#7 Most Effective Email Marketing Strategies Three digital marketing experts delineate the anatomy of modern email communication for marketing
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Email Marketing has proven to be most successful tool of marketing and deliver ROI of 400%. The technology landscape has seen many a communication-technology come and go, yet email has persevered for 45 years and isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
That said, the format of email and strategies for effective email communication keep changing every couple of years. Presently, there is a cacophony of information due to the presence of unprecedented data on the world-wide-web. In this environment, it is more important than ever to make email communication stand out.
Read on as three digital marketing experts delineate the anatomy of modern email communication for marketing:
1. The Subject Line
According to Skannd Tyagi, Founder, E Info Solutions, the decision to open an email is taken in less than a second. "The subject line has to be emotive, personal and should demand action. It should be interesting and when someone reads it, they should want to click it," he elaborated.
Dipak Agarwal, Founder of Onex Solutions Private Limited, agreed that the sender's name and subject line are key factors for opening mail. "The Subject line should be clear, attractive and short. Do not personalise the Subject line with name as the trend is out," he shared.
E.g. Flipkart sent a mail on completion of one year with Subject line - It's Our Anniversary Today, Let's meet on a date again! This, he said, "Excites the recipient to open and discover the mail, which means half job done for you as email marketer."
2. The First Sentence
The first sentence is a display of the sender's summarisation skills. "A marketer should be able to communicate the idea in one sentence. It should be so complete that if a person has to just read that one sentence, they should be able to know what the email is about," he said.
3. Suresh Jambunathan, Co-founder & Managing Director of Casperon technologies recommended adding link to the web content after the first paragraph. "If you grasp the attention of your reader with the very first line or paragraph, chances are that they will carry on reading till the end, even choose to see in the browser and share it. But if not keyed up with the content, why would anyone bother?" he illustrated.
4. Content
Rich text allows for augmentation of an existing piece of written communication, and email is the best platform to allow this. An email should have at least three-four hyperlinks, which make it a richer experience for the customer. Tyagi suggested dominating this Halloween by becoming a Superman.
"This allows a marketer to communicate multiple ideas in one message, empowering the reader to be able to stand out," he narrated.
Agarwal is of the opinion that emails should contain engaging content as per target audience. "Dynamic and relevant content will help generate curiosity with your customer and give better open and click rate for the campaign," he shared.
He advised the content to be designed in such manner that it is responsive to mobile and re-directs consumers to the landing page.
5. The Design
Images, embedded in the overall layout and design, allow the reader to engage with the email till the end. Tyagi suggests use of tools like Canva and Mailchimp to design emails which, he feels, are easy on the eye, with minimum words, and more pictures. "These pictures can be clickable and should direct the reader back to your website or product page," he notified.
Jambunathan feels one can write valuable content, customers will not read it if the email's design doesn't hold their interest. "When designing emails, think about subscribers interaction the more the scope of interaction better engagement happens," he alerted.
Readers on mobile devices are less likely to engage with emails difficult to follow on a smaller screen. Keep your message as focused as possible," he added.
6. Time of Communication
However with 122 billion emails flooding the inbox, it's difficult for marketer to standout. The ideal time of communication should depend on the content in the email.
"We should find the most suitable time for sending email, depending on the brands we are trying to promote. Sending email about a tea brand between 6-8 AM is a good idea but not right one for a real estate company. For the latter sending emails depend on the target audience, like for MIG range of projects, 1-3 PM is idle, for HIG after 4 PM is good," advocated Agarwal.
7. The Ending and Signature
At the end of the day, marketing should translate into sale. If the email body has not done it already, the final factor of the mail is the ending and the last chance for your reader to engage with your product/service. Tyagi vouched that the ending should be short and crisp, giving the reader all the information necessary for the next step(s) and should nudge them enough to take the first step.
He also endorsed each mail should end with a professional signature. "This exudes a sense of confidence and stability to the reader. The signature should have full name, designation, company logo (if applicable), contact number, website and email address of the sender, social media handles (Optional) and postal address," outlined Tyagi.
Although there are several other principals, which can be applied in successfully implementing email campaigns, these are the fundamentals on which all email marketing frameworks will work.
