More often than not, marketers face enormous challenges in just simply reaching customers. In addition, old-school mass email campaigns that ignore the tastes of a modern audience may also result in lacklustre results. One might even start wondering if email marketing even works anymore?
Luckily, if you tweak your strategy and focus more on your relationship with your customers, you’ll find your efforts rewarded with clicks and more engagement.
Here’s what to do if your email marketing just isn’t working anymore.
Very few consumers enjoy overly aggressive marketing, so perhaps your email campaigns are failing to connect with potential buyers because all you’re doing is throwing advertisements in their faces.
In fact, such blatant abuse of the email address a customer has provided will undoubtedly result in a block, filter, or outright unsubscribe. As the tastes of modern customers evolve, so too must the techniques that marketers use to send customers the information they’re likely to be interested in receiving. Try mixing content with coupons, topical discussions, and related marketing pieces.
Another contributing factor could be how your marketing campaigns are designed. Although perhaps a more superficial branding concern, a little self-reinvention wouldn’t hurt if you find your emails looking and feeling a little outdated. If your banners and fonts are still stuck in the ‘90s, then you might need a refresh.
Ultimately, email marketing is still a viable medium to reach customers, but much more emphasis must be placed on both the delivery and the message.
If social media has taught us anything about propelling business growth, it’s how tapping into the global conversation and the current zeitgeist can be beneficial for deepening the relationship between organization and consumer.
One fun way to take advantage of social media is to integrate positive feedback, product photos, and even relevant memes from Twitter feeds and Instagram feeds into your emails. This helps build a sense of community and shows that you’re actively engaged with your audience on a higher level than most businesses. In addition, it’s important to consider video, as it is some of the best performing content out there and is the kind of media that future customers will love.
However, you may have to tread lightly in terms of using “click bait” strategies in your email marketing. The long-term viability of “click bait” isn’t as promising as unique content, yet this kind of content generates buzz and hype. It’s up to savvy marketers to be aware of global conversations and find a way to carefully, yet effectively, use these types of strategies to boost engagement.
Truly blind sales pitches are a thing of the past and, quite frankly, are not enough to win over customers in today’s digital age. The more people interact online, the more there is a desire for personalized, meaningful connection. When it comes to marketing products, consumers truly prefer buying from “real people” and not faceless corporations.
The simplest way to build up this rapport and humanize your business is to care and to offer bespoke service, even when it comes to email marketing. Whether you engage over social media or employ technologies that gather information and remind consumers about previous interactions, valuing and focusing on your target audience can work wonders for both your reputation and your profits.
Ultimately, if you want to see success in the future and beyond, you have to make sure your email marketing is smart, targeted, and presents your business in the best light possible.