Email marketing is one of the most popular forms of marketing, and there’s a reason for that. It offers a direct line of contact to your customers, and in times when you’re limited in your marketing options, you can reach customers straight to their hands.
Having a loyalty system already gives you a head start against other retailers, as your customers provide their email address when they sign up. You can use the database you’ve already gathered to send marketing emails and campaigns.
From automated welcome emails to specialised campaigns, this kind of marketing will have an undeniable impact on your business. We provide branded email templates on an easy-to-use retail email marketing system, so you can send what you like whenever you like.
The Lowdown on Email Marketing
Retailers say that email marketing generates, on average, 3800% return on their investments. The reason it’s so successful is that most of us are regular users of at least one email account – there are 3.9 billion daily email users, and that number is only expected to increase, reaching 4.3 billion in 2023. In 2019, there was an average of 293.6 billion emails being sent and received daily, expected to rise to a massive 374.3 million by 2022.
81% of small to medium businesses rely on email campaigns as their primary marketing strategy and 80% of retailers believe that email campaigns are responsible for most of their business’s customer retention, whilst 59% of consumers say marketing emails influence most of their purchase decisions.
And it’s not just businesses that benefit from marketing campaigns. 49% of consumers said they like to receive promotional emails from their favourite retailers on a minimum of a weekly basis.
Email Marketing Optimisation
Marketing email campaigns must be formatted correctly for you to benefit from the results. Make sure to balance the content of your emails – starting with a ratio of 60% text to 40% images is best, but ensure you’re using the data to tweak the next one to fit your customer audience.
Personalised subject lines generate 50% higher open rates than those that aren’t addressed to anyone, and another important aspect when it comes to ensuring your email campaigns are well received is timing. Sending your emails at specific times of the day can be the key to success.
If the primary aim of your email is to encourage the audience into making an immediate sale, research shows that the best time to send is at lunchtime. Email users of all demographics show a strong peak in checking their emails at this time, and the percentage of emails featuring a successful CTA is highest during this period. Meanwhile, emails that feature material meant to educate the audience are best sent early evening, when people have time to read it.
Differences in audiences can strongly dictate what’s best for you.
Gender Targeted Email Marketing
Men and women absorb and retain information differently, so it’s important to understand your target audience.
If your audience is mostly female, divide your email into sections and ensure that each individual section is pitching only one message. Each section should also include a CTA.
Using layouts that are bright and clear is useful amongst a female-dominated audience as it is more likely to catch the eye, and you should also make sure important information is easy to spot. Use a different font or background blocks of colour, and the use of large buttons featuring links can also be beneficial. Emotional appeal, such as donating a portion of your proceeds to charity, is also an effective method among women.
Women check their inboxes and interact with emails most often between midday and 2pm, so this is the ideal time to send your campaign.
For a male target audience, make sure to emphasise facts and figures. Break text up by using bullet points to portray your important information, and use technical language where appropriate. Most importantly, keep the content of your email short and concise.
Men check their inboxes throughout the day, but have peaks of interaction with emails at 9am, midday, and 5pm.
This information is worth utilising, as campaigns that target genders have the most impact, with some businesses seeing an increase in interaction and sales of over 10% compared to non-targeted campaigns.
Designing Your Marketing Campaigns
When writing content for marketing emails, it’s important to keep them short and concise. Don’t go into too much detail as most people often read their emails on their phones whilst on the go, so they only need a small amount of detail. Add a call to action with a link to a landing page or a way to contact you to decrease the amount of information you’re including in your emails.
The most important topic of your email should go first. This will catch your readers’ attention and make sure they don’t skip anything they should know.
Your marketing emails should be designed in a way to lead your customers’ eyes. Make sure that each section follows on and the design is tied together using your branding, such as colour schemes, fonts and logos. Your images should also follow a similar theme so as not to confuse readers, and don’t be afraid to use blank space to divide the topics and images that are included in your email.
Lastly, it’s important to recognise that your audience will be viewing your emails on all types of devices, so make sure your template is responsive for mobile phones, tablets, and desktop viewing.
Emails will be viewed on all devices so a responsive template is a must.
The design of your marketing campaigns is almost as important as the content itself, and these two aspects combined with optimised sending times is a recipe for success for your business. Email marketing is a tool that all retailers should be utilising to increase business, and our system makes it easy.
Contact us today to find out more.
