discounts designed to get opens and clicks.

If you don’t get a response, you can safely go ahead and unsubscribe them on your end. Doing so will streamline your email list and upgrade its value.

#4 Make it Easy to Unsubscribe

“It’s not you, it’s me.” Having people on your mailing list unsubscribe may feel like a breakup, but don’t take it personally. Some people just lose interest in your offerings or want to simplify their inboxes.

Allowing these unengaged subscribers to part ways is actually in your best interest too. It saves you the time and effort of manually removing them from your email list after they’ve become disengaged. You can make unsubscribing easily for recipients by: 

• Including an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email you send
• Making sure this link is easy to find and easy to click

Not only will allowing people to unsubscribe reduce the email list management burden on your end, but it will also lower your chances of getting marked as spam when frustrated unsubscribers can’t figure out how to opt-out of future communication with you. If you wanted to, on the unsubscribe page, you could suggest that they follow you on your social media channels to stay in touch in the future. 

#5 Set Up Customized Email Subscription Options

Determining the optimal frequency to send emails to your recipients can be a balancing act. You want to stay fresh in their minds without becoming overbearing. Finding this sweet spot is tricky, especially since some recipients may want to hear from you less often than others. 

Additionally, subscribers may prefer different types of content. Some prospects may enthusiastically welcome your promotional emails each week, while others may only want to stick around for your monthly email newsletter. 

Giving your email list recipients the ability to customize their subscription settings can keep them happily on your list. Let your recipients select the email type and frequency of communication they like best. You can ask them to share their subscription preferences: 

• Within the original email signup form
• On a separate landing page that you link to in each email
• In an email directly
• Before they confirm they want to unsubscribe

#6 Segment Your Email List

Engagement is the cornerstone of a healthy email list. One way you can stimulate more is by employing segmentation. Segmented emails earn significantly more revenue than general emails, largely because they’re better at capturing readers’ attention and engaging them long enough to guide them to your CTA.² 

So, what is segmentation? It simply means sending different emails to various sub-groups within your contact list rather than blasting everyone with the same, generic email. In doing so, you can tailor your message with greater precision and include more personalization, which should ultimately lead to more engagement and conversions. 

Depending on the makeup of your email list, you may want to segment by:

• Engagement level
• Business size
• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Actions taken on your website
• Location within your lead funnel

#7 Play Up the Personalization

Most email campaigns include the standard “Hi, *first name*” personalization at the beginning. However, you don’t have to stop there. The more personalization, the better. Personalized emails produce six times more transactions.³

Here are a few ways you can personalize your emails to perfection:

• Place the recipient’s name in the subject line
• Include their name throughout the email, rather than just at the beginning
• Ensure your email’s content and design is tailored to your segmented audience
• Address your readers’ pain points
• Write your email so it feels like there’s a real person on the other end

Sending a targeted email  can enhance your email list management by transforming more subscribers into valuable, converting customers. 

How to Track Your Email List Management Progress

By implementing these best practices, you can improve the health of your email list in no time, driving enhanced success to your email marketing campaign. 

You’ll know your hard work is paying off when your:

• Bounce rate has gone down (ideally below 2%⁴)
• Open rate has increased
• Click-through rate and conversion rate are improving

Enhance Your Emails with Power Digital Marketing

When you successfully manage your email list, you can extract more value from your marketing campaigns going forward. 

However, we know that email list management can require significant analytic and strategic resources. If you’d prefer to leave this to the experts, Power Digital is at your service. Our digital marketing agency can help you with all of your marketing efforts, whether you’re trying to grow your email list or optimize your campaign’s metrics. Most importantly, we can take email list management off your hands entirely. 

Find out how our  email marketing services can improve your business today

Sources:

1. Experian. The welcome email report: Benchmark data and analysis for engaging new subscribers through email marketing. https://www.experian.com/assets/marketing-services/white-papers/welcome-email-report.pdf
2. HubSpot. The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2022. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-stats
3. Experian. Experian Marketing Services study finds personalized emails generate six times higher transaction rates. https://www.experianplc.com/media/latest-news/2014/experian-marketing-services-study-finds-personalized-emails-generate-six/
4. NeverBounce. How to Prevent High Bounce Rates from Impacting your Sender Reputation. https://neverbounce.com/blog/email-bounce-rate

The post Email List Management: Best Practices for Growth appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

As the unrivaled champion of marketing media across and between industries, email marketing services provide consumers with the content they need to stay healthy—and it has remarkable capabilities for maximizing your ROI as a business in the healthcare space.

In the guide below, we’ll explain exactly what an email marketing campaign is, why it’s advantageous, and some tricks of the trade you can use before your next email makes landfall in your patients’ inboxes.

Healthcare Email Marketing: A Crash Course

Before we get into the tips for email marketing in the healthcare space, let’s take a look at the big picture:

• What is email marketing? Email marketing is a way of familiarizing potential or existing patients with your company and the services you offer. Where traditional advertising is unilateral, email marketing fosters reciprocity between businesses and the customers they serve.
• How is it done? When you adopt a potential patientt, they’ll have the option to opt into your email list to receive updates, notices, and complementary knowledge related to their care. Effective email marketing requires a force of designers and IT experts to hone your brand voice, automate your email schedule, and disseminate your message effectively.
• How much does email marketing cost? The question of cost depends on a few variables such as the email marketing trends you decide to pursue, your design needs, or the volume of messaging you expect to send. That said, an email marketing campaign can collect an average of $45 per $1 spent—and with 80% of businesses using this marketing tactic, you can bet your competition is already making use of email’s functionality and earn-back potential.¹
• Why is email marketing important for the healthcare sector? In 2020, per-patient spending in healthcare averaged nearly $11,000 per capita in 2020—almost double the cost of most other developed countries on the planet.² No matter what sort of provider you are, email marketing is uniquely positioned to eliminate inefficiencies, offer more to your clients, and help you make good on your bottom line.³ 

A healthcare provider needs solutions for slashing budgetary bloat and doing right by their clients.⁴ How can email marketing help with that? 

Let’s take a look.

5 Benefits of Healthcare Email Marketing

There are five critical areas where email marketing can improve performance:

1. Streamlining administrative workloads – According to a survey by Stanford Medicine, digital storage was the #1 value provided by electronic health records (EHR)—but many providers report resulting inefficiencies in coordination and patient billing.⁵ Email marketing refines and fortifies provider-patient communications to bridge the gaps where other tech falls short. 
2. Reducing spending – The American health sector is the biggest spender on the planet, and it shows: according to a 2021 Gallup poll, 77% of respondents were “dissatisfied” with the overall cost of their care.⁶ When used tactically, email marketing can slash administrative redundancies and simplify treatment protocol, curtailing costs in the long run and helping you keep price points competitive for your existing patients.
3. Establishing authority – Email marketing is an instrumental channel for content marketing—one of the most effective ways to demonstrate your credibility as a provider. Whether you create your own branded content or pass along the latest news in your industry, content marketing via email is key for becoming a presence customers trust.
4. Improving patient relations – Email marketing analytics have remarkable capabilities for data retrieval, matching services to the clientele who’d benefit most from your product. You’ll also be able to track which initiatives prosper and which fall flat, refining your approach as your business grows.
5. Improving care outcomes – As a healthcare provider, you already know that health conditions are best treated through prevention, regardless of what modalities you specialize in. Your insights are valuable, and with e-marketing trends like list segmentation and targeted campaigns, you can direct knowledge to the right recipients to help patients keep up with treatment between appointments.

Whether you’re looking to wow your peers at the next budget meeting or are aiming to upgrade patient experience, ultimately, email marketing has numerous benefits to improve your internal operations—and enhance the experience of the communities you serve.

5 Tips For Healthcare Email Marketing

As advantageous as email marketing can be, an email campaign that yields strong click-to-open rates (CTOR) needs a skillfully-hewn strategy to be effective and not have a high email bounce rate.

Below, find 5 tips for building a profitable email marketing strategy that can earn you the confidence of your base.

#1 Start With a Warm Welcome

In every sector, the Welcome email sequence is the series that paves the way for client retention and engagement. Oberlo reports that customers peek into 82% of the Welcome emails they receive, as opposed to an average 21% for follow-up marketing communications.⁷

Your Welcome sequence should demonstrate what your client can expect from a relationship with you. Ideally, yours should include:

• An introduction that establishes your brand mission and identity
• Educational assets for your product or service
• Opportunities for engagement, like online webinars or social sharing buttons
• Contact Us information for account management, FAQs, or customer service queries
• Resources for ad-hoc support

Welcome sequences should be streamlined, approachable, and user-friendly—graphically, verbally, and technically. It’s the Welcome sequence that drafts the map your clients can use to get to know you better and navigate your resources with ease.

#2 Strategize on Incentive-Building

Establishing a supportive network of healthcare providers can be a major obstacle for potential clients seeking support, whether by dint of prohibitive deductibles or lack of knowledge about providers that can meet their needs.

Email marketing is an ideal channel for creating positive relationships with existing clients and for expanding your orbit to include new ones. Here are two effective ways to encourage your patients to pass it on:

• Referral programs – Whether or not you can use referral programs to ethically (and legally) market your healthcare organization and services depends on the type of enterprise you’re running. Small to medium-sized businesses—particularly those in the wellness space—are well-positioned to offer deals or customer perks when a customer loops in a friend.
• Shareability – Today, social and share buttons are built into the bones of marketing emails, enabling subscribers to post the content you provide to their personal platforms. As a general rule, any knowledge that lands in their inbox (excluding any confidential data) should be easily shareable with the stroke of a thumb.

Finally, your healthcare organization might consider providing perks to clients each time they reach a new milestone. For instance, a personalized Vitamin vendor might initiate an email-led rewards program to let customers know when it’s time to replenish their cache or let them know that their 10th purchase will earn them a free month’s supply of Collagen gel caps.

#5 Stick to a Schedule

There are two main categories of marketing emails:

• Email sequences – Pre-written and sent automatically, these messages anticipate the different stages of your funnel and meet the customer where they are. The Welcome Sequence is a classic example, but sequences can also reach warm or cold customers with lapsed engagement.
• Broadcast emails – Broadcast emails keep clients abreast of sales, company developments, or programs offered through your business. They’re often seasonal, circumstantial, or time-sensitive, clueing your clients into company developments.

Automated email marketing has vastly improved the efficacy of brand messaging, particularly when it comes to timing when certain communications are delivered. These emails are substantially more time and work-intensive, but the investments you make here will earn you more in the long run.

#3 Provide Valued Content

As a provider, you already know that health conditions are best treated through prevention, regardless of what modalities your business specializes in.

Email marketing is a particularly vital channel for content marketing, where subscribers receive valuable, complementary knowledge that can enhance their profile. In the healthcare industry, this could include:

• Up-to-date recommendations from medical authorities such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) or the American Academy of Pediatrics (AA)
• Product education linking the therapeutic services you offer to specific health concerns
• Digestible blog posts on trending mental health topics
• Physical therapy videos to practice at home

Email marketing is one element of a broader digital marketing strategy that thrives when paired with of-the-moment internet trends. Content that places patient concerns in context is more likely to get noticed, demonstrating not only your credibility but also your currency. 

#4 Make Emails Personal

Every patient arrives with a distinct set of health concerns, life events, or challenges they’re contending with. Firing off a spate of broadcast emails on how to help an infant latch may be enormously helpful to a new mother, but it’s unlikely to earn you much credit with a patient in recovery from kidney stone removal.

Email marketing advancements like list segmentation make it easier than ever to target specific groups of clients with specific concerns, ensuring resources relevant to their well-being are delivered in kind.

In short: the more individualized the message, the more likely your clients are to open it, and the more useful the content you provide will be.

Launch Your Next Campaign with Power Digital

When all is said and done, providers have an ethical and legal obligation to keep client information safe and HIPAA-compliant. To meet rigorous demands on discretion, you’ll need an expert set of eyes, hands, and humans to help you get established in your sector.

Our digital marketing agency provides email marketing services involving the craftsmanship, penmanship, and industry expertise to ensure your brand gets noticed. Strong email marketing is adaptable, addressing your pain points with a bifocal approach: meet your short-term goals and aim for vitality in the long run. 

As in health, so in wealth, and, with Power Digital, so in email marketing.

Sources: 

1. Statista. E-mail marketing worldwide – statistics & facts. https://www.statista.com/topics/1446/e-mail-marketing/#dossierKeyfigures
2. Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. Health Spending. https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm
3. Investopedia. Healthcare Sector. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/health_care_sector.asp
4. Investopedia. The 5 Industries Driving the U.S. Economy. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/5-industries-driving-us-economy.asp
5. Stanford Medicine. How Doctors Feel About Electronic Health Records. https://med.stanford.edu/content/dam/sm/ehr/documents/EHR-Poll-Presentation.pdf
6. Gallup. Healthcare System. https://news.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx
7. Oberlo. 10 Email Marketing Statistics. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/email-marketing-statistics

The post Healthcare Email Marketing: Tips, Tricks, and More appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Other than the dismal “ping” of a failed delivery, probably not. Both “hard” and “soft” bounce emails fall on deaf ears—but depending on which barrier you’re up against, you may still have room to revise and re-relate your message.

Here, we’ll outline the difference between hard bounce vs soft bounce email marketing and provide tactics to retain your customers, net new leads, and keep your global strategy consistent with emerging email marketing trends.

Hard vs Soft Bounces, Defined

There are several reasons why an email delivery might not go through, and each case may be designated in one of two categories: hard bounces or soft bounces.

Hard Bounces

In short, hard bounces are the “hard no” of emails—the closest you’ll come to meeting a brick wall in email marketing. There are 3 main reasons for a hard bounce email:

• The recipient has an invalid email address
• The addressee has your sending address blocked
• Your email ran up against a spam filter or firewall at its destination address

In general, hard bounce emails offer little recourse to reroute your message towards its original recipient.

Soft Bounces

Soft bounces are a little less final. There’s more wiggle room to circle back and find a workaround.

The most common explanations for soft bounce emails include:

• Addressee’s mailbox is at capacity
• Addressee’s account has been suspended
• Integrated media or attached files are too big
• Mail server malfunction
• Your emails have been marked against a spam filter

Everything from withholding an unsubscribe button to overusing the Caps Lock key in your subject lines can set off Spam filters, and with legislation like the CAN-SPAM Act you’ll need to ensure your messaging meets federal standards before petitioning entry to a customer’s inbox.¹

Spam is the ultimate inbox bouncer, which makes it critical to know how to design your emails so they read as clean and savory—to your readers, but also to internet service providers (ISPs).

To maintain brand credibility (and avoid tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees), always partner with a credible digital marketing agency to help your email marketing campaign get off the ground and stay out of the junkyard.

Hard vs Soft Bounces: The Bottom Line

Here and there, bounced emails (both hard and soft) are to be expected. So long as your email bounce rate hovers around 2%, they’re just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the watershed impact that a strategic email marketing service can have for your brand.

However, if your bounced email tally builds over time, the effect can slow your entire marketing engine. Too many rebounds, and your company risks getting blacklisted by heavyweight ISPs like Google and Yahoo—which means your messages won’t make it into your subscribers’ inboxes at all.

Stakes as high as these make it vital to adopt a rigorous protocol when your analytics flag a boomerang message. So, let’s find out the best practices for handling them efficiently.

How to Handle Bounced Emails

You have two main objectives when confronted with bounced emails:

• Cut your losses – If an email message doesn’t get delivered due to security settings or an invalid address, delete the address. Trimming obvious dead-ends will abate congestion, keep your data current and legible, and ensure you know where to try new marketing solutions to keep your public poised for engagement.
• Lean into analytics – Whether you’re in the process of weeding out invalid emails or consistently completing conversions through your emails, harnessing analytics is essential for growth and maintaining a robust ROI. Data from past and ongoing campaigns will keep you on the right track with engagement, from knowing the types of content that yields click-throughs to the products your public wants more of.

Soft bounces leave the door ajar for you to make contact—but always try to revise your strategy before a second bid. 

A high soft bounce rate may mean your copy is “spammy” or that assets you’ve included are too dense to send (and too hefty for easy mobile viewing). Before you pitch pebbles at their window a second time, identify the issue and rectify it to avoid hemorrhaging potential customers.

Bounced Emails: The Silver Lining

Here’s the thing about bounced emails: they can offer invaluable information on your marketing strategy whether or not they stick the landing.

Both hard and soft bounce emails feed into what’s known as your email marketing bounce rate. This quotient compares two values:

• Emails sent
• Emails delivered

When read in conjunction with other key email marketing metrics, you can cull some vital data on how smoothly your email campaign is running and where it could use an oil change.

Here are some companion variables to interpret alongside your bounce rates and fine-tune your approach:

• Email list growth rate – In the world of email marketing, you’ll win some and you’ll lose some—but your win-some rate should consistently outweigh the latter. Some lapses are organic (usually due to a change of address), while others can be attributed to static incentives, such as email coupons, or customers who opted out after securing a deal. Whatever the cause, aim to keep your new subscriber rate up to make up for the losses all databases inevitably incur.
• Share rate – With the meteoric growth of content marketing, the sharability of your messaging is crucial. Share buttons are an invaluable tool to make native in your emails. They reveal the success of current campaigns and identify untapped digital districts where you can make headway. Most analytics are conservative on this front, tallying only the “shares” made directly from your email (as opposed to shares on social media).
• Click-through rate – Every email you send should contain at least one opportunity for reader engagement—a call to action (CTA) that opens the door to your latest content piece, blowout sale, or subscriber perk. Your click-through rate refers to the portion of recipients who followed the lead you provided out of the total number of successfully delivered emails.
• Conversion rate – Where clickthrough measures engagement, conversions reflect the ratio of recipients who followed through on the desired CTA. Making a purchase, completing a survey, or sharing a post with hashtag #lovethisbrand are all examples of conversion goals, which will be unique to your company and the milestones you’re aiming to clear.

There’s no question that email marketing analytics can be a rich resource, but they tend to yield a dense amount of data that can be difficult to sift through and interpret. 

To reap the full benefits of the intelligence they offer, always work with a partner who can crunch the numbers for you and help you translate that intelligence into meaningful, measurable actions you can take to pivot where necessary.

How To Optimize Your Email Marketing Strategy

Tech is perpetually evolving, which means the email strategy you spearheaded last year won’t necessarily be its sharpest amid the coming waves of marketing trends. Your strategy for staying on top of these metrics, including your email bounce back rate, must be honed against a stone that keeps getting nosed uphill.

With that, let’s take a look at three major currents forecasted to make landing with the next generation of email marketing.

#1 Email Gets Personal

In 2019, reports showed that emails with customized subject lines yielded around 50% more opens than generic ones.² In 2022 and beyond, thanks in large part to AI, the personalizing trend is only going to get bigger.

Filtering your hard and soft bounces is phase one. With the customization trend, your brand will have even finer ways to sort your email lists using tactics like:

• Assessing hot, warm, and cold leads
• Identifying individual consumer preferences
• Rewarding engaged, consistent customers
• Timing emails for maximum engagement across time zones

As tech continues to march forward, expect more and more ways to connect with your public one-on-one.³

#2 The Medium is the Message

Emails aren’t just vehicles for purveying your product or your content. Where we’re headed, emails are the content. 

Interactivity and gamification are steadily transforming every precinct of the digital sphere, and, when done right, emails don’t just invite your customer into the world of your brand—they integrate them. 

Case in point: the burgeoning popularity of Buzzfeed-style quizzes and surveys. These quizzes and surveys are essential when it comes to B2B email marketing. Not only can they help you harvest game-changing information about individual recipient preferences, but they foster genuine connections with your base and offer more instructive insights into how to tailor-make your content to enhance their lives within and beyond your brand.

#3 The Message is Mobile

Emails are artfully-plotted breadcrumbs leading to a portal. And because nearly 73% of internet users will solely use their phones to access the internet, that portal doesn’t just need to be mobile-friendly—it needs to be mobile-seamless.

Strategic email campaigns should be built for mobile legibility as well as mobile interactivity. Without the proper design team in place, it’s all too likely a reader may bounce out of your email of their own accord. All mobile-friendly emails should include:

• Ahead-of-the-curve creative
• Incisive, shrewd, SEO-informed copy
• Polished social integration
• Sophisticated analytics

Lastly, all emails should lead readers to a landing page curated with precision to reflect your current and evolving brand identity. For that, you’ll need another set of eyes, hands, and humans—which is where we come in.

Stick The Landing with Power Digital

Identifying your hard vs soft bounce email marketing strategy is just one branch of your marketing tree. To keep going (and growing) in the right direction, you’ll need a skillful partner and digital marketing agency who can identify your pain points and provide shrewd, creative approaches to keep current subscribers rooted and new leads coming down the funnel.

Whether you’re looking to bounce back from an email initiative that faltered or are brainstorming fresh ways to keep your base connected, partner with Power Digital to streamline your assets and grow your brand.

Sources: 

1. Federal Trade Commission. CAN-SPAM ACT: A Compliance Guide for Business. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
2. Oberlo. 10 Email Marketing Statistics. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/email-marketing-statistics
3. CoFounder. The Top 10 Email Marketing Trends to Look Out for in 2022. https://www.cofmag.com/2021/10/the-top-10-email-marketing-trends-to-look-out-for-in-2022/

The post Hard Bounce vs Soft Bounce Email Marketing: What’s the Difference? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

With all that influence, the question for brands is how to leverage the power of the coupon to increase sales on their own terms. As it turns out, directing discounts to customer inboxes is one of the most effective ways to leverage the power of coupons.

When combined with a smart email marketing strategy, the ability to reach a customer directly means that email coupons can provide a substantial boost to your sales and customer loyalty. So, what’s the key to making email coupons effective? In this guide, we’ll cover proven strategies for increasing your odds of success.

#1 Try Different Coupon Formats

Just like your emails themselves, the specifics of your coupons can vary—and so can the purpose they serve. Unless you’re offering 50% off everything all the time (a deal we’d definitely take up), using the same coupon format every time you need a sales boost won’t suffice. 

To maximize your reach, decide what shape each special offer takes and customize your email depending on the reward. Some of your coupon format options include:

• Item or category-specific coupons
• Holiday discounts
• End-of-season sales
• Clearance sales
• Loyalty rewards program
• Free or discounted shipping

Using a variety of formats may also help keep customers interested and increase the chances of relevant offers reaching the right customers. On the other hand, sending out the same promo code for 15% off handkerchiefs every week could end up leading to buyer fatigue.

#2 Master Email Frequency

One essential factor in any email marketing strategy is how often you send them—and for coupons, this is an especially important consideration. 

For example, say a flower company offers daily discounts for 20% off custom floral arrangements. While this sounds like a fantastic deal, sending out coupons for the same item every day could ultimately decrease the perceived value of your offer—and your product.

Meanwhile, limiting your offers’ availability can help you boost sales even further and create a sense of urgency. In Forbes, marketing executive Michael Plumber notes:

 “Customers don’t want to miss out on a valuable chance to make a purchase at an appealing price point…Limited-time offers can also create a buzz on social media, which can raise brand awareness and reach a large audience.”²

Instead of making offers constantly available, you can incentivize customers to take action on promotions you do send out by limiting how long they’re usable.

#3 Know When Offers are Most Effective

A smart email coupon strategy also means sending out offers at the times your customers are most likely to use them. 

Say, for example, you have data showing that most of your shoppers make their purchases on Saturday mornings. If your email coupon goes out on Tuesday, it may either be too early or too late to impact the purchasing decisions of potential buyers.

Once you determine the peak shopping times and weekdays for your brand, you can use that data to time your coupon offers more effectively. Email list management is key and for best results, be sure to segment your list by time zone so that emails arrive at the appropriate time no matter where customers are located.

#4 Curate Personalized Coupons for a Specific Audience

Relevance is crucial in all matters of marketing, and the same is true for coupons. Imagine, for example, that you live in a tropical climate where temperatures rarely dip below a balmy 75°. You come in from a day at the beach and open an email containing a coupon code from your favorite clothing brand—only to find that it’s only good for arctic-ready puffer coats for dogs. And you don’t even have a dog.

Meanwhile, the brand wonders why such a large portion of its email subscribers never clicked through to their site.

Segmenting emails to target specific subsets of your audience not only helps to ensure your coupons reach the right people, but also makes those offers feel more personalized. Your segmentation may vary depending on the products and services you sell, as well as the general audience you appeal to. Beyond time zone, some broad categories to consider include:

• Location
• Demographic
• Purchase history

Even when an email contains an unbeatable offer, understanding how to best reach a certain audience can take some experimentation. To maximize the effectiveness of your email promotions, you can implement the same strategies you use for other emails, like A/B testing, to gain insight on what works best.

#5 Use Email Automation

Perhaps you’ve done the research, gathered data, and know exactly when you should send out email coupons to reach the right customers at the right time. If you’re not using automation, however, you could still miss opportunities to reach customers at key moments—such as when they’re on the fence about a purchase, but might consider moving forward if they had a discount.

In fact, surveys show us that sending a discount to customers who’ve abandoned items in their cart can increase the likelihood of them returning to make the purchase. A 2020 poll by the American Marketing Association (AMA) found that four out of five shoppers would be more likely to complete their checkout if the brand followed up with a discount or coupon.³

The AMA also found that 21% of customers who left items in an online cart did so because they were waiting to find a discount or sale. Thus, your customers may even expect coupons and consider them a major factor in their shopping experience.

You can also use automated email coupons to entice customers in other ways, such as:

• Welcoming new customers and encouraging first-time purchasers
• Offering coupons in exchange for an email subscription
• Reengaging with customers who haven’t purchased in a certain period of time
• Encouraging repeat purchases with post-purchase discount emails
• Sending automatic birthday discounts or rewards

Even among buyers who’ve never purchased from your brand before, coupons can be a powerful way to increase sales. A 2021 survey from Inmar Intelligence reports that an astounding 92% of shoppers said coupons influence their decision to purchase, including products from brands they’ve never purchased from before.⁴

#6 Make Coupon Offers Obvious

If you’re going to offer a coupon for your brand’s handmade Italian leather shoes, don’t hide it at the bottom of an email about how to apply shoe polish. 

Being upfront about the coupon offer your email contains may help increase your open rates. Consider the following:

• According to a 2019 report on email marketing trends by the Data and Marketing Association (DMA), 75% of consumers consider discounts and offers to be the most useful part of emails they receive from brands.⁵ 
• The DMA also found that, compared to 70% of consumers who appreciate receiving discounts and promotions via email, only 22% found non-promotional email content useful.⁵ 
• A 2020 study reviewed by Business Insider also found that among U.S. consumers, 64% were more likely to open emails whose subject line included some kind of exclusive offer.⁶

For your coupons to be effective—and visible—it’s important to communicate the promotion from the get-go, using subject lines, headers, and pre-headers to ensure email recipients know there’s a special offer waiting within.

#7 Keep Your Coupons Accessible

Well-designed graphics that drip with visual appeal can add an edge to any email, coupons, or no coupons. So can eye-catching images of relevant products, especially when paired with catchy copy that inspires the shopping spirit.

However, it’s also important to ensure your emails are accessible—both across a range of devices and for those who might have difficulty reading them in image format. Even if a sophisticated design strategy helps you attract some customers, you don’t want to miss out on others because the color contrast and font pose challenges to other subscribers.

You may also lose out if your discount code isn’t legible on a smartphone. Business Insider predicts that by 2024, ​​42.9% of online shopping will take place on a mobile device.⁷ Ensuring your coupon emails work in all realms of digital technology can help you stay ahead of the curve.

The takeaway? Optimize any graphics for both mobile and desktop so that none of your coupon content gets lost in translation—and be sure to test your emails for accessibility.

Effective Email Offers Start With Power Digital

Whether you’re hoping to encourage new customers to try your brand, increase the loyalty of existing customers, or incentivize shoppers to follow through on purchases, email coupons can be a valuable tool in the quest to increase sales.

As you work to optimize your promotions, however, it can be difficult to get the insights you need to build an effective email strategy. To maximize your ROI, you need more than just a plan. You need the expertise of a digital marketing agency.

With Power Digital’s email marketing service, you can level up your email marketing strategy to reach customers in the right place, at the right time—so every new promotion sparks just as much excitement as the last.

Sources: 

1. Statista. Digital coupons and deals – statistics & facts. https://www.statista.com/topics/2162/digital-coupons-and-deals/#dossierContents__outerWrapper 
2. Forbes. Five Ways Coupons Can Help Your Business Attract Loyal Customers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/10/08/five-ways-coupons-can-help-your-business-attract-loyal-customers/?sh=4076cf0d1bc0 
3.  American Marketing Association. New findings reveal what US shoppers expect. How retailers, bankers, and travel industry pros can capitalize. https://www.ama.org/2020/02/04/new-findings-reveal-what-u-s-shoppers-expect-how-retailers-bankers-and-travel-industry-pros-can-capitalize/ 
4. Inmar Intelligence. New Inmar Intelligence Data Show Strong Growth in Digital Coupons, Which Significantly Influence Shoppers’ Decision to Try New Brands https://www.inmar.com/blog/press/new-inmar-intelligence-data-show-strong-growth-digital-coupons-which-significantly 
5. Data and Marketing Association. Marketer email tracker 2019. https://dma.org.uk/uploads/misc/marketers-email-tracker-2019.pdf 
6. Business Insider. What Matters the Most to Consumers Regarding Email. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-matters-most-to-consumers-regarding-email-2020-11 
7. Business Insider. Rise of Mcommerce: Mobile Ecommerce Shopping Stats & Trends in 2022. https://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-commerce-shopping-trends-stats

The post How to Increase Sales with Email Coupons appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

However, most business owners know the reality—B2B marketing is essential when your client base consists of other companies. And in the world of B2B, email is a crucial tool. In fact, over two-thirds of B2B marketers use an email campaign to elevate their business.¹ The downside? The more businesses that use B2B email marketing, the more competition for inbox space.

Luckily, our digital marketing agency can give some pointers to make sure your company’s email marketing campaign stands out in the inbox and the reader’s mind. Keep reading to learn the top B2B email marketing examples, from Welcome emails to exclusive offers and beyond.

5 Examples of B2B Email Marketing

Not sure where to start on your B2B email marketing campaign? Luckily, we have a few examples to help you out. 

Whether targeting new prospects or following up a successful event, there’s a B2B email format to match as well as email marketing trends to follow. Explore the categories below to construct your own engaging message.

#1 Welcome Emails

A Welcome email is the friendly handshake to a new subscriber, prospect, or customer. And for the most part, it’s a pretty charming handshake. Welcome emails have an incredible 82% open rate. 

Most welcome emails are automatically sent after a subscriber provides their email address. However, it’s important to still make every Welcome email feel personal. Include engaging factors like:

• A “Welcome” subject line
• Friendly language
• Opportunities to take action
• Personalization (names, current offers, etc.)

#2 Newsletters

B2B newsletters can be tricky, but they provide an opportunity for your company’s branding and expertise to shine. It’s all about finding the balance between engaging content and efficient communication.

In these long-form emails, you can give customers a deeper dive into your business. Consider sending a periodic email newsletter on these denser topics:

• Monthly calendar of events
• Company announcements
• Industry news or discoveries
• Guidance and advice on related topics

Most importantly? Don’t let your email newsletter look like a newspaper. Visuals, graphics, and fonts are just as important in long-form content to engage your audience.

#3 Event Invitations and Follow-Up

Is there any phrase more exciting than “You’re invited”?

Virtual and in-person events are excellent ways to engage future customers. Thanks to their immediacy, B2B marketing emails can significantly boost event turnout. Use visual appeal and crisp language to entice invitees, with features like:

• Personalization – Try to include the recipient company’s name at least once. The subject line is a powerful place to add this personal touch.
• F.O.M.O. – Nobody likes to miss a party. Drop hints that your event has exclusive deals and offerings or incentivize with email coupons if they attend. Positive testimonials from past events can also pique interest.
• CTA – Unlike a card invitation, an email invitation provides an immediate response option. Include a simple CTA link for invitees to sign up or learn more about the event.
• Reminders – Don’t just invite guests once. If a recipient hasn’t responded to your invitation, send follow-up emails. Odds are, you can snag a few more guests through an invitation reminder.

Don’t forget—the follow-up is just as important as the invitation. After a networking event, make sure to send a Thank You email (or even a survey) to both old and new B2B contacts. This will keep your company fresh in your audience’s mind. 

#4 Surveys

From order reviews to general questionnaires, audience surveys always give an insightful look at your business—not to mention the fact that they invite participation. The more you can make audiences feel included, the better.

As long as it’s relevant to your audience, surveys can ask almost any question. Some common B2B survey emails cover:

• Order satisfaction
• Customer desires for your business
• Customer demographics and lifestyle
• Competing options for customers
• Brand perception

#5 Exclusive Offers

Urgency is the key to action. By offering clients an exclusive or one-time deal, you give them special access—and that’s an enticing prospect. 

Subject lines are your best friends with exclusive offers. While numbers can trigger spam filters, writing a numerical deal (30% off, 2-for-1, etc.) in the subject line will catch eyes. Additionally, you provide exclusive content and boost your expertise by offering industry-related reports or knowledge.

Why Use Email for B2B Marketing? 

If you’re on the fence about upping your efforts in your email campaign, it’s essential to take a look at the data.

Compared to its social media counterparts, email might seem like the dinosaur of digital marketing. However, if you understand email list management, email campaigns are one of the most effective ways to reach marketing prospects—especially for B2B companies. 

From real estate to software, your business can take advantage of its incredible benefits:

• Expert-approved – About 81% of B2B marketers use email newsletters and 85% use email marketing software.² Additionally, nearly one-third of B2B marketers said that email newsletters created the most sales leads. Your competition is probably leveraging email, and without it, you risk falling behind.
• Profitable – In 2021, the average ROI (Return on Investment) for marketing emails was $42.³ In addition, your basic email account is free. While you’ll likely need to invest in listserv management software, emails are less financially risky than pay-per-click ads.
• Easy to track – Your marketing is only as good as its feedback. With tracking and analysis software, you can glean important B2B email marketing insights. Reports on open rates, unsubscriber rates, and click-through rates can all shape the best email strategies for your business.
• Direct delivery – Unlike banner ads, emails land directly in front of their recipients. You don’t have to wait around for customers to open a social media app. Even better? B2B marketing emails have high open rates, averaging 21.33% across all industries.⁴ Personal delivery really does make a difference.
• Instant connection – Emails offer an instant path to more resources on your product or services. Recipients can immediately click on a link to gather more information or make a purchase. For B2B email marketing, the average click-through rate was 2.62%.

B2B Email Marketing Tips

Ready to harness these benefits through one of the five strategies we’ve covered? 

Remember that an impactful marketing email is like a work of art. Every word, image, and formatting choice should reinforce your brand and entice the reader. To reach this, you need a clear B2B email marketing strategy that works toward lowering your email bounce rate. 

Whether targeting businesses or individuals, all email marketing plans should focus on measurable engagement. Some of the top statistics for this include:

• Open rates – how often recipients open your email
• Click-through rates – how often recipients click on a given link in your email
• Unsubscriber rates – the percentage of recipients that unsubscribe from your emails
• Sales leads – the number of potential sales that stem from email channels 

So, how can you boost the sales leads and lower the spam reports? Consider our handy B2B email marketing tips to construct an inbox winner. 

Your Brand

If you don’t know yourself, how can others get to know you? Every company needs a recognizable and clear “personality” to attract customers—a.k.a., your brand voice.

Branding should fit your company ethos while appealing to a target audience. Software companies may adopt a clean-cut and factual tone with futuristic images. Social media consultants may prefer a more colorful visage with casual language. With emails, you can convey a consistent brand through factors like:

• Color palettes
• Graphics or images
• Logos
• Fonts
• Writing tone
• Mantras or theme lines

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

No one likes assigned reading. To boost those open and click-through rates, you need relative email content that’s efficient and catchy.

As the first thing people see, subject lines can make the difference between opening and deleting an email. Many recipients respond positively to challenges (Are you ready?), empowering words (Transform Today), and personalization (Your 2022 Goals). As for content, it all depends on the type of email. Newsletters can carry lengthy information, while event invitations should stay short and sweet. 

For the most part, it’s wise to stay simple to maintain reader interest.

Segment Your Audience

How you speak to your friends is probably different from how you talk with your grandparents. With B2B email marketing, you need the same kind of audience segmentation.

The more personalized an email targets its recipient’s needs, the better. One email subscriber might be close to making a purchase, while another may not even know of your company. To meet businesses where they’re at, create separate emails for audience segments based on:

• Company position
• Previous interactions with your business
• Lead funnel stage (opportunity, prospect, etc.)
• Industry sector

Add a Call to Action

No B2B marketing email is complete without a call-to-action, or CTA. Otherwise, how will your audience pursue your services?

However, don’t go overboard. The number one mistake is to include multiple CTAs in a single email. This can confuse readers—so much that they may not click at all. Instead, choose one simple and effective CTA to carry recipients onto the next sales lead step, with strong verbs like:

• Start 
• Learn 
• Discover
• Join
• Save
• Download
• Buy
• Order

Power Digital Marketing—Evolving Your Email Strategy

Instant and affordable, an email marketing service is one of the most effective strategies for B2B companies. However, we know that crafting the perfect email strategy is far from easy. Where to start?

Look no further than Power Digital Marketing.

From survey timing to composition, our experts at our digital marketing agency can strategize your email campaigns for maximum responses. Even better, we can assemble a holistic marketing strategy for your company across all channels—SEO, social media, and more. With PDM, you’re just a few clicks away from business success.

Sources: 

1. Content Marketing Institute. B2B Content Marketing 2022. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2021/10/b2b-power-content-marketing-research/
2. Content Marketing Institute. B2B Content Marketing 2020. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2019/10/success-differentiators-b2b-research/
3. Oberlo. 10 Email Marketing Stats You Need to Know in 2022. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/email-marketing-statistics
4. MailChimp. Email Marketing Benchmarks and Statistics by Industry. https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/

The post 5 Effective B2B Email Marketing Examples appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Emails that fail to get delivered are known as “bounced” emails. If your marketing campaign has a high bounce rate, it can cause a slew of issues, ranging from a damaged sender reputation to a permanent position in the dreaded spam box.

So, what can you do to reduce your email bounce rate? Below, we’ll break down everything you need to know about maintaining low email bounce rates and maximizing the return of your email marketing efforts.

#1 Calculate Your Current Bounce Rate

Your email bounce rate is the percentage of emails you send that don’t get delivered. 

You can calculate your bounce rate by dividing the number of bounces by the number of emails you send. After that, simply multiply the resulting number by 100 to transform it into a percentage. For example, let’s say you send 1,000 emails, and 40 of them bounce. This would make your bounce rate for the given campaign 4%. 

Having a few bounced emails is inevitable. So, what’s considered a “good” bounce rate? Here are a few bounce rate benchmarks to keep in mind:

• The average bounce rate across all industries is between 2% and 5%²
• A bounce rate of 1% or below is excellent
• A bounce rate of 5% or above is cause for concern

What Are the Different Types of Bounced Emails?

As you sort through campaign data, seek to understand the cause of your bounced emails, by learning the differences beetween hard bounce vs soft bounce email marketing.

There are two types of bounces that can occur: 

• Soft email bounces: A soft bounced email takes place when your email is unable to be delivered due to a temporary issue, such as:
• The recipient’s email inbox is full
• The recipient’s email server is temporarily down
• Your email is too large
  

• Hard email bounces: A hard bounced email takes place when your email can’t be delivered at all. Here are the most common causes of hard bounces:
  
  • The email address is inactive or invalid
  • The email domain is outdated
  • The email recipient blocked you
  • The email recipient changed their email address

Hard bounces are more problematic than soft bounces since they indicate a permanent delivery problem. For this reason, they’re the more pressing type of bounce to address during your email list management. While you may be able to re-engage soft bounce recipients with a later campaign, hard bounces present a lasting problem.

#2 Clean Your Email Lists Regularly

What can you do about hard bounces to ensure your emails end up in the intended recipient’s inbox?

They should be removed from your audience. Even after taking this step, keep in mind that

your email list quality will eventually decline as time goes on. Some recipients may stop using the email addresses they provided you, due to changing jobs or losing access to it. Others may simply lose interest in opening your emails. 

Removing these disengaged recipients can protect the quality of your email list. Weeding out inactive email addresses can also keep your bounce rate low. 

Spring cleaning your subscriber list can be a tedious task, but it’s worth the time. You should commit to tidying up your email list at least once every few months. 

#3 Use A Custom Business Domain

Google and Hotmail email domains are fine for personal matters. However, they won’t cut it in an email marketing campaign. Free domains look less professional to recipients. 

What’s more, free email domains don’t adhere to DMARC policy for Yahoo, AOL, and Google. DMARC policy is in place to prevent phishing attacks from unscrupulous senders.³ 

By using a free domain name, you’ll have less credibility with both recipients and ESPs, leading to an increased bounce rate. That’s why custom domains are the way to go. 

#4 Utilize Double Opt-Ins

While some companies may purchase email lists from time to time, allowing interested recipients to opt-on on their own accord assures a much higher level of quality within your email list. After all, people who opt-in have expressed direct interest in hearing from you.

In turn, these eager subscribers will be more likely to engage with your emails and less likely to send you to spam or block you. 

There are two types of opt-ins you can choose from:

• Single opt-in: A single opt-in takes place when someone shares their email with you by submitting it on a form. Including a Captcha system can keep bots and spam accounts from making it through this stage. 
• Double opt-in: A double opt-in goes one step further. After opting in the first time, your recipients will receive an email authentication asking them to confirm that they want to be added to your email list. New subscribers will only be added to your list once this second opt-in has been confirmed. 

If you want to lower your bounce rate, double opt-ins are the better option. They can mitigate the number of invalid emails that make it onto your email list.

#5 Send Emails Consistently

Even if someone subscribed to your email list with enthusiasm, they may forget they signed up at all if you don’t reach out consistently. After a few months of not hearing from you, your next email campaign can leave them wondering who you are and why you’re contacting them. 

You can avoid this awkward situation by:

• Sending a Welcome email as soon as you’ve added a new recipient to your list
• Engaging your audience with automation emails
• Following up with subsequent emails on a consistent schedule going forward

By keeping in touch, you’ll always be fresh in your recipients’ minds. You’ll also get them used to hearing from you on a regular basis. 

#6 Employ Strategic Segmentation

As your email list grows, it may become harder to pinpoint what your audience wants from your email relationship. Not all of your recipients will desire the same type of content or frequency of communication. 

By segmenting your email list into thoughtful sub-groups, you can deliver tailored content that’s more likely to please your growing audience. In turn, you’ll reduce the chances of getting thrown in the  spam folder or having people unsubscribe.

You can segment your audience by:

• Engagement level
• Demographics
• Interests
• Position in your sales funnel

Design your sequences and broadcasts with the needs of these different audiences in mind.

#7 Let Recipients Control Their Email Preferences

Even if a subscriber has signed up for your email list, they may later decide that they’re not interested in every type of email you send. 

Rather than leaving them no choice but to unsubscribe entirely, you can give them the option to customize the type of emails they receive from you. For example, you can let them pick and choose from the following types of emails: 

• Announcements
• Promotions
• Tutorials
• Offers
• Events
• Newsletters
• Etc.

Allowing subscribers to control their email preferences can enhance their experience of being on your mailing list and keep them on it for the long term.

#8 Be Aware of Common Spam Triggers

The importance of maintaining a low email bounce rate goes beyond reaching the greatest number of people on your email list. 

Did you know that over half of all emails sent worldwide are spam?⁴ Due to this pervasive problem, ESPs have created automated spam filters to protect the integrity of their users’ inboxes. 

Your bounce rate can impact your email deliverability. If your bounce rate gets too high, your sender reputation may go down with the email service providers (ESPs). As a result, you may discover that your emails end up in recipients’ spam folders more often. 

If you’re not careful, you could get labeled as spam accidentally, even if you’re sending high-quality marketing emails with sincere intentions. Here are a few common email tropes that may trigger the spam filter:

• Super large or extra tiny images
• Broken images and other formatting issues
• The following phrases:
  • 100% satisfied
  • Free
  • Sale
  • Clearance
  • Act now!
  • Cash bonus
  • Free offer
  • Make money
  • No catch
  • $$$

By avoiding these faux pas and including your company’s business information in your email’s footer, you can boost your credibility as well as your chances of evading the spam filter. 

#9 Send High-Quality Emails

Lastly, you need to make sure that the emails you send are truly worth reading. Don’t send emails just to be sending emails. Ask yourself, would you enjoy receiving this email if you were in your target audience?

You can get all of the technical details right, but if your email’s copy, design, and content fall flat, you may still get sent to spam, blocked, or unsubscribed from, leading to a higher bounce rate and poorer campaign performance. 

Supercharge Your Email Marketing with Power Digital

With these bounce rate optimization strategies in mind, you can ensure that a greater percentage of your emails make it into your recipients’ inboxes, attract engagement, and promote conversions. 

Email marketing is incredibly valuable, but it also involves a lot of moving parts. To accurately track analytics and adjust your approach accordingly, you need a marketing specialist. At Power Digital, our digital marketing agency knows how to craft exceptional email campaigns that encourage engagement and conversions, all while keeping your bounce rate low. We can help you transform your email list into your greatest marketing asset. 

Learn more about our email marketing services today.

Sources:

1. Forbes. Email Marketing: Still The Most Powerful Tool To Take Your Business To The Next Level. https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2020/10/26/email-marketing-still-the-most-powerful-tool-to-take-your-business-to-the-next-level/?sh=32fbf4634bfa
2. NeverBounce. How to Prevent High Bounce Rates from Impacting your Sender Reputation. https://neverbounce.com/blog/email-bounce-rate
3. DMARC. FAQ. https://dmarc.org/wiki/FAQ#Why_is_DMARC_important.3F
4. Statista. Global spam volume as percentage of total e-mail traffic from January 2014 to March 2021, by month. https://www.statista.com/statistics/420391/spam-email-traffic-share/

The post 9 Ways To Minimize Your Email Bounce Rate appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Efficient and direct, email inherently offers amazing benefits to a marketer. Even so, this tool is an evolving technology that reaches a changing consumer base. If you don’t stay on top of the trends, then you risk getting lost in the trash.

Say goodbye to the spam folder. This year, with our email marketing service, make every survey and exclusive offer count with our top nine email marketing trends for 2022.

#1 Micro-Segmentation 

Email blasts? The four quadrants? Forget the mass-media approach. In 2022, it’s time to segment your email marketing strategy for niche audiences.

For years, marketers have used audience segmentation to target specific customer demographics. However, improved data streams have opened the doors to an incredible wealth of customer information, enabling micro-segmentation.

With the right data, you can tailor every marketing email campaign to best attract customers based on their:

• Screen use habits – Total hours used, times used, number of devices, etc.
• Purchase habits – Likelihood and frequency of purchases
• Demographics – Age, sex, gender, location, profession, etc.
• History – Past purchases from your company, internet search history, etc.

While gathering this data can prove tricky, it’s worth the effort. Research shows that micro-segmentation can boost an email open rate by 203%.¹ The more you match the email to the customer, the better.

#2 User-Generated Content

In the age of social media, everybody wants to share their opinion. Luckily, this can create some serious marketing material for your business—a.k.a, user-generated content.

User-generated content includes any original content about your business created by an individual (not your brand). This precious content comes in many forms, including:

• Reviews
• Social media posts
• Comments
• Videos 
• Q&A Forums
• Blog posts
• Hashtag campaigns

People trust other people’s opinions more than a branded advertisement. And in this digital age, it’s the closest thing to word-of-mouth recommendations. In fact, 79% of people reported that user-generated content impacts their shopping decisions, compared to 13% for brand content or 8% for influencer content.² 

Curious to include user-generated content in your email marketing? Start by including snippets of testimonials, reviews, and customer photographs of your products in your promotional emails. You can also generate more user content by encouraging participation. Send out polls, hold photo contests, or ask users to comment on a social media post.

#3 AI Usage

Data is the currency of modern marketing. However, humans can only handle so much information at once—that’s where AI picks up the slack.  

In 2022, artificial intelligence will become more important than ever to marketing (and many other industries). AI can store, track, and utilize numerous pieces of customer data, creating a more effective email marketing strategy. . For example, email AI software can help:

• Write effective subject lines
• Determine optimal send times
• Personalize email newsletter and content
• Update address lists
• Track customer response
• Customize promotions

In short, AI simply streamlines and improves all data-driven aspects of email marketing.  And as a bonus, this data optimization creates a higher ROI—41% of marketing professionals agree that AI’s top benefit is improved revenue.³ Step into the future (and higher profits) with AI-supported email campaigns and other email list management tools.

#4 Mobile Optimization

It’s not just for laptops anymore—up to 81% of mobile device users check their email through smartphones.⁴  To keep your emails relevant, you need to make them mobile-friendly. 

The bad news? About 88% of companies fail to optimize their emails for mobile device use.⁵ In short, this is frustrating for customers. About three-quarters of users will instantly delete an email that fails to display properly on mobile, leading to countless lost sales.⁶ 

In 2022, mobile optimization is the only way to go. Start adopting UI or UX design to make your emails readable for all on-the-go customers.

#5 Personalization

Whether you’re 9 or 90 years old, everyone loves a hand-written note. There’s just a warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with a personal message. With email marketing, customers don’t just want a personalized email from brands—they now expect it.

According to consumer research, about 71% of buyers feel frustrated if brands do not personalize their shopping experiences.⁷ Additionally, 90% of US shoppers think of marketing personalization as appealing. If you want to win over customers, you have to get to know them.

How can you make your buyers feel seen? Include some of these tactics for more personalized email marketing:

• Name usage – It’s simple but crucial. Emails that include customer names feel more personal than generalized messages. Including the customer’s name in the subject line will catch their attention even more.
• Personalized recommendations – In the era of Netflix and Spotify, consumers like it when brands give them informed recommendations.  In fact, product recommendations encourage 45% of online buyers to choose a shopping site and 56% to return to a site.⁸ Companies can use abandoned shopping carts, order history, and demographic information to determine the best product recommendations.
• Provide tips & tricks – Selling womenswear? Pull together a list of the hottest styling tips for spring 2022. Offering landscaping services? Share the best tricks for keeping grass healthy throughout summer weather. Industry-related guidance inspires confidence in consumers, and it gives a personal voice to brands.
• Remember special dates – In marketing, every day is a chance to celebrate. Personalized emails that celebrate customer birthdays, subscription or member anniversaries, or any holidays will instantly boost morale. For a special treat, offer exclusive discounts with these personalized messages. 

Afraid of overstepping boundaries? Odds are, you’ll be safe. About 73% of customers reported that no brand has ever been overly-personal when communicating with them.⁷ When in doubt, go more personal.

#6 Interactive Content

How can you make someone feel welcome? Invite them to play.

Participation and interactive emails are  the key to brand connection. The more a customer feels their actions matter to your business, the more they’ll want to buy your products. In marketing emails, you can build that personal connection with interactive content.

From clickable pictures to customized polls, interactive email content should heighten customer interest and response rates. These measures can include:

• Surveys & polls
• Shopping carts
• Video & animation
• Image carousels
• Games
• Quizzes or questionnaires
• GIFS or hover images

Consumers show a high desire for interactive emails content, with over 91% of buyers preferring it to non-interactive content.⁹ This type of content can also strengthen your particular brand voice and image in the eyes of consumers (for example, including whimsical games vs. practical video tutorials). 

#7 Data privacy

It’s the talk of today—how can marketers respect consumer privacy?

In all honesty, it’s a hard line to walk. Consumer data is the best marketing tool in the business, and strict privacy measures block that information flow. However, you never want customers to feel like they’re being tricked or invaded upon. That’s why in 2022, your email marketing campaign should include a clear policy on data privacy.

Whether sent as an email subject or included in a footnote, data privacy updates are crucial to increase customer trust. Start by highlighting the ways your company upholds privacy by sharing:

• Legislative & legal compliance
• Data collection methods 
• Data storage methods
• Website cookie options
• Third-party involvements

No matter what, always stay vigilant and updated on email marketing data policies. With so many changing laws, it’s important to never fall behind on proper data handling. 

#8 Minimalism

You might think text-only, HTML-style emails were left in the 1990s. But in today’s overstimulated world, customers yearn for a clean and simple format. 

More isn’t always better. For your 2022 email marketing, try to develop your own stylistic version of minimalism.

Start by evaluating your current marketing emails. How many images are included in the body? How many words come between each image? Is it hard to focus on the words? If the visuals are clouding the message, it’s time to pare them down. An HTML email will grab consumer attention rather than disorganize their focus.

#9 Channel Combination

For digital marketing, more is more. Combining email with other communication channels (known as omnichannel marketing) can significantly boost customer leads.

On average, U.S. households own 11 connected devices.¹⁰ That’s 11 opportunities to reach customers about your product. Email is just one slice of the digital marketing pie to get their attention. On top of emails, you should unify all marketing campaigns and announcements under a seamless omnichannel, with communications through:

• SMS or text
• Social media platforms
• Online advertisements
• Print advertisements
• SEO

In email marketing, don’t be afraid to connect with other digital channels. Add a clickable link to your social media pages, or offer the opportunity to enter a phone number for SMS notifications. The more entry points you have, the more likely a customer will respond to your marketing.

Empower Your Email Marketing with PDM

In 2022, email has never been a more creative or valuable place for marketers. All it takes is a little foresight to master the email game. Take these trends to your campaigns, and watch the sales leads flow in. 

Curious how to put these strategies to work? We can help.

With an expert team and exclusive data, Power Digital Marketing can give your email marketing a 2022 makeover. And our services don’t stop there. Our digital marketing agency can also transform your SEO, social media, and other marketing content to create a cohesive strategy that supports your goals. One team, endless marketing opportunities. 

Sources: 

1. Verizon. An Easy Guide To Your First Email Marketing Campaign. https://www.verizon.com/business/small-business-essentials/resources/an-easy-guide-to-your-first-email-marketing-campaign/
2. Stackla. Bridging the Gap: Consumer & Marketing Perspectives on Content in the Digital Age. https://stackla.com/resources/reports/bridging-the-gap-consumer-marketing-perspectives-on-content-in-the-digital-age/
3. Forbes. 10 Ways AI And Machine Learning Are Improving Marketing In 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2021/02/21/10-ways-ai-and-machine-learning-are-improving-marketing-in-2021/
4. Adobe Business. Mobile for the win: Successful mobile journeys happen when customers call the shots. https://business.adobe.com/resources/mobile-customer-journey.html
5. Easy Sendy. Deliver Mobile Optimized Responsive Email Templates With Hybrid Solution. https://easysendy.com/blog/mobile-optimized-responsive-email-templates/
6. Business News Daily. How to Avoid Common Email Marketing Mistakes. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7101-email-marketing-mistakes.html
7. Forbes. 50 Stats Showing The Power Of Personalization. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2020/02/18/50-stats-showing-the-power-of-personalization/?sh=1c8f89ae2a94
8. Automat. Why Website Personalization Matters. https://automat.ai/resources/why-website-personalization-matters/
9. Verizon. Interactive Content: The Cure for Content Fatigue. https://www.verizon.com/business/small-business-essentials/resources/as-a-b2b-content-marketer-i-spend-a-lot-of-time/
10. Variety. U.S. Households Have an Average of 11 Connected Devices — And 5G Should Push That Even Higher. https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/u-s-households-have-an-average-of-11-connected-devices-and-5g-should-push-that-even-higher-1203431225/

The post 9 Email Marketing Trends To Follow in 2022 appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

As the unrivaled champion of marketing media across and between industries, email marketing services provide consumers with the content they need to stay healthy—and it has remarkable capabilities for maximizing your ROI as a business in the healthcare space.

In the guide below, we’ll explain exactly what an email marketing campaign is, why it’s advantageous, and some tricks of the trade you can use before your next email makes landfall in your patients’ inboxes.

Healthcare Email Marketing: A Crash Course

Before we get into the tips for email marketing in the healthcare space, let’s take a look at the big picture:

• What is email marketing? Email marketing is a way of familiarizing potential or existing patients with your company and the services you offer. Where traditional advertising is unilateral, email marketing fosters reciprocity between businesses and the customers they serve.
• How is it done? When you adopt a potential patientt, they’ll have the option to opt into your email list to receive updates, notices, and complementary knowledge related to their care. Effective email marketing requires a force of designers and IT experts to hone your brand voice, automate your email schedule, and disseminate your message effectively.
• How much does email marketing cost? The question of cost depends on a few variables such as the email marketing trends you decide to pursue, your design needs, or the volume of messaging you expect to send. That said, an email marketing campaign can collect an average of $45 per $1 spent—and with 80% of businesses using this marketing tactic, you can bet your competition is already making use of email’s functionality and earn-back potential.¹
• Why is email marketing important for the healthcare sector? In 2020, per-patient spending in health care averaged nearly $11,000 per capita in 2020—almost double the cost of most other developed countries on the planet.² No matter what sort of provider you are, email marketing is uniquely positioned to eliminate inefficiencies, offer more to your clients, and help you make good on your bottom line.³ 

A healthcare provider needs solutions for slashing budgetary bloat and doing right by their clients.⁴ How can email marketing help with that? 

Let’s take a look.

