Of the many twists of recent events, surely one is the ‘return’ of the classic marketing standard – Email Marketing. Often thought to reach its demise over the last few years, Email has stubbornly stayed alive and relevant – and in 2020 has become a level playing field for new online migrants and established brands alike.

At Meiro, we can’t say we saw these events having these effects… but we’ve always known the worth of email marketing. When deftly wielded in conjunction with segmentation, Email marketing can be a powerful tool and a necessity in every marketer’s arsenal. In fact, more than 59% of marketers according to Hubspot have mentioned email as the biggest source of their ROI.

2020 and the effects on Email

As small businesses have quickly become online migrants, email marketing with its ease of use and accessibility, has been their first-stop strategy of sorts. While on the other hand, even the bigger brands have relied on email marketing to retain their customer bases by messages of support and offers to drive the audience to their online stores. As Netimperatives interprets, recent data shows that 44% more emails are being sent now, as compared to before worldwide lockdowns began.

Conversely, the surge has also led to a rise in readership as audiences cooped up at home possibly turn to their inboxes for a dose of brand therapy. Open rates reached a high of 27% in the month of April, higher than before the crisis began.

Okay, so email has never been stronger. But does this mean that marketers can adopt a ‘spray and pray’ approach – spamming every kind of promotional email they can create to everyone on their list? Hardly. Let’s take a look at how brands can optimise their email strategies.

Care via Email

Brands make email a journey of communication, using it to establish and nurture relationships with their customers. In fact, according to the Wumderman study 79% of customers said that brands must demonstrate a measure of understanding and care before they will even consider making a purchase. Which explains all those “we’re all in this together” emails that have been flooding your inbox.

Care must also enter the equation of the customer experience here, as an email is only as important as where it leads to. Tracking the customer journey can help you create a better CX through more specific landing pages that don’t make the customer feel lost or led astray.

Personalization through Segmentation

Blast marketing methods never work. Speaking to a crowd can never let you truly understand your customer. It’s important for marketers to segment their customer bases according to criteria such as location, age, gender, occupation or interests – or even micro-segments, or according to their online interactions with your website or app, and then create more specific messaging for each.

Inboxes face more spam than ever from sellers and providers of every sort, and a personalised email can help cut through the clutter to create a direct connection. Indeed, a study from Campaign Monitor has shown emails with personalised subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened, and marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns.

Why include Exclusion Driven Emailing

Contrary to what it sounds like, Exclusion-Driven Emailing isn’t about reducing your contact base – but using first-party data to know how, when and which customers to exclude, and to find a better, more effective way of reaching them. If for example, a customer has left a bad review on your website – first-party data can inform you to leave them out from sales messaging for a week and instead target them with Facebook ads. Letting your email campaign tie in, and be a valuable component of your omnichannel strategy.

Another way to use exclusion driven practices to boost your email marketing? Stop sending emails! You’d be wastefully paying for people who don’t respond or react to your emails. Maybe direct those resources to newer segments instead?

Boost your Email Campaign

Read the rest of this email story on our blog to find out what to do now to increase the impact of your email campaigns and deliver the right message to your customers and clients.