There’s no denying the importance of email marketing in any comprehensive marketing campaign. It plays a pivotal role in a comprehensive marketing campaign, serving as a versatile and highly effective tool for businesses to connect with their audience. One of its key advantages lies in its ability to deliver targeted and personalised messages directly to the inboxes of potential customers. This direct communication channel fosters a sense of intimacy and trust, allowing businesses to establish and nurture relationships with their audience.
It also allows for a very personal approach in targeting and moving clients from a potential lead through the funnel to a conversion as it offers you a precise segmentation, ensuring that content is tailored to the specific interests and preferences of your audience.
Additionally, the cost-effectiveness and measurability of email campaigns make it a valuable asset for businesses seeking to maximise their marketing ROI in these times of inflation and a cost of living crisis which has equally impacted businesses. With the potential to drive brand awareness, customer loyalty, and sales, email marketing remains an indispensable element of a successful marketing strategy.
So, how to get the right email marketing strategy? Here are some of the challenges and hurdles to get that right. Some of the main problems associated with email marketing include:
Deliverability issues
One of the most significant challenges in email marketing is ensuring that your emails reach the intended recipients. Spam filters, blacklists, and various email service providers' algorithms can have an impact on your email’s deliverability - even the rating of your domain can have an impact on whether your emails get to where they need to go.
Make sure you are looking after your database of email lists as though your life depended upon it - because the growth in your business definitely does! Your email list has the ability to offer you great returns on your investment but only if maintained and utilised properly.
Using an automation tool like Email Hippo to verify your emails also means less bounce back and more deliverability. If every email you send comes with a cost, wouldn't you take every possible automated precaution to guarantee its successful delivery to the recipient?
Spam and unwanted emails
Many people receive a high volume of spam and unwanted marketing emails, which can lead to email fatigue and the recipient choosing to ignore or delete your messages. You need to ensure that your email is compliant and doesn’t fall foul of GDPR and other data privacy regulations including CAN-SPAM. These regulations require businesses to obtain consent and provide opt-out options for recipients. Violating these regulations can result in legal issues and damage to your brand reputation. Connecting email marketing with other tools and systems, such as CRM software, can sometimes be complex and require technical expertise but will help you to have better control of your list, your audience and to ensure they are getting a consistent and joined-up service from you that speaks to them.
Email Hippo offers multiple integration solutions as well through the use of Zapier, an option for those without developer skills.
List management
Building and maintaining a quality email list can be challenging. It's essential to regularly clean and update your list to ensure you're reaching engaged and interested subscribers. Keep lists clean and functional, offer the unsubscribe option always and there will be fewer chances your email will be classed as Spam. And don’t just group everyone into the same segment. Your audience is just as multi-faceted and complex as you are, so make sure you’re aligning your audiences and speaking to them with something that will pique their interest and help lead them to the next part of your funnel.
There’s an added benefit to ensuring the lists of your audience are as well maintained as they can be - they can help customise those all-important ads you may run on social media alongside any marketing campaign. Your email list captures those people who like to buy from you so use that information to customise audiences for use on other platforms too.
Relevant design and content are key! It’s not all about you.
Many people receive a large volume of emails daily, making it difficult for your messages to stand out in a crowded inbox. Valuable content is imperative to keep your recipient on board. Irrelevant or poorly targeted content can lead to subscribers opting out or marking emails as Spam. Personalisation and segmenting your list can help mitigate this issue.
Creating visually appealing and engaging email templates can be challenging, and the design should be consistent with your brand identity. You have only a matter of seconds (on average between two and eight!) to capture the recipient's attention and convey your message effectively so time is spent well on getting the design just as you need it. Too word heavy and it won’t be read - too complicated and people won’t follow and be put off. Subject lines and initial content need to be completely compelling too. And, remember, it’s not about you but the pain point you are potentially going to solve for your client. You may want to sell them a product or service but the selling should not be the point of the email. If you ant them to come on board with you, then tell them which issue that will solve.
How does it shape up on a mobile?
Do you know how many people are reading your emails on devices? It’s easy to think they will just be read at the desk on a PC, but with the increased use of smartphones, it's crucial to ensure your email campaigns are mobile-responsive and display correctly on various devices and screen sizes. There isn’t a bigger turn-off than having to scroll endlessly down or even sideways to view the content. Many won’t and so all of those hours of effort will be effectively lost and your message will have been missed. Continuously testing and optimising email campaigns for how they land will mean less angst in the long run. And once you have a format that works, the consistent look of that will have your brand recognised the next time around so stick with it!
Beating the competition to it!
Standing out from the competition is a challenge with the amount of companies out there eyeing up potential leads and clients too! The challenge is to capture the attention of recipients and you can only do that by understanding what your recipients are doing with your email. Understanding and interpreting email marketing metrics can be complex but it’s crucial to track the right KPIs and use the data to make informed decisions about the angle and content of the next campaign - and there will be one!
Getting your content consistently in front of your audience is key, as is understanding how often is best for your business. Sending emails too frequently can lead to email fatigue, causing subscribers to disengage or unsubscribe. Finding the right balance is essential. In a recent poll by Hubspot of their users, 33% of marketers send out emails every week, and 26% send them out multiple times a month
Despite these challenges, email marketing is still highly effective when done correctly. By addressing these issues and staying informed about best practise, businesses can use email marketing to reach and engage their target audience successfully.
Don’t let your biggest email challenge lead you to not try it at all!