5 Benefits of Healthcare Email Marketing

There are five critical areas where email marketing can improve performance:

1. Streamlining administrative workloads – According to a survey by Stanford Medicine, digital storage was the #1 value provided by electronic health records (EHR)—but many providers report resulting inefficiencies in coordination and patient billing.^5>/sup> Email marketing refines and fortifies provider-patient communications to bridge the gaps where other tech falls short. 
2. Reducing spending – The American health sector is the biggest spender on the planet, and it shows: according to a 2021 Gallup poll, 77% of respondents were “dissatisfied” with the overall cost of their care.⁶ When used tactically, email marketing can slash administrative redundancies and simplify treatment protocol, curtailing costs in the long run and helping you keep price points competitive for your existing patients.
3. Establishing authority – Email marketing is an instrumental channel for content marketing—one of the most effective ways to demonstrate your credibility as a provider. Whether you create your own branded content or pass along the latest news in your industry, content marketing via email is key for becoming a presence customers trust.
4. Improving patient relations – Email marketing analytics have remarkable capabilities for data retrieval, matching services to the clientele who’d benefit most from your product. You’ll also be able to track which initiatives prosper and which fall flat, refining your approach as your business grows.
5. Improving care outcomes – As a healthcare provider, you already know that health conditions are best treated through prevention, regardless of what modalities you specialize in. Your insights are valuable, and with e-marketing trends like list segmentation and targeted campaigns, you can direct knowledge to the right recipients to help patients keep up with treatment between appointments.

Whether you’re looking to wow your peers at the next budget meeting or are aiming to upgrade patient experience, ultimately, email marketing has numerous benefits to improve your internal operations—and enhance the experience of the communities you serve.

5 Tips For Healthcare Email Marketing

As advantageous as email marketing can be, an email campaign that yields strong click-to-open rates (CTOR) needs a skillfully-hewn strategy to be effective and not have a high email bounce rate.

Below, find 5 tips for building a profitable email marketing strategy that can earn you the confidence of your base.

#1 Start With a Warm Welcome

In every sector, the Welcome email sequence is the series that paves the way for client retention and engagement. Oberlo reports that customers peek into 82% of the Welcome emails they receive, as opposed to an average 21% for follow-up marketing communications.⁷

Your Welcome sequence should demonstrate what your client can expect from a relationship with you. Ideally, yours should include:

• An introduction that establishes your brand mission and identity
• Educational assets for your product or service
• Opportunities for engagement, like online webinars or social sharing buttons
• Contact Us information for account management, FAQs, or customer service queries
• Resources for ad-hoc support

Welcome sequences should be streamlined, approachable, and user-friendly—graphically, verbally, and technically. It’s the Welcome sequence that drafts the map your clients can use to get to know you better and navigate your resources with ease.

#2 Strategize on Incentive-Building

Establishing a supportive network of healthcare providers can be a major obstacle for potential clients seeking support, whether by dint of prohibitive deductibles or lack of knowledge about providers that can meet their needs.

Email marketing is an ideal channel for creating positive relationships with existing clients and for expanding your orbit to include new ones. Here are two effective ways to encourage your patients to pass it on:

• Referral programs – Whether or not you can use referral programs to ethically (and legally) market your healthcare organization and services depends on the type of enterprise you’re running. Small to medium-sized businesses—particularly those in the wellness space—are well-positioned to offer deals or customer perks when a customer loops in a friend.
• Shareability – Today, social and share buttons are built into the bones of marketing emails, enabling subscribers to post the content you provide to their personal platforms. As a general rule, any knowledge that lands in their inbox (excluding any confidential data) should be easily shareable with the stroke of a thumb.

Finally, your healthcare organization might consider providing perks to clients each time they reach a new milestone. For instance, a personalized Vitamin vendor might initiate an email-led rewards program to let customers know when it’s time to replenish their cache or let them know that their 10th purchase will earn them a free month’s supply of Collagen gel caps.

#5 Stick to a Schedule

There are two main categories of marketing emails:

• Email sequences – Pre-written and sent automatically, these messages anticipate the different stages of your funnel and meet the customer where they are. The Welcome Sequence is a classic example, but sequences can also reach warm or cold customers with lapsed engagement.
• Broadcast emails – Broadcast emails keep clients abreast of sales, company developments, or programs offered through your business. They’re often seasonal, circumstantial, or time-sensitive, clueing your clients into company developments.

Automated email marketing has vastly improved the efficacy of brand messaging, particularly when it comes to timing when certain communications are delivered. These emails are substantially more time and work-intensive, but the investments you make here will earn you more in the long run.

#3 Provide Valued Content

As a provider, you already know that health conditions are best treated through prevention, regardless of what modalities your business specializes in.

Email marketing is a particularly vital channel for content marketing, where subscribers receive valuable, complementary knowledge that can enhance their profile. In the healthcare industry, this could include:

• Up-to-date recommendations from medical authorities such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) or the American Academy of Pediatrics (AA)
• Product education linking the therapeutic services you offer to specific health concerns
• Digestible blog posts on trending mental health topics
• Physical therapy videos to practice at home

Email marketing is one element of a broader digital marketing strategy that thrives when paired with of-the-moment internet trends. Content that places patient concerns in context is more likely to get noticed, demonstrating not only your credibility but also your currency. 

#4 Make Emails Personal

Every patient arrives with a distinct set of health concerns, life events, or challenges they’re contending with. Firing off a spate of broadcast emails on how to help an infant latch may be enormously helpful to a new mother, but it’s unlikely to earn you much credit with a patient in recovery from kidney stone removal.

Email marketing advancements like list segmentation make it easier than ever to target specific groups of clients with specific concerns, ensuring resources relevant to their well-being are delivered in kind.

In short: the more individualized the message, the more likely your clients are to open it, and the more useful the content you provide will be.

Launch Your Next Campaign with Power Digital

When all is said and done, providers have an ethical and legal obligation to keep client information safe and HIPAA-compliant. To meet rigorous demands on discretion, you’ll need an expert set of eyes, hands, and humans to help you get established in your sector.

Our digital marketing agency provides email marketing services involving the craftsmanship, penmanship, and industry expertise to ensure your brand gets noticed. Strong email marketing is adaptable, addressing your pain points with a bifocal approach: meet your short-term goals and aim for vitality in the long run. 

As in health, so in wealth, and, with Power Digital, so in email marketing.

Sources: 

1. Statista. E-mail marketing worldwide – statistics & facts. https://www.statista.com/topics/1446/e-mail-marketing/#dossierKeyfigures
2. Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. Health Spending. https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm
3. Investopedia. Healthcare Sector. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/health_care_sector.asp
4. Investopedia. The 5 Industries Driving the U.S. Economy. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/5-industries-driving-us-economy.asp
5. Stanford Medicine. How Doctors Feel About Electronic Health Records. https://med.stanford.edu/content/dam/sm/ehr/documents/EHR-Poll-Presentation.pdf
6. Gallup. Healthcare System. https://news.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx
7. Oberlo. 10 Email Marketing Statistics. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/email-marketing-statistics

The post Healthcare Email Marketing: Tips, Tricks, and More | Power Digital appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

But before you start gathering contacts and shooting off messages it’s crucial that you first understand the various SMS compliance laws and regulations that have been enacted to protect every customer. 

Failure to do so could result in stiff penalties, including fees or legal action. 

Need help with SMS marketing compliance? Then this SMS compliance requirements and laws guideline and action plan is for you.   

Who Oversees Text Messaging Compliance?

Short message services (SMS) are text messages sent to and from smartphones and are limited to 160 characters. Today, it’s by far the most popular and convenient mode of marketing communication. In 2019, there were an estimated two trillion ninety-eight billion text messages sent and received worldwide.¹ 

Although there are no rules prohibiting an individual from texting someone else—even without their permission—the same can’t be said for business-to-consumer messaging. 

Put simply, a person’s text message inbox is a form of personal property. Businesses can’t simply violate their privacy by sending marketing messages without consent. Doing so could be considered a form of harassment. So, if you want to send SMS marketing messages, consumers must opt-in. 

In the early days of SMS, there were no protections in place to prevent businesses from simply purchasing phone numbers and spamming SMS. As a result, several organizations have stepped in to protect consumer privacy and ensure that businesses behave properly. Of those, four major entities oversee the vast majority of SMS compliance:

1. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – The FTC is charged with enforcing federal consumer protection laws in order to “prevent fraud, deception, and unfair business practices.”² 
2. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – The FCC is another governmental agency that’s responsible for regulating media communications. 
3. Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) – A nonprofit group that consists of various SMS marketing companies. 
4. Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) – A group that helps create rules, regulations, and standards regarding SMS marketing.        

Of these, only the FTC and FCC have the authority to create and enforce SMS compliance requirements and laws. 

What Laws Govern SMS Compliance? 

The vast majority of SMS compliance rules fall under the auspices of two acts—the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the CAN-SPAM Act. 

Telephone Consumer Protection Act

In 1991, Congress enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Its original purpose was to limit the deluge of telemarketing calls and the utilization of telephone dialing systems, and robocalls. The rules therein applied to both marketers and phone carriers. 

Over the years, there were further additions made, including:³

• 1992 rules that required companies that made telephone solicitations to maintain a company-specific do-not-call list
• A 2012 revision that required telemarketers to:
  • Obtain prior express written consent from consumers before contacting them
  • To preclude an “established business relationship” as an excuse for avoiding consent for calls
  • Require telemarketers to provide an automated interactive “opt-out” option 

With the emergence of SMS communication, the laws were further applied to all marketing calls, text messages, and faxes. If businesses don’t comply with these rules, it can result in significant fines, starting with a $500 base fine for every text message that’s illegally sent.

SMS Compliance Tip #1—Obtain Consent

To maintain SMS compliance under the TCPA, businesses can’t send a message or call a consumer without their consent—even if it’s just informational. And it can’t be implicit consent or the result of previous business interaction. Instead, companies are required to obtain express written consent for consumers prior to sending messages. 

You don’t necessarily need to have consumer consent via a handwritten letter. Although that would be allowed, it’s not exactly practical in the digital age. Today, there are several ways to obtain consent, including: 

• Have customers input their phone number into an online web form with the required terms stated clearly. 
• Send a keyword response based on an advertisement that includes the required terms.
• Physically signing up in-person via a form with clearly stated terms. 

SMS Compliance Tip #2—Provide a Disclosure 

After consumers opt-in to receive messages, you must disclose the full scope of your SMS communications while also providing a means for opting out. 

Any time a new subscriber joins your list, your very first message is required to be a carrier compliance message that confirms that they opted-in. It needs to include important information like:

• Who you are
• How often you’ll be messaging them
• The fact that messages and data rates may apply
• How they can opt-out

But even after the initial message, many of these elements should still be included—the most important being the ability to opt-out. So a message may look like:

Hi _______, Electronics Mecca here! Friendly reminder—you have an unused wallet credit in your account that expires this SUN 8/1/21 at 10 pm. Go get yourself something nice. Have a great weekend! Reply STOP to stop.  

CAN-SPAM Act

In 2003, Congress passed the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM) to try and curb the spate of unsolicited commercial email and text messages sent to wireless devices. Section 14 of the act required the FCC to develop rules to protect consumers from “unwanted mobile service commercial messages.”⁴ 

This act enhances and adds to the TCPA. 

SMS Compliance Tip #3—Identify, Opt-out, Return address

To comply with CAN-SPAM there are three actions commercial emails and texts sent to mobile phones must follow:

• Identification – There must be a clear indicator that the message is a solicitation or advertisement for goods or services. 
• Opt-out – Email accessibility and text accessibility are a must and free ways to prevent future messages from being sent.
• Return address – The email or SMS must contain a legitimate return email address or phone number. And for emails, it must include the sender’s postal address. 

Additional Compliance Tips 

In addition to the tips directly related to complying with congressional consumer protection acts, there are other factors businesses should keep in mind to maintain compliance. These include: 

SMS Compliance Tip #4—Be Careful when Importing Contacts

The requirement to receive express written consent isn’t limited to just your newer contacts—it’s for everyone. So, even if you’re importing a subscriber list, it’s important that you first double check to confirm that every person on that list has voluntarily provided two things:

1. Their phone number
2. Express permission to send them messages 

Doing your due diligence will prevent you from being hit by an unexpected violation, particularly when you’re attempting to abide by the rules.  

SMS Compliance Tip #5—There Are Certain Things You Can’t Text (SHAFT)

One of CTIA’s rules for text marketing is known as SHAFT. This stands for sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, and tobacco. Whether it’s a normal message or the first call to action, generally speaking, you can not include these topics in your SMS. 

That said, there are some exceptions to this rule. For instance, if you own a bar or a firing range, you may be able to send messages about happy hours or ammo deals. But to do so, it must:

• Come from a dedicated toll-free number.
• Include an age-gate that prevents people under the legal age limit from signing up 

SMS Compliance Tip #6—When You Text Matters as Much as What you Text 

There are only certain time windows that businesses are allowed to message in. Under the TCPA, you may not text or call subscribers before 8:00 AM or after 9:00 PM. This SMS behavior is considered abusive and can result in significant penalties. 

SMS Compliance Tip #7—Protect Yourself with Terms and Conditions 

Customers tend to forget that they signed up for an SMS message. By sharing your terms and conditions, you can remind customers that you are compliant and taking the law into account. 

The terms and conditions of your SMS communication policy should be easy to find and access. Include a link to them within your initial disclosure message and then periodically remind customers about the policy.  

Should conditions change, notify your customers immediately. 

SMS Compliance TIP #8—Adhere to the National Do Not Call Registry

As a business, it’s vital that you respect the privacy wishes of consumers. Do not call or text message anyone who is on the Do Not Call Registry. Doing so is a violation of the law and can result in stiff fines. Similarly, if people opt out, honor their decision and leave the consumer alone. 

After they have opted out, it may be helpful to send a confirmation message that the opt-out was successful and that no further messages will be sent. 

Complying with SMS Rules 

Practicing SMS compliance is an important way you can protect your business and uphold the privacy of consumers. Before you begin building your SMS marketing audience, be sure to work with your legal team to build a legally compliant SMS marketing program.

By following the tips above, you can begin an SMS engagement campaign without having to worry about potential violations or penalties. 

Need help creating an SMS campaign that sells? Check out more email/CRM tips at Power Digital such as email segmentation and email A/B testing. 

Our digital marketing agency can help you build an end-to-end SMS campaign. Whether it’s identifying your target audience, ensuring compliance, or driving your value props, Power Digital has the tools you need to succeed. 

Sources:

1. Statista. Total number of text messages sent in the United States from 2005 to 2019. https://www.statista.com/statistics/185879/number-of-text-messages-in-the-united-states-since-2005/
2. FTC. Enforcement. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement
3. FCC. FCC Actions on Robocalls, Telemarketing. https://www.fcc.gov/general/telemarketing-and-robocalls
4. FCC. CAN-SPAM. https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam

The post 8 Tips You Should Keep In Mind for SMS Compliance appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

After all, establishing a personal connection is essential for building trust with an existing and a new subscriber.

