Is Email Marketing Dead?
When promoting your business, how do you like to communicate with your audience?
Perhaps you like being active on your social media channels rather than sending emails.
Maybe you’ve even wondered…
…is email marketing dead?
In my opinion, mass email marketing may be dead, however personalised email marketing is very much alive and kicking – it’s actually one of the most effective ways of reaching your customers.
One of the great things about personalised email marketing is that the content is guaranteed to reach your audience – it will always land in your customer’s inbox, unlike mass mailings, which can often be filtered out by email clients. And that’s also where it’s different to your social media posts. These can often get missed completely due to the fast pace of social media, and we all know that algorithms can affect what we see in our news feeds. Plus, email is a part of our daily lives; we’re accessing our email accounts regularly, so these communications are less likely to get missed.
So yes, there’s certainly a place for email marketing, but you need to carefully consider how to do it as effectively as possible, always personalising it.
How Can You Personalise Your Email Marketing?
Take a Targeted Approach
Getting targeted when sending out your marketing emails is a great idea. When you’re promoting specific products and services, this is where email can really come into its own.
Your social media marketing communications can sometimes be more general in nature – a key benefit of email marketing is that you can get specific, focused and targeted, and this is when your messages will really start to speak to your audience.
It’s all about treating your customers like the unique individuals that they are. This is why you should also include your customers’ names when contacting them, so they feel that you’re reaching out to them specifically.
Create Tailored Content
When you identify people’s specific needs and interests, you can send content you feel would benefit them. And when you do this, people are far more likely to open, read and engage with your emails.
There are lots of ways in which you can work out what content people might be interested in. Why not carry out some research to identify issues that specific groups of people may be facing? You can then use this information to send out marketing communications that will really speak to them, describing how your products and services can ease their pain points. Or you could send out a customer survey. This is a great way for you to gain valuable feedback and make your customers feel valued – a win-win situation.
Send Automated Triggered Emails
Another way of taking a tailored approach when communicating with your customers is by sending out triggered emails. This could be an email sent out when someone has signed up for your newsletter. Or how about a thank you email when an order has been placed? Whatever it is, a triggered email will allow you to send out relevant content that people are more likely to read and engage with.
There was perhaps once a time when personalised and tailored emails were seen as optional. These days, though, this approach is pretty much essential, as it makes your communications more effective.
And there’s one tool that will be your best friend when it comes to sending out powerful marketing emails…and that is a CRM system.
How a CRM System Can Help with Your Email Marketing
Great Central Platform for Email Marketing Activities
A CRM system integrates perfectly with email marketing software, and template messages can be easily accessed. This makes it really straightforward when sending out your communications and tracking activity related to them. It’s the perfect central platform – all the information you need in one place.
Segment your Audience
With a CRM system, you can quickly and easily segment your audience. You can then tailor the content you’re sending out to them, ultimately increasing the chances of it being read. When you’ve researched and identified pain points for particular groups of people, select them within your CRM and send out the content that will really speak to them.
Access Data for Personalisation
All the data you need for personalisation can be found within your CRM system. You’ll also be able to use other data to send out targeted emails, like details of people’s past purchases, so you can think about other products or services they might be interested in buying.
Analyse the Effectiveness of Your Email Marketing
A CRM system can store data about when an email has been opened if it’s been read, and what links people have clicked on. Maybe you included a link to a video, and you’d like to know who has viewed it. All this information is useful as it means that you can send follow-up emails that are even more targeted.
Automation of Triggered Emails
Saving you time and effort, a CRM can provide effective automation when it comes to sending out triggered emails. This means that the right emails will go out at the right time – you don’t need to worry about this – let the technology do the work for you.
So, I would say that email marketing is definitely not dead. It can be effective when personalised and done correctly, helping you gain more sales and grow your business.
And it’s definitely worth investing in a CRM system as this will make it much easier for you to carry out your email marketing activities. Even better, if you choose a bespoke CRM system, it can then be perfectly tailored to your business.
Contact us to learn more about how CRM Engine will help you get the results you’re looking for from your email marketing activities.
Author : Mary Mason
Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash