Marketing focus – Why email marketing is so effective
I am a great believer in email marketing, because it is a cheap and direct form of marketing which generates results. However, you need to believe in it too, as it’s a question of consistency and perseverance to really get the results you want.
Email marketing is a way of drip-feeding information about your company and product to an audience who already have an interest in you, because they’ve joining up to your mailing list, met you via networking or done business with you in the past. The idea is that once you have a large database who are receptive to your message, that you should send them regular communication of a high quality so that one day it will hit their inbox when they have time to read it, were thinking of changing their supplier, or were looking for something you can provide. Basically you need to keep hitting them until they are ready to respond, ensuring that your company is at the front of their mind when the need arises.
Don’t expect an instant response from your entire mailing list, but if you’re doing it right, each time a newsletter goes out, a certain proportion of your list will take action, either to visit your website, contact you, or buy something. You should be looking for an open rate of upwards of 15% and a click through of around 5%, depending on your stories/offers. This however varies widely depending on your industry, there’s an excellent article on the MailChimp website which is a survey they have done on average open rates, bounce rates and click-throughs. This is a good guide for what you can expect to see.
Recently I have personally experienced two good examples of how email marketing can work as a consumer which I wanted to share. The first is the insurance provider Ibex, who we took our house insurance with following meeting their representative at some networking meetings. They do a regular newsletter to their policy holders to keep them informed about the company and also cross-sell other policies. Shortly after taking out our home insurance policy, Ibex sent us an email offering reduced price car insurance for holders of home insurance. This email happened to arrive just as our car insurance policy came up for renewal, so we contacted them for a quote and switched to their service. A great example of the combined power of networking and email marketing!
The second in the clothes shop Next. They were advertising aggressively about their delivery to Spain for just 5€ and in response to this, I bought my boyfriend some Next clothes for his birthday in July. Since then I’ve been getting regular emails from them, which I have deleted without looking at them, but this week it happened to hit my inbox when I had a moment to browse and had something in mind which I wanted to buy. So I went in, found what I wanted and bought a few extra things for good measure! If I hadn’t received that email I would have probably bought something on the high street, but it caused me to act by perseverence.
I think all businesses can learn lessons from these two examples of how being persistant and regular in your communication can pay off and how email marketing strategies such as cross-selling, upselling and schemes to recommend a friend or special offers can cause people to take action. Email marketing is a very effective way to communicate and doesn’t need to be expensive. If we can help you improve or launch your Costa del Sol email marketing campaign please send us an email info@shawmarketingservices.com or give us a call 952 903 154. Alternatively, why not visit our website and sign up to receive our regular email newsletter and see what we’re doing.