What resonates for one reader may fall totally flat for another. If your message isn’t personalized, it’s unlikely that a recipient will open it, let alone read it and then act. In fact, the most likely outcome for any generic email is a first-class trip to the spam folder. 

So, what’s the fix for this? How can you increase email opens, clicks, and conversions? 

This is where email segmentation can upgrade your email marketing strategy.

What Is Email Segmentation? 

Email segmentation is all about understanding consumer behavior and psychology. In simpler terms, it’s about ensuring that the right message reaches the right reader at the right time. 

And how do you do that? By splitting your master contact list into smaller segments of like-minded customers with similar needs and preferences. 

Using various criteria, you can break down a subscriber list of thousands of readers into various sub-lists. This empowers your team to better target those different consumers with personalized content that is more likely to land. It increases engagement since the personalized content is written for and directed to a specific group of recipients. 

As Inc.com notes:¹

“A business must employ market research techniques to find patterns of similarity among customer preferences in a market. Ideally, customer preferences will fall into distinct clusters based upon identifiable population characteristics. This means that if customer requirements were plotted on a graph using certain characteristics, or segmentation bases, along the axes, the points would tend to form clusters.”

There are dozens of potential benefits for email segmentation, the foremost being:

• Increased open rates
• Decreased cost of customer acquisition 
• Greater email relevance
• Decreased opt-out/unsubscribe rates
• Better deliverability
• Increased sales leads
• Greater revenue
• Improved customer retention
• Lower spam responses

Email Marketing Segmentation Tip #1: Know The Types of Segmentation Bases

Knowing how to segment a market is not a straightforward task. Done right, it can improve the effectiveness of your marketing campaign and sales efforts. Done poorly, and it can result in wasted marketing dollars and lost opportunities to reach a new subscriber. 

As Forbes notes,² “If you don’t spend the time to think about your audience and gather some intelligence about their needs and challenges, you are less likely to get the outcome you want.” 

Therefore, it’s helpful to break segmentation down according to categories:

• Demographics – Demographic segmentation is the most typical segmentation base since it’s fairly easy to gauge and categorize. Such factors tend to be strong indicators of consumer preferences. They include:
  • Age
  • Sex
  • Religion
  • Family size
  • Education
  • Socio-economic status
  • Job

• Geographic Location – Where a person lives can impact the products or services they desire or the messaging they respond to. Common variables include:
  • Country
  • City
  • State
  • Population density
  • Language
  • Climate 

• Psychology – Somewhat more difficult to measure, these may represent underlying factors that motivate consumers to make a purchase or take an action. They include:
  • Brand loyalty
  • Values
  • Rate of product use
  • Engagement levels
  • Location in the sales funnel
  • Personality
  • Lifestyle
  • Income level

• Behavioral – In behavioral segmentation, you can also break down consumers by the actions they take. This includes:
  • Buyer stage
  • Benefits they look for in a specific product or service
  • Buyer intent
  • User status
  • Engagement
  • Stage in the buyer’s funnel 

In all likelihood, you’ll want to pull a combination of bases to tailor your segmentation toward your product. While it’s possible to go by a singular variable, a multivariable grouping will almost always be more useful and effective. 

List Segmentation Tip #2: Select the Right Email Segmentation Tool

Focus groups are often viewed as a marketing relic—one that’s been replaced by Big Data. 

Now, there are powerful automated tools that can help you conduct your market research, gather data, categorize it, and then analyze it. Ideally, you want a segmentation tool that gives you plenty of customizability and makes it easy to segment groups into logical bases. 

Email tagging is a powerful tool that helps you organize contacts according to consumer behavior and interests. For instance, you can tag consumers by their job title, the links they click, blog articles they read, items they purchase, or by more descriptive demographics. Or, you can segment according to recent buyer actions like:

• Sign up source
• Type of customer
• Customers who purchased in the last 30 days 
• Customers who haven’t purchased in the last 30 days, or even 90 days 
• Cart abandonment

From there, you can further optimize segmented emails by studying how members of these groups respond to messaging. So, the next time around, you can further cull the list segmentation down to those most likely to act in a certain way or respond to a certain message.  

Email Segmentation Tip #3: Start Slow and Simple 

You don’t need to create dozens of multivariable segmentation lists right off the bat. In the beginning, it’s better to start simple. Your first few segmentation groups will allow you to start testing and seeing what does or doesn’t work. If you throw too many variables into the equation from the outset, it’ll be difficult to determine the underlying issue (if there is one). 

Similarly, this gives you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with your automated solution. As your team becomes more comfortable with the technology and better understands how consumer subsets respond, they can then start going deeper. 

List Segmentation Tip #4: Craft Emails That Target Specific Segments 

Now that you’ve segmented your target audience into groups, the real work begins. 

Thanks to segmentation, you have a better idea of what type of messaging will resonate and what kinds of items to send. Tips for this include:

• Using personalized and relevant email subject lines 
• Employing power words
• Writing copy that is interesting and engaging
• Tailoring messaging to the segments
• Keeping messaging brief
• Including social media as a chance to share content

Whatever you do, avoid using generalized email copy that will be sent out to all of the segments. That eliminates the entire point of breaking them up. Remember, what one audience cares deeply about, another may not even bother to open. It may require more work to create several forms of a similar email, but it’s well worth the extra effort. Other tips to keep in mind when structuring your emails are email accessibility and email A/B testing. 

Email Segmentation Tip #5: User Personalization Best Practices 

Personalizing emails requires that you leverage the data at your disposal. You need to understand consumers’ needs and wants, and then address those with your messaging. By segmenting, it’s easier to hit commonalities that sub-segments have. But you can take this a step further:

• Look at browsing and purchasing history – When it comes to purchasing recommendations, customers prefer recommendations that are based on relevancy to them. According to Business Insider, 59.4% of adults said they’d be most likely to act on a marketing email that suggested a product that was based on their purchasing history.³
• People love deals – The same study reviewed by Business Insider stated that 64% of US consumers said they were most likely to open an email if the subject line included a promotion or a deal.³3 Consumers are primed to act, so long as the proper incentives are in place. 
• Embrace automation – There are a variety of automated emails you can set up for if-then scenarios. For instance, if a customer abandons a cart, then you can send an email that reminds them about it later on. Or, if you know your customer’s birthday, then you can ensure that a congratulatory email is sent out which includes a birthday special. 

Email Marketing Segmentation Tip #6: Continuously Collect Data 

After you’ve segmented your audience and crafted email messages that are bespoke to each group, it’s time to hit send. Only then can you start to measure the impact of your efforts. 

As you do, it’s vital that you keep gathering data about prospects and customers alike. The more data you gather, the better you’ll be able to optimize segments and content. 

Along those lines, every successive email campaign from here on out allows you to keep testing and optimizing. Over time, both your automated system and marketing team will gain a better understanding of who your audience is, what they respond to, and how to win them over.

Optimize Your Email Marketing Efforts

Email marketing is one of the many valuable tools in your arsenal. And segmentation helps your messaging become that much more impactful. It allows you to reach the right audience with a message that’s personalized and clearly intended for them. 

But even with the help of automated programs, proper email segmentation and campaign optimization can be challenging, especially if you’re inexperienced. Sometimes, the best game plan is to outsource these tasks to the experts.

Here at Power Digital, we can provide you with a full-service email marketing strategy and implementation that segments your lists and helps you generate the most ROI possible. This includes fully stacked email campaign creation, strategic campaign development, and turnkey marketing automation. 

What does that look like? Reach out to our digital marketing agency today to discover more on SMS marketing and SMS compliance. 

Sources:

1. Inc. Segmentation. https://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/market-segmentation.html
2. Forbes. Communicating Respect: Know Your Audience. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/05/16/communicating-respect-know-your-audience/?sh=603dcdf54067
3. Business Insider. Consumers look for relevancy, personal benefits, and the opportunity to take action in emails.https://www.businessinsider.com/what-matters-most-to-consumers-regarding-email-2020-11

The post Email Segmentation: 6 Best Practices appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

You can think of them as marketing peanut butter and jelly. Individually, they’re great. But together, they create something truly special, capable of revolutionizing the way you target customers and run campaigns. 

But why do they work so well as a combination? And how can you utilize them to their fullest potential?

Let’s discuss. 

First: Why Email Marketing? 

For decades now, email has been a major hub for communication. As technology progressed and smartphones became a ubiquitous aspect of modern living, email has gained even greater prominence. 

Naturally, marketers realized it was a valuable resource if utilized properly.

Today, email marketing refers to any email a company sends out that’s unrelated to a specific customer query. That includes newsletters, press releases, subscriber deals, sales promos, or brand building. 

Email marketing works on an opt-in basis. Customers have to consent to receive a marketing message from you, the business. In exchange for their willingness, consumers have an opportunity to learn about new products, killer deals, or general company updates. 

It’s a direct marketing strategy that allows you to:

• Stay in contact with your audience
• Reach customers in real-time
• Encourage customer engagement
• Gather measurable consumer data
• Target consumer segments
• Build brand awareness
• Generate ROI   

Second: Why SMS Marketing? 

Although newer than email marketing, text message marketing provides a more targeted marketing channel for reaching customers. The primary focus of a text messaging strategy is to push a campaign about a promotional message, sale, or event, or keep customers updated about a transaction. 

And because practically everyone has their cellphone in their pocket, purse, or hands at all times, SMS has an extraordinary open and engagement rate. 

According to Harvard Business Review survey:¹ 

• 99% of all text messages are opened, with 97% of messages being read within 15 minutes of delivery.
• 56% of organizations say that their mobile messaging apps perform well for improving customer engagement.
• 68% of companies expect mobile marketing messaging to play a vital role in online consumer marketing over the next decade.
• 82% of organizations say that better metrics and analytics data, including read receipts, are the most important capabilities of SMS. 

Compared to email, a text message marketing campaign has a greater underlying urgency and tends to be time-sensitive. They’re short, sweet, and almost always centered around a call to action, spurring their audience to do something. 

And now, new tools and services are constantly emerging that empower marketers to run an SMS campaign that is more effective and accessible. Additionally, smartphones also allow you to enhance SMS messaging by incorporating videos, images, gifs, or other multimedia. 

Why an Integrated Digital Marketing Plan is Best 

Instead of choosing one or the other, why not say yes to both channels? 

Marketers know that a multichannel approach to advertising delivers better results. Just like how you diversify stocks or how you get your cat many different toys, so too should you cast a wider net to reach more potential customers—particularly since the channel one consumer spends their time on may not be as effective for another. 

If you want to optimize your efforts—not simply reaching an audience but also engaging them effectively—employing different SMS messaging techniques and channels is the answer.  

An integrated digital marketing plan allows you to get the most out of both communication channels. You can enhance your existing email marketing campaign by strategically incorporating text messaging. 

Why do they pair so well?

They’re Built for a Mobile-First World 

Today, mobile dominates the internet game. 

More than half of all internet searches are done via a mobile device. And the same can be said for purchasing.

In Q1 and Q2 of 2021, mobile accounted for 60% of all organic search engine visits within the U.S.² And going by the trend, this number will only continue to increase, especially as the technology keeps evolving. Because of this, Google and other search engines are placing even greater emphasis on mobile and mobile responsiveness when it comes to ranking sites.  

Both email and SMS are channels built to thrive in a mobile-first world and marketing approach. 

As time passes, marketers and automated intelligence will only continue to optimize email and SMS content for a mobile screen. By combining both channels, advertisers can fully push a mobile-first marketing strategy.   

They’re Both Permission-Based 

Because of FTC and FCC regulations, both email and SMS communication is restricted to some degree. To protect consumer privacy and prevent harassment, there are stringent rules for SMS compliance. Customers must voluntarily consent to receive emails or text messages from a company. Ways that consumers opt in include:

• Inputting their phone number or email address into an online web form
• Signing up for a newsletter 
• Providing that information at a physical location 

Since both of these channels are voluntary, you can operate confidently knowing that your audience actually wants to receive the news, be it about a sale, an update, or a new release. Furthermore, these channels allow you to provide a personalized interaction with leads that are already warm. 

Customers who have signed up want to hear from you—so long as you don’t overdo it. That means providing useful information or engaging content on a periodic basis. 

Complementary Insights 

Both email and SMS can provide a wealth of actionable information, especially since both are response-focused. According to Forbes:³ 

“They naturally lend themselves to effective performance measurement. From a tracking standpoint, each channel also delivers many common or very similar metrics that can be used to compare and even combine results to provide a clear picture of a campaign’s success (messages delivered, open rates, clicks/engagements with links, unsubscribes, and even spam complaints).”

Armed with this valuable consumer data, you can measure the effectiveness of a campaign and paint a clearer picture of what causes audience engagement. And today, powerful software can take these data points and produce actionable insights to see how to further optimize engagement and drive ROI.  

Ways to Incorporate SMS into your Campaign 

So, how can you use the power of SMS to enhance your email marketing campaigns? 

Here are a few ways you can draw on the strengths of both channels: 

• SMS has an incredible open rate – Compared to other channels, email has an impressive open rate. According to a Mail Chimp study, the average email open rate across all industries was 21.33%.⁴ But that pales in comparison to SMS 90%+ open rate. Therefore, you can use an SMS to push an email campaign. For instance, you can link an email newsletter within a text to increase the likelihood that a customer sees and then clicks through. 
• SMS is short and sweet – Because texts are limited to 160 characters, they have to get right to the point. This can be a major advantage for you. Your texts can prep email subscribers for a longer email message. For example, if you have an upcoming product release, you can tease it with text and then fully unveil the products within the email. This is a smart strategy since your text gives you more room to work with than an email subject line would allow. 
• Get a fast action – Do you have a flash sale? A limited-time offer? A deal for the first group of people to sign up? Sending out a quick text is more likely to instigate customers to act—and act fast. You can then follow this up with an email that provides more details or even provide a link to the email within the text. 
• Learn more about your customers – Similarly, consumers are more likely to respond to a quick SMS survey than an email survey. This means it’s a fantastic channel for getting feedback or learning more about consumer preferences. 
• Analytics – Combining the analytics from both SMS and email marketing channels gives you more information about consumer engagement behavior. Armed with this data, you can better determine who to target, how to target them, when to target them, and what content to send. Over time, you can tailor campaigns to segments and consumer personas. And the more data you get, the more optimized these campaigns will be. For more on email segmentation and email A/B testing, check out our blog. 
• Return on interest – On their own, both email and SMS have incredible ROI. Recent surveys show email has an ROI of $42 for every $1 spent.⁵ And text messaging has similar impressive returns, if not quite as high. A Smart Insights study found that 45% of SMS campaigns generate positive ROI.⁶ Together, these channels become even more cost-effective since they enhance one another, thanks to higher engagement and response rates coupled with low upfront costs.   

