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Email has become increasingly powerful. As a marketing tool, it leads all other channels in ROI. Marketers love email because it remains cost-effective, instant, and the best way to meet customers where they are. Most people check their email multiple times a day, and it’s not an exaggeration that they can spend hours in the inbox.
So many email marketers know how effective email can be, but like anything in business, a minor tuneup can pay big dividends. If you’re getting good results from your email campaigns, calibration will help you reap more.
Things are flatlining? Consider checking up on a few details of your email campaigns.
Let’s see how strategic revitalization helps you amplify engagement and effectiveness.
Revitalize your email marketing: revamp your sign-up forms
It’s the most direct way for people to get on your list, yet it’s frequently what so many email marketers overlook. Just think of it: someone signing up is how they find out more about you. Customers are giving you permission to market to them. Remember: your company has something valuable. So don’t be sheepish. Instead, keep in mind that you can help them.
Yet, all too often, a common complaint is that customers must hunt for the email signup form. How could that be? Perhaps you haven’t imagined things from your customer’s perspective.
Email marketing involves your customers asking you to communicate with them. This is one reason your email list is one of your most valuable assets. So, re-examine the idea that your signup form should be a discreet hyperlink on the contact page.
Also, get out of the mindset that you just have one sign-up form. Instead, place several sign-up forms on your website and blog to entice people to join your list.
Second, your signup forms should say a few words about what people will get. For example, a grocery store may say, “Sign up to find out about the latest products and savings.” The real problem is that sometimes the signup form only says something like “subscribe now,” which is uninspiring and offers no benefits to the customer.
This brings us to our next step in revitalizing your email marketing. Get the dialogue going with a stellar offering.
Offer new and improved incentives for subscribing
Psychologist and author Robert Cialdini has spoken at length about how generosity isn’t just the right thing to do – it also helps you. It can even be a principle of persuasion. Cialdini points out that restaurant servers leaving a mint with the bill got an average increased 3% tip. Leaving two mints per person resulted in a 14% increase.
Having compelling incentives to attract subscribers can be the start of a great relationship. If you want to communicate about your brand and begin associating you with helping them, give them something they can’t get anywhere else.
You can customize your incentives or freebies based on your industry. Your sign-up forms can offer subscribers exclusive content, discounts, or even a free trial or access to an online course.
“Every six to twelve months, you should revitalize your incentives program,” said Anne Ghaltchi, CMO at ZeroBounce. The expert went on: “Perhaps you can refresh a digital resource you created or expand the way you promote your freebies so you can reach new audiences.”
Some marketers make their incentives into a series. If you have an infographic, consider making it specific to the year. Those who remain subscribed automatically get a link to the latest goodie, and any new subscribers also have access to it. Be generous.
Clean your list often
You can have the best emails in the world, but it won’t matter if nobody sees them. That’s why you should place a lot of emphasis on maintaining a healthy list. It’s like any other thing of value: the better care you take of it, the better your results will be. This rule applies to almost everything, but especially to your email database.
Some of the email addresses on a list will sour. It can be as simple as someone ditching their personal email address because they have a more official email from their work or school. Someone could finally toss their Hotmail address to get the more user-friendly ProtonMail or Gmail. You may be thinking, “Well, what’s the harm in keeping all of the emails you’ve collected and just seeing what sticks?”
It’s easy to understand how people develop this mindset. You want to add to your email list, not take away from it. In reality, taking away bad email addresses means the viability of your email list increases.
Sending email campaigns to flawed emails means you’ll get bounces. Bounces cause your sender reputation to plummet, meaning that even the perfect email addresses on your list will depreciate in usefulness. Your emails will land in the spam folder because sending emails indiscriminately is a spam-like behavior.
You need to practice two types of email validation and do this at least quarterly. If it’s the middle of the year and you haven’t validated your email list, you’re way overdue.
Start with bulk email validation
With bulk email validation, you clean your entire email list from top to bottom. You prepare your list as a file that your email validation platform recognizes. Then, you upload the list and begin.
Your email validation service will identify problematic and obsolete contacts. You should part with them. Have no regret – they cannot help you. Keeping risky email addresses in your database will accomplish the opposite, so prune them out.
Add an email validation API
Remember when we talked about improving your email signup forms? If you aren’t already, ensure that all your online forms allowing someone to enter an email address have an email validation API connected.
Your bulk email validation platform should also have an API available. You want your email forms to be a source of valuable leads, but having unprotected forms makes them a vulnerable point. Don’t let low-quality emails seep into your list. Use your email verifier via the API to check new subscribers in real time.
Set up email authentication
Usually, marketers looking to level up their email program focus on creating the best emails. That’s a great strategy, no matter where you are in your email marketing journey. Savvy email marketers also consider the necessity of email validation and do what they must to improve.
However, ever since the email space’s new rules were rolled out, email authentication has become increasingly involved in the discussion. According to new rules agreed upon by Google and Yahoo, email authentication has never been more necessary.
Email authentication is the process of verifying the sender’s legitimacy. It ensures that the person sending the emails is who they proclaim to be. It’s the only way to protect your domain from spoofing and fraud.
Email authentication tells Gmail, Yahoo, and other email providers that it’s you sending that email and not an impersonator. If you don’t set up email authentication, inbox providers can’t verify your sender identity, so chances are they’ll dump your messages into the junk folder.
If you haven’t gotten the ball rolling on email authentication, you must look for a platform that gives you the tools to do so. “Email authentication can be overwhelming, especially if you are unfamiliar with it,” said Simon Harper of SRH Design. The email and design expert went on: “There are three authentication methods (SPF, DKIM and DMARC). If you are a bulk sender, you will need all three to comply with the new Google and Yahoo sender guidelines.”
If this seems complicated, you needn’t worry. Harper offers the following: “Luckily, quality services offer free guides and tools to help you understand and generate these records to help you comply with the new sender guidelines.”
Simply find a service that handles email authentication and has accessible support. Some more advanced email validation services can help you with this and get you off the ground in no time.
You can’t skip on this. Authenticating your emails is one of the quickest and easiest ways to revitalize your campaigns. If you haven’t yet set it up, you can improve things simply by checking this off your list.
Use “focus groups” to determine customer needs
Dynamite email marketers consider their emails a conversation that goes two ways. Others incorrectly think of them more like a megaphone, which means they emphasize the importance of their own statements.
Without the people who subscribe, you’re simply talking to yourself. What’s the point of that? The most valuable thing you will get from your subscribers is feedback. You should not only allow replies to every single email you receive, but you should encourage subscribers to write you back. Every time they do, be sure to respond enthusiastically and promptly.
However, you should also do your best to make an internal list of people who have provided constructive feedback. Write to those people personally. Call them on the phone if possible. Tell them it would only take a few minutes, and make sure you know exactly what you’d like to ask them.
Developing relationships with people who provide you with valuable insight is priceless, so make sure to give them a gift. Hook them up. Sometimes, you can conduct focus groups on Zoom or Google Meets. If you go down that road, you want to be as organized as possible.
Make the most of the time you interact with people who are intimate with your email marketing. That time is worth its weight in gold. Come up with questions and topics to cover during these Q&A sessions so that you can gain the most valuable insights. You don’t want to waste their time or make them dread communicating with you again. Instead, by asking thoughtful questions and paying close attention to their feedback, you can gain their loyalty for years to come.
