When was the last time you received a promotional email that made you smile, laugh, or really think? When was the last time you liked one so much that you forwarded it to a colleague, friend, or family member?
For most of us, this happens very rarely. Most consumers say the promotional emails they receive are forgettable — and definitely not worth passing on to others.
This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.
I think we can all agree that things taste that much sweeter when we actually earn them: the promotion you got, the first car you bought with the money you saved mowing lawns for three summers, or the free coffee you received after the cashier punched the final hole in your rewards card.
Okay, friends. Who here loves email marketing data? Give us a virtual hand raise.
Yep, that’s pretty much everyone. We all love watching the performance of our content — the good and the bad. What was our open rate? Clickthrough rate? Our unsubscribe rate? These numbers help us improve our email marketing campaigns.
If you’re normal, you checked your email within the past 60 minutes. If you’re even more normal, you don’t even “check your email.” Instead, it’s always there — pinging, dinging, distracting your mind, chewing up your workday, and making you stressed out and unproductive.
Email is a monster. Each of us has our ways of whimpering and giving in to the monster, or rising to slay it with technological indignation.
There are a lot of things I used to buy in person that I now buy online. I wouldn’t call myself lazy, but it’s just so much easier to carry a box of paper towels from my doorstep into my apartment than it is to carry it down the street from my local grocery store.
And I’m not alone. Whether it’s because of the larger selection, better pricing, convenience, or something else, a lot more people are buying stuff online nowadays instead of in person.
This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.
First impressions are powerful — and they’re not just limited to face-to-face interactions. These days, many people are judging companies based on their email efforts before they even start a conversation with an actual person.
Email marketers don’t have it easy these days.
In the early days of email marketing, we only had to worry about a handful of desktop email clients. Now, we have to make sure our marketing emails look good in a variety of desktop clients, from Gmail to Outlook to Yahoo! Mail. On top of that, you have to consider mobile users, too — after all, 53% of people read email on their mobile devices.
Recently, an email about a new public market opening in my neighborhood caused me to go on a forward-frenzy. (You’re welcome, Boston Public Market.) I was so excited that I shared it with every single family member, friend, or co-worker who lived in that area. While no purchases were directly made from that email, Boston Public Market’s reach was greatly increased — all because it sent an interesting, relevant email to me.
You need people to email, and you need them quickly. Oh, and if you could get them pretty cheap, that’d be great, too.
That’s the mindset many marketers find themselves in when they’re on the phone with a list-purchasing company: We need new people to email to feed our sales organization. Acting on that moment of desperation, however, can cause them more long-term (and short-term) harm than good.
Do you want the bad news or the good news first?
Let’s start with the bad: Email marketing databases naturally degrade by about 22.5% every year.
Whether your contacts switch companies, decide to purge an old address they don’t use anymore, or simply opt-out of your email communication, they’re gone … and they might not be coming back.
Over a million subscribers. Five hundred thousand followers on social media. Oprah’s favorite newsletter.
These things didn’t seem like an achievable reality when Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin quit their jobs at NBC News to start theSkimm. With only two months of savings and zero experience starting a business, they weren’t sure what was in store for their startup.
When it comes to analyzing the performance of an email marketing campaign, many marketers turn to opens and clicks as a means of measuring success. And while these fundamental metrics are important to note, there are actually a lot more to consider. The keyword here being “a lot.”
In fact, the wealth of data available to the modern day marketer can be super overwhelming.
When I go on vacation, I completely turn off work … but I don’t stop marketing.
Of course I don’t actually work while I’m on vacation. It wouldn’t truly be a vacation if I did. I use my out-of-office reply to continue marketing while I’m gone. Below is my most recent one.