Power Digital—Helping You Get the Most Out of SMS and Email

When it comes to marketing, the more channels you use to target consumers, the better. When combined, SMS and email are among the most cost-effective and powerful tools in your arsenal. 

Do you need guidance on how to build a complementary SMS and email marketing campaign? 

Our digital marketing agency has worked with top brands to help them do just that. Our team can work hand in hand with you to build a customized SMS marketing strategy that lands. 

Want to see what that looks like? Contact us today. 

Sources:

1. Harvard Business Review. Mobile Messaging Blazes a Path to Consumers. https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/504d17233468114fdb006adf1bafb3b204d42e31154bcae76583184ff393b7c135274dba05b30a94c2af70734f5ead957d0506bdae286a08ae229a87c2e88521
2. Statista. Mobile share of organic search engine visits in the United States from 3rd quarter 2013 to 2nd quarter 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/297137/mobile-share-of-us-organic-search-engine-visits/
3. Forbes. Four Reasons To Combine Email and SMS Marketing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2020/03/18/four-reasons-to-combine-email-and-sms-marketing/?sh=847188064684
4. Mail Chimp. Email Marketing Benchmarks and Statistics by Industry. https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/
5. DMA. Marketer Email Tracker 2019. https://dma.org.uk/uploads/misc/marketers-email-tracker-2019.pdf
6. Smart Insights. 6 Benefits of SMS Marketing. https://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/sms-marketing/6-benefits-sms-marketing/

The post SMS Marketing: Why It Works So Well With Email appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

However, not everyone on the receiving end experiences emails the same way. 

This is especially true for people who have disabilities, ranging from blindness to dyslexia. 

Accommodating people with disabilities is important in all areas of life. Email marketing is no exception. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it also allows your email marketing strategy to reach its full potential. 

Below, we’ll examine why email accessibility is so important. We’ll also review a few tactics you can use to make your emails consist of more accessible content.

What is Email Accessibility?

Put simply, email accessibility is when an email is accessible, readable, and usable for all people, including those who have disabilities or vision impairment.¹ 

Even if you craft the most eye-catching email with the perfect copy, it won’t resonate with all readers if it’s not accessible. Some subscribers may engage with your email differently due to having the following types of disabilities:

• Visual – Visual impairment, blindness, or color blindness
• Auditory – Deafness
• Motor – Paralysis, cerebral palsy, or limb injuries
• Learning – Dyslexia

For example, visually impaired people may listen to your email with an assistive device, rather than reading it. Colorblind people may read your email, but have a hard time discerning certain colors within it. 

If you don’t have a disability yourself, designing accessible emails requires a shift in perspective. 

Fortunately, it’s an easy process once you understand the basics of email accessibility.

Why Does Email Accessibility Matter?

In 2021, email accessibility can no longer be treated as an afterthought. It must be built into the foundation of your campaigns. 

Here are a few reasons why:

#1 A Substantial Subset Of Your Customers May Have a Disability

Disabilities are more common than you may think. Just take a look at these statistics:

• One in four Americans have some kind of physical or mental disability²
• One million Americans are blind³
• Color blindness affects 8% of the male population and 4.5% of the total population⁴
• One in ten people have dyslexia⁵
• Globally, people with disabilities have an estimated spending power of $8 trillion⁶

Such a substantial subset of consumers has a lot of sway. Neglecting their needs only harms your business prospects.

It’s also important to keep in mind that people develop new disabilities every day. If your customers  do, they’ll have to interface with your emails differently. You certainly don’t want to lose their patronage to a more inclusive competitor by overlooking email accessibility. 

#2 Inaccessible Emails Hurt Your Conversion Rate

After pouring your time, energy, and creativity into an email campaign, you want it to convert. Ignoring accessibility standards and the needs of people with disabilities is in direct opposition to this goal. 

Inaccessible emails won’t perform well with your subscribers who have disabilities. If you’re not implementing email accessibility yet, you’re essentially dragging down your conversion rate before you even hit send.

By ensuring your emails are accessible, you allow your campaign to perform to its highest potential—that means more clicks, more conversions, and a better bottom line for your business. 

#3 Ignoring Email Accessibility Leaves You Open to Litigation

If being inclusive and earning more money wasn’t motivation enough, the desire to avoid litigation should be. Email accessibility has become an increasingly prevalent issue in court cases relating to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).⁷

The ADA was implemented back in 1990. It was put in place to guarantee people with disabilities access to the same opportunities as everyone else. For example, it requires employers to provide employees with disabilities with reasonable accommodations. It also mandates that public places offer certain accommodations, such as ramps for wheelchairs.

Since the internet has become a mainstay in our day-to-day lives, recent court decisions have applied ADA requirements to online access as well. Many businesses have found themselves in legal hot water for failing to make their websites and online services accessible. 

To avoid this type of legal trouble yourself, it’s crucial to implement email accessibility. It’s also suggested to take advantage of email segmentation and email A/B testing for any email campaign regardless. 

Email Accessibility Guidelines

Now that you know why email accessibility matters, let’s take a look at a few basic guidelines that will help you enhance the accessibility of your next email campaign. 

#1 Increase Your Contrast Ratio

Your contrast ratio is the degree of difference between your email’s background color and foreground colors.

To improve email accessibility, make sure you use a contrast ratio that’s large enough to make your email easy to read for people with impaired vision. If your contrast ratio is too low, text and images may be hard to discern from the background. 

Many email accessibility experts recommend using a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1. You can test your email’s contrast ratio using online contrast checking tools.

#2 Make Text Easier to Read

After perfecting your email copy, you want it to be easy to read.

Here are a few tips to make your email’s text more accessible:

• Align text to the left – Left-aligned text is easier to read than center-aligned text, especially for people with dyslexia. 
• Use large, legible fonts – Your font size should always be at least 14px. This will help readers with poor vision make out your email’s text on smaller screens. 
• Use live text – Live text is simply text that isn’t shown inside an image. Unlike text within images, live text can be read out loud using assistive devices. 

#3 Underline All Links

Another simple accessibility tip is to underline your links. While it’s a common practice to make them another color, not everyone sees colors the same way. Even if a link stands out to you, it may blend in for someone with colorblindness.

Underlining your links will ensure that they’re easy to locate and more likely to get clicked. 

#4 Include HTML Language Attributes

On the more technical side of things, you should always include an HTML language attribute at the head of your email.

Language attributes tell assistive devices and search engines what language the email should be read in. In turn, text readers can pronounce the words properly and provide listeners a more seamless experience.

A text attribute for English looks like this: lang=“en”

#5 Use Descriptive Alt Text

Alt text shows up when images and videos don’t load. All SEO-savvy marketers understand the importance of alt text. However, alt text takes on an even greater significance when it comes to email accessibility. That’s because it’s the text that will be read out loud when subscribers read your email with an assistive device.

Here are a few alt text accessibility tips: 

• Make sure your alt text gives people all of the details they need to understand your email properly if they listen to it with an assistive device.
  
• Leave alt text blank for images that are sufficiently described by their caption to avoid repetitiveness. 
• Leave alt text blank for images that are solely in the email for decorative purposes. 

Note: If you leave alt text blank for an image, don’t delete the alt attribute (alt-“ ”). Otherwise, screen readers will read the image name instead, which may confuse your listeners.

#6 Use a Logical Reading Structure 

People who listen to emails with assistive devices can’t visually jump around your email like someone who reads it themselves. For this reason, you should organize your content in a logical order and use descriptive headers when appropriate.

#7 Use Large CTA Buttons

The goal of most email campaigns is to get readers to click on your CTA button. To increase the chances of this happening, it’s in your best interest to make your CTA button large and easy to click. 

Tiny CTA buttons can be frustrating for people with motor control issues. They’re also harder to click for people who use eye trackers to move their cursors. 

#8 Test For Accessibility Before You Send

After making these adjustments, don’t forget to test your email before sending it. 

You can send your email to yourself and try engaging with it in a few ways:

• Listen to it with a screen reader
• Run it through a colorblind test
• Read it from a smartphone to ensure it’s optimized for mobile

By experiencing your email from several perspectives, you can ensure it renders well for a variety of subscribers with various disabilities. 

The Best Email Marketing Campaigns Are Inclusive 

At the end of the day, email accessibility is about having empathy for others who experience life differently. Many of these people are your email subscribers and customers. 

By taking the time to understand how they interact with your emails, you can create campaigns that engage and convert as many people as possible. 

Need assistance creating inclusive campaigns? How about SMS marketing or SMS compliance? We can help.

Our digital marketing agency offers our marketing expertise alongside a full suite of marketing services to ensure your business grows in a healthy, organic way—email accessibility being just one of our many strengths. 

Sources:

1. Csun.edu. Email Accessibility.  https://www.csun.edu/sites/default/files/email_accessibility.pdf
2. CDC. Disability Impacts All of Us. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html
3. CDC. Fast Facts of Common Eye Disorders.  https://www.cdc.gov/visionhealth/basics/ced/fastfacts.htm
4. Colour Blind Awareness. Colour Blindness.  https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/
5. Austin Learning Solutions. Dyslexia Facts and Statistics.  https://austinlearningsolutions.com/blog/38-dyslexia-facts-and-statistics
6. CPACC. People With Disabilities Control $8 Trillion in Spending. https://sheribyrnehaber.medium.com/people-with-disabilities-control-8-trillion-in-spending-dabd43a87d81
7. Seyfarth. ADA Title III Litigation: A 2019 Review and Hot Trends for 2020.  https://www.adatitleiii.com/2020/01/ada-title-iii-litigation-a-2019-review-and-hot-trends-for-2020/

The post Why Email Accessibility Matters appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

In fact, in today’s digital age, data is the driving force behind any modern marketing campaign. 

And one of the best methods for gathering that data is A/B testing—especially when it comes to email.  

This process has the power to boost your emails’ open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, ultimately garnering you more sales and revenue. In this guide, we’ll explain how you can implement an A/B testing email marketing strategy in future campaigns step by step.  

What is A/B Testing?

Put simply, A/B testing (also known as split testing) is the process of sending two versions of an email to a subset of your subscribers. 

Half of the subset receives email A, while the other half receives email B.

The two versions of your email A/B testing may look very similar, but they’ll contain one small variation, such as a different:

• Subject line
• Layout
• CTA
• Images
• Copy length
• Copy tone
• Testimonials
• Send time

Once your subscribers have had enough time to interact with these two emails, you can compare their open rate, click-through rate, or conversion rate (depending on what metric you’re trying to optimize). After identifying the better-performing email, you can send this version to the remainder of your subscriber list. 

The Power of A/B Testing

You may have a hunch about what will capture your target audience and win their conversions, but unless you test it out, you’ll never know with confidence. 

A/B testing is a surefire way to pinpoint what your audience responds well to. You may be surprised that they prefer different things than you originally hypothesized. 

Despite the simplicity of email A/B testing and its many benefits, 39% of brands aren’t using it yet.¹ Neglecting this powerful technique means that your email testing campaign may not be reaching its full potential. In turn, you could be missing out on a ton of business. By A/B testing your email campaigns going forward, you can capture more customers and gain an edge over your competition.

How to Run an A/B Email Test

If you’re ready to employ this game-changing technique, just follow these steps:

#1 Determine Your Sample Size

As with any scientific experiment, you need an adequate sample size to yield statistically significant results. 

Your subscriber list dictates your available sample size:

• Large subscriber list – If your subscriber list is extensive, you can test your two emails on a smaller subset of people first. For instance, you could send 10% of your subscriber list one version of the email and another 10% the other version. Once the results are in, you can send the better version to the remaining 80%. 
• Small subscriber list – If your email list is on the smaller side, you may want to conduct A/B tests on your entire audience, splitting the recipients 50/50. This will ensure your results are representative of your entire audience. 

#2 Set Up Your Chosen Software

Many email software offer built-in A/B testing capabilities, such as Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, and Active Campaign.

Their A/B testing software allows you to send a different version of your email to two subsets of your subscribers. Once the results are in, the winning version of the email will be sent to the rest of your subscriber list automatically. 

If you don’t use these email software tools, you can run your A/B test manually. All you have to do is incorporate email segmentation within your subscriber list into two sections and send a different version of the email to each one. After that, you’ll have to analyze their performance manually.  

#3 Select Your Variables

Next, it’s time to brainstorm what specific changes may improve your email’s performance and email accessibility. Maybe you suspect that the subject line could be snappier. Or perhaps you think some personalization could inspire more conversions. 

Choose a change you think has the most potential to improve your campaign and add it to the B version of your original email. 

Here are a few aspects of your email you can run A/B tests on:

Subject line

Your email’s subject line can make or break your open rate. If you can’t get subscribers to open your email, all of your hard work on its design and copy will go to waste. 

Here are a few tweaks you can implement during subject line testing to see how they impact your email’s open rate:

• Rearrange the order of the words within your subject line
• Phrase the subject line as a question
• Include numbers or emojis
• Play around with capitalization
• Test out different subject line lengths
• Use language that instills a greater sense of urgency
• Add more personalization

According to research, subject line personalization is one of the most powerful tools you can use to improve your email’s open rate. It’s been shown to boost open rates by up to 14%!²

Preheader Text

Another factor that can impact your email’s open rate is its preheader text. This text shows up as a continuation of your subject line within your readers’ inbox. 

In other words, preheader text gives you even more space to capture readers’ attention and inspire them to click. 

Sender’s Name

One final factor that may impact your email’s open rate is the sender’s name. This is the email address you send your email from that shows up in your recipients’ “From” field. 

During an A/B test, you could send one email from a real person at your company (john@company.com), rather than the company’s name (info@company.com). 

Forging this kind of personal connection from the get-go may be what you need to get more readers to click. 

Call to Action (CTA)

Once a subscriber has opened your email, the next goal is to get them to click on your CTA. For this reason, your CTA is one of the most important features to A/B test.

You can test your CTA’s:

• Copy
• Font
• Text size
• Capitalization
• Button color
• Location
• Frequency within the email 

You’ll know your CTA changes are working if they result in more clicks. 

Visuals

When it comes to your email’s design, your audience’s preferences may be different than your own. Some subscribers may love a lot of images, while others may prefer plain text. 

Find out what your audience likes by experimenting with different visuals. You can A/B test:

• Images vs plain text
• A single image vs. multiple images
• Drawings vs. real-life photos
• Animated GIFs vs. still images
• Colorful images vs. monochrome images
• Stock images vs. company photos
• Professional images vs. relatable memes

While it may take several split tests to narrow down exactly what works best with your audience, this degree of precision can help you design highly optimized email campaigns that resonate with them to a tee. 

Length and Tone of Copy 

Most people have very short attention spans, especially when it comes to reading marketing materials. Microsoft discovered that the average person’s attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to a mere 8 seconds in 2021.³ For reference, goldfish have attention spans of 9 seconds. 

The jury is still out on whether TikTok or Instagram is to blame for this attention span deficit. What we do know is that your email’s copy has to grab readers’ attention right away. Otherwise, you’ll lose out on a ton of potential clicks.

You can boost your copy’s effectiveness by A/B testing its:

• Headers – The first line of copy in your email must capture readers’ attention or they won’t spend a second longer scanning the page.
  
• Length – Shorter copy may bode better for audiences with short attention spans. Make sure every word in your email highlights the value of your offer and guides readers to your CTA.
• Tone – The tone of your copy needs to resonate with your target audience to get them engaged. Whether your brand is friendly or authoritative, studies have shown that using positive language improves email engagement.⁴ 

Email A/B Testing: Blending the Art and Science of Email Marketing

As you can see, A/B testing is a straightforward process—it’s also an ongoing and time-consuming one. We’ve only outlined a few of the factors you can put to the test with this process. You can also A/B test different send times, testimonials, layouts, and more. 

As you compile more data about your audience’s preferences, you’ll become an expert at delivering them emails they love. And you’ll know statistically what yields the most success. In that sense, you can consider yourself a data-driven Don Draper of the 21st century. 

If you’re looking for more support to maximize the effectiveness of your email campaign—or your great marketing strategy—we can help. Looking for further assistance with SMS compliance or SMS marketing? Our digital marketing agency has the expertise and tools needed to optimize your marketing efforts and expand your reach.  

Sources:

1. Litmus. 13 Email A/B Testing Mistakes that Limit Your Success. https://www.litmus.com/blog/email-a-b-testing-mistakes-that-limit-your-success/
2. Campaign Monitor. 70 Email Marketing Stats Every Marketer Should Know. https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/70-email-marketing-stats-you-need-to-know/
3. The Telegraph. Humans Have Shorter Attention Span than Goldfish.  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smart/
4. Campaign Monitor. What Is a Good Email Click-Through Rate for 2019? https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/what-is-a-good-email-click-through-rate-for-2019/

The post Email A/B Testing: A Full Guide appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

While some of these changes will benefit everyone, others are intended to benefit the user—and protect their privacy—in a way that will shake up the marketing landscape once again, impacting how advertising professionals can monitor, gather, and measure essential user data. 

Today, we’ll discuss the iOS 15 update, what it means for you, and how you can mitigate damage to your marketing strategy by the time it launches in the fall. 

What’s in the iOS 15 Update? 

There were a slew of new features discussed with the upcoming iOS rollout, ranging from redesigns of Safari, Maps, and notifications to FaceTime functionality improvements. And while these caused some excitement, the changes that set the marketing world abuzz were the various privacy features that will come into effect shortly.

In recent years, there’s been strong public pushback over technology companies harvesting user data. Apple catered to this prevailing sentiment in April with the release of iOS 14.5, which gave users the option to prevent apps from tracking their activities for ad targeting. While activity tracking has always been intended to improve user experience, only 4% of users opted-in to letting their apps track them.

Clearly, Apple users value their privacy above targeted ad content—Apple quickly took note. 

The tech giant leaned even further into this movement with their own privacy-focused commercials and additional updates that will impact several major aspects of the marketing funnel, particularly in regard to email marketing services.

iOS15 Privacy Updates

After the announcement of iOS 15, Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi had this to say:

​​Privacy has been central to our work at Apple from the very beginning. Every year, we push ourselves to develop new technology to help users take more control of their data and make informed decisions about whom they share it with. This year’s updates include innovative features that give users deeper insights and more granular control than ever before.

These privacy features were primarily related to email, with two main aspects to consider.

#1 Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)

While Apple has relied on Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) to protect Safari users for years, the newest iOS iteration strengthens ITP by hiding user’s IP addresses from trackers. This change makes it impossible to leverage user IP addresses to track an individual across several websites, making it more difficult to flesh out a complete and useful user profile. 

With the Mail App, the MPP feature protects everyone by preventing senders from using invisible pixels to gather user data. Emails are first downloaded and opened through a proxy server. Thanks to the software update, senders will no longer know when an email has been opened unless the iPhone user opts into this type of tracking. 

This will likely result in three major changes for marketing metrics: 

• All emails will “pre-open” as they’re filtered through the proxy server, showing inflated and inaccurate open rates.
• All images will be “pre-rendered,” making a copy that is sent to the Apple Privacy Cache with the IP address for the general region rather than the exact geolocation.
• IP addresses will be inaccurate, thus preventing granular location or time zone targeting. 

#2 iCloud Plus 

iCloud Plus is an upgrade to Apple’s cloud storage service, which was built to keep photos, documents, and notes secure, updated, and accessible on every Apple device. As part of the new subscription service, there are several privacy features, including: 

• iCloud Private Relay – Similar to a VPN for iCloud subscribers, this encrypts user activity on Safari, hiding both network traffic and IP addresses from visited websites. Every user request is sent through two separate internet relays. The first gives the iPhone user an anonymous IP address. The second server decrypts the web address then sends it to the proper destination. 

The decentralized operating system is neither controlled nor viewable by Apple. Additionally, the server itself can’t identify individual users. Finally, Private Relay will also eliminate “fingerprinting,” which allows companies to track your dedicated IP address all across the internet. For ISPs and third-party data brokers, Private Relay encryption will impact their ability to gather and sell user browsing data.

• Hide My Email – To prevent email spam and create an additional layer of anonymity, Hide My Email creates burner accounts that allow users to, “share unique, random email addresses that forward to their personal inbox anytime they wish to keep their personal email address private.” This functionality is built into:
  • Safari
  • iCloud
  • Mail

It also lets users create and delete as many addresses as they want. Finally, the new feature enables consumers to register for new accounts or email lists with proxy emails rather than providing personal email addresses.

What Do These iOS Privacy Updates Mean? 

For marketers, iOS 15 seems to bring a whole new status quo to the table. They can no longer rely on some of the most effective techniques for tracking activity and analyzing engagement. As a result, the way we measure and gauge success must change—in at least two major ways. 

#1 Deliverability Health 

When it comes to email, it may be time to rethink how we interpret deliverability. In the past, open rates were indicative of a list’s health for several tasks. But these iOS changes will very likely impact several aspects of email marketing campaigns.

The following standard practices will either be rendered completely useless or will have to undergo a serious update to yield accurate insight:

• A/B testing subject lines to determine the most enticing option
• Audience segmentation and targeting based on last open date
• Automated flows that are triggered by an email open
• Send time optimization
• Interactive emails with external CSS references

Because of this uncertainty, you may need to regularly test your deliverability health and consider focusing on different metrics.

#2 Engagement Metrics 

Since we can no longer rely on open rates as an accurate metric of campaign success, it may be time to revisit how we measure engagement. Upper funnel metrics may take a back seat to bottom-of-the-funnel metrics like:

• Click rates
• Site visits 
• Conversions
• Purchases  

But even these upper funnel metrics that are subject to third-party data may not be as effective. Now, marketers need to focus on gauging success that results in customer actions—the ultimate end goal of any advertising strategy, anyway.  

How to Prepare for iOS 15

With major changes on the horizon, now’s the time to adjust your strategy accordingly. With that in mind, there are a few ways you can start readying yourself for what’s to come: 

• Understand your audience – This iOS update may have minor or major impacts on your marketing strategy—it depends entirely on how many of your customers use Apple Mail to read emails. According to a Litmus study, Apple iPhone mail accounted for nearly half of all mobile opens (49.6%), dwarfing the runner-up, Gmail (18.6%). But that may not be the case for your user base. Now is a good time to dig into audience segmentation data based on the Apple device and app usage.
• Continue testing content – For now, we still have access to open data. So take advantage of it while it lasts. Test subject line styles and send times more frequently in the lead-up to the update’s rollout. 
• Focus on optimizing CTAs – Seeing as clicks and click-through rates will become increasingly valuable metrics, the emphasis of your efforts should shift toward incentivizing users to act and convert.
• Utilize UTM parameters – Adding UTM parameters to your email can help with accurate click tracking. Apple’s proxy server auto-opening will lead to inflated ESP-attributed revenue, which can cloud the reality of your marketing campaigns if you don’t collect the information in other ways.

Segmentation Changes Post-iOS 15

With iOS 15, you’ll very likely need to change your email and list segmentation strategies, as well. Again, we still don’t know exactly how this update will impact your metrics, but we can speculate that the following actions will be necessary:

• Rethink what engagement looks like – By relying on metrics like clicks, active on-site, visitor who viewed product, and visitor who placed an order, you can better gauge user engagement and then segment accordingly.  
• Clean up your lists – As you optimize your recipient lists, you may achieve greater success by focusing on click data and active users on site, as these are clear (and uncontaminated) indicators of customer engagement and ongoing interest.
• Proactively collect location information – Before the update takes effect, collect any geolocation data you can. After the release date, you can utilize forms to collect location-based data, as long as your customers will actively provide this information.

Power Digital: Preparing You for What’s to Come 

Technology is constantly evolving. The changes that follow have both benefits and challenges associated. In response, marketing teams must remain agile—quick to respond and willing to pivot on a dime. Navigating the upcoming privacy changes of iOS 15 is no exception. 

Do you need help rethinking your marketing strategies?

This is where our digital marketing agency, Power Digital, makes a difference. We’re a full-service digital agency providing customized performance marketing strategies to empower business growth. Together, we can prepare you for whatever the future of marketing holds.  

Sources :

1. Mashable. After the update, only 4 percent of iOS users in the U.S. let apps track them. https://mashable.com/article/ios-14-5-users-opt-out-of-ad-tracking
2. Apple Press Release. Apple advances its privacy leadership with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/06/apple-advances-its-privacy-leadership-with-ios-15-ipados-15-macos-monterey-and-watchos-8/
3. Apple. iOS 15 preview. https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-15-preview/
4. Litmus. Email Client Market Share in May 2021: The Recovery of Mobile and More. https://www.litmus.com/blog/email-client-market-share-may-2021/

The post What You Need to Know About iOS 15 Updates appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

As inbound marketers, we know that the days of buying a lead list, loading the contacts into our CRM, and blasting out emails are over. However, the concept of building a completely opt-in database from start to finish can be a daunting task. 

Utilizing an opt-in list growth email marketing campaign is vital to ensuring that your emails are reaching the right contacts, the ones who expect to see your messages – and not those who could potentially harm your reputation. Our digital marketing agency is here to provide the ins and outs of opt-in email marketing and the tools to help you do it. 

What is opt-in email marketing? 

Opt-in means prospects or leads are aware you’re adding them to your email list. Opt-in email marketing is the process of sending marketing materials to an email list of prospects who specifically subscribed to your content. You can send email newsletters, promotional materials, or nurturing email campaigns. 

Double Opt-In vs. Single Opt-In

Users can subscribe to emails that use a single opt-in in one simple step. This means that the only thing users have to do to subscribe is type their email address into the required field. Single opt-in is helpful for marketing teams that want the process of signing up for automated emails to be as quick as possible. 

On the other hand, double opt-in requires an extra confirmation step to verify each email address added to your contact database. Double opt-in is when a user signs up for email marketing, then confirms the subscription process via a separate email or landing page to officially be added to a mailing list. This process reduces the risk of spam complaints and increases the interest level of the user.

How to Build an Opt-In Email List

Attract Prospects with a Lead Magnet

The lead magnet—also known as the opt-in bribe—is key to attracting new prospects and growing your list. To attract website visitors to become your subscriber, you have to entice them with a promotion or offer that they can’t refuse. Here are our tried-and-true lead magnets. 

1. Freebies: From free trials to free gifts, it is nearly impossible to resist a good freebie. The goal is to give away something your prospects will value in exchange for their contact information.
2. Discounts: You can easily attract leads with as little as a 5% or $5 discount. It doesn’t have to be a monetary offer, either—upgrades and other deals might also be enticing.
3. Gated Content: Gating content refers to requiring a user to submit their email address through a form to receive content. From e-books to quizzes to case studies, customers are constantly on the hunt for new information. If you can provide the answers your target audience is seeking, they’ll willingly hand over their contact details in the process.
4. Exclusivity: People love to feel like they are receiving special treatment or are gaining access to something not everyone else can get. Cater to the sense of exclusivity with offerings of access to special communities or VIP programs.

Place Opt-In Forms Throughout Your Website 

Anytime someone visits your website, it’s a chance for you to invite them to join your email list. To make sure that a visitor has as many opportunities as possible to opt-in, place sign-up forms throughout your website in key positions, for instance in the footer or at the end of a blog post. 

Use Popups, Carefully!

Popups are useful in conveying relevant and valuable offers to those who visit your site. However, popups should be used sparingly, as they can disrupt the user experience. Experiment with different types of popups, for instance, first purchase discounts and exit-intent, in order to see what incentivizes your target audience.

Utilize Double Opt-In 

Double opt-in offers an extra confirmation step to verify each email address added to your email list. When this setting is enabled, contacts who are created will receive a follow-up email with a link to confirm their email subscription. Getting a double opt-in confirmation allows you to be sure that your contact actually wants to hear from you and it significantly reduces your potential for spam complaints.

Set Expectations

Set expectations about two things: frequency and content. When a person gives you permission to communicate with them, the clock starts ticking. As soon as you receive someone’s email address, immediately send them a message thanking them and letting them know when you will be emailing again and what you will be sending them. 

Maintain Permission

Permission does not last forever. To stay welcome in your subscriber’s inbox, you need to make sure that all of your emails are interesting and timely. Highlight offers that are time sensitive, as well as provide content that is relevant to their previous interactions with your company. 

Enable Subscribers to Opt-Out

Today, everyone’s inbox is cluttered. Aid your subscribers in the fight against unsolicited emails by offering them a way out. Let your list know that if they want to opt-out, it is as easy as clicking a link placed in the email that will lead them to the area where they can unsubscribe. But, don’t fret about those subscribers who opt-out! Because you have established an honest, open relationship with them through email, you have earned their trust. And trust builds customers in the long run.

It’s always better to ask for permission to email ahead of time than to ask for forgiveness for spamming later. Anytime you send an email to someone without their permission, you are sending spam. Not only does sending out unsolicited emails affect your reputation as an email sender, but it can also have hefty fines. 

Avoid becoming an accidental spammer and implement an opt-in email marketing strategy. These best practices will allow you to grow and nurture your list. 

The post Let’s Talk Opt-In + List Growth appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.