Email marketing is a powerful channel for businesses looking to communicate with an audience whether B to B or B to C. But to succeed with an email campaign, it is important to respect certain good practices and choose a suitable tool. So, how can you better initiate, manage and monitor your email marketing campaigns? How to adopt the strategy that best suits your needs? Some answers with Nicolas Henry, digital marketing expert.
Email marketing is used to communicate occasionally or regularly with contacts (prospects or customers) for marketing purposes. For example, this could be special offers, new products or services, upcoming events or regular newsletters.
At the same time, in tour use marketing automation, e-mail marketing allows, thanks to optimized scenarios, to be present at key moments and throughout the life course of your contacts.
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Marketing automation refers to the use of tools and technologies to automate repetitive marketing processes. This includes tasks like sending emails or text messages, managing social media, tracking customer interactions on a website, and personalizing marketing messages.
Automation allows marketers to set up campaigns or tasks that run automatically based on specific criteria. For example, sending a welcome email when a new customer signs up. These tools also allow segmentation of your audiences based on their behavior, preferences and demographic data. Communication thus becomes more targeted and personalized.
You can thus capture leads (potential customers) and nurture them throughout the sales process. This increases the chances of conversion.
Ultimately, implementing marketing automation allows you to achieve a better return on investment (ROI) from your marketing campaigns.
Thus, numerous scenarios can be set up to: thank a customer for a purchase, offer them a complementary product, recover an abandoned shopping cart or even alert that a product that has shown interest is back in stock.
How to choose your email marketing tool?
There are many email marketing tools available on the market, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. To choose the right tool for your business, you must take into account a certain number of criteria.
Your need and use of it
If you are a single user and your need is limited to sending one newsletter per month to a few dozen subscribers, you will not need the same tool as a marketing team of 20 people whose communication strategy digital technology is complete.
The price
Costs vary depending on the number of subscribers, sending volumes, features, and the level of service offered.
Functionality
Email marketing tools offer a wide range of features. This involves the segmentation of the mailing list, the automation of campaigns and their orchestration, A/B testing or even the monitoring and reporting of your actions.
The integration
Choose a tool that integrates easily into your IS ecosystems and in particular with the business and marketing tools that you use. For example: cash register software, loyalty program, stock management tool.
Customer Support
It is important to have access to reliable customer support that is available when needed.
Ensure good deliverability of email marketing
Who says e-mailing, says deliverability. To write a good email marketing campaign, it is important to follow the following tips to ensure that a sent email arrives in the recipient's inbox:
- Write a short, catchy subject line that encourages recipients to open the email.
- Use a clear layout that makes your brand identifiable at first glance and is easy to read (responsive design).
- Use images and videos to reinforce the message.
- Include a clear call to action that encourages recipients to take a specific action.
- Personalize email marketing based on recipient interests and behavior.
Example of personalized content based on behavior:
If a customer recently purchased a specific product, send them a follow-up email with recommendations of similar products or relevant accessories: “XXX, discover your exclusive offer – 50 % on your favorite products! » Make sure email works on both desktop and mobile: emails optimized for a smooth user experience across all platforms.
To summarize, what are the advantages?
Personalization: Email marketing allows for in-depth personalization based on customer behaviors, preferences, and buying cycle, thereby increasing engagement.
Profitability: Compared to other marketing channels, email marketing is often more cost-effective, providing excellent ROI.
Performance tracking: Analytics tools track campaign performance in real-time, providing actionable data to optimize future strategies. For example: an abandoned cart campaign will give you the turnover generated thanks to this campaign.
Segmentation: Mailing list segmentation allows you to target specific groups of subscribers, ensuring increased relevance of messages.
Best practices to put in place
To maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign, it is imperative to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You must therefore obtain explicit consent from recipients before adding them to your mailing list. This will avoid being blacklisted by ISPs.
Also explain to your recipients what will result from this consent: the sending of promotions, information related to products, etc.
Segment your mailing list based on recipient interests and behaviors and send targeted messages. This will maximize your open and click-through rates.
Send emails regularly to keep recipients engaged.
Keep a healthy and engaged base. Finally, test different topics, designs, and calls to action to find what works best.
A/B testing on the subject line
Send two versions of your email to different segments of your list with different subject lines. Some tools even allow you to send an object to 10 %s in your database, then to another 10 %s a second object and the segment having generated the highest rate of openings or clicks will be the one sent to the remaining 80 %s.
KPIs to monitor for an effective e-mailing campaign
After sending the e-mail, it’s time for analysis. To track the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign, consider monitoring these KPIs.
The opening rate
It represents the percentage of the total number of subscribers who opened your campaign out of the total number of emails sent. This rate includes recipients who opened and agreed to display the images. Recipients who click on a link in the email are added to the calculation even if they have not agreed to display the images. The opening rate is one of the most reliable rates. Please note that new privacy features on Apple have emerged and tracking of email openings may be affected. For example, Apple Mail Privacy Protection prevents senders from knowing whether an email has been opened by preemptively downloading web beacons, regardless of whether the user actually opened the email or not.
Subject line A/B testing analysis
After sending both versions of the email to different segments, analyze open rates to determine which one performs better.
Click rate
This is the percentage of recipients who click on a link in your email.
The reactivity rate
It corresponds to the percentage of openers who click on a link in your email.
The conversion rate
This is the percentage of recipients who take a specific action after clicking a link in your email. For example: buying a product or filling out a form.
Unsubscribe rate
It represents the percentage of recipients who unsubscribe from your mailing list.
How long does it take to analyze the results of an e-mail?
Check that your sending was made a few moments after the supposed time of it. In order to precisely analyze your KPIs, consult them after 24 hours and on D+3 of sending. The lifespan of an email is very short. You will therefore have little chance of finding a reading peak after 3 days.
For B to B strategies, you can also measure:
- The average time between the prospect's entry into the campaign scenarios and their arrival in the sales funnel
- The average time in the sales funnel until closing won or lost
- The cost of acquiring customers gained by these campaigns in order to make them as profitable as possible
Email marketing in numbers
Email marketing is an essential communication channel for B2B businesses. According to a study by Belacom, a well-optimized campaign can achieve open rates of up to 35 % and click-through rates of 5 %. Lower figures than in B to C with less significant decision-making powers and more complex decision-making chains.
An example
A consulting firm, client of Belacom, launched a webinar campaign. It achieved 45 % open rates and more than 23 % click-through rates on a sending base of 3,837 people. This is an excellent result for a database of this size (the overall database is 5,842 contacts). It is therefore healthy enough to achieve such strong performances.
At the same time, the average opening rate for the last 5 newsletter sends is around 32.11 % and the click rate is 3.48 %.
Well-optimized daily campaigns and a one-off campaign that stands out can therefore really achieve very high results.
Strategies to adopt
First of all, train yourself on the tools you use : “do you drive a car without having a license? ". Automate data exchange as much as possible : update your database automatically and regularly. Mset up scenarios to send personalized emails and maintain a continuous link throughout the relationship with your contact (welcome, post-purchase, reactivation, etc.). Also think about segment your database based on the interests and behaviors of the recipients. Renew and optimize the existing : what was valid yesterday may no longer be valid today and what is valid today may no longer be valid tomorrow. And finally, stay on standby on market trends.
3 key trends
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
L'IA is increasingly used to personalize product recommendations, improve segmentation and predict future subscriber behaviors.
Interactivity
Interactive emails, such as surveys, quizzes, and image galleries, help increase engagement and collect feedback. For example: sending a selection of complementary products which can be added to the basket directly via e-mail. AMP technology.
Example of an interactive email with a survey: “What type of content would you like to see more of in our next emails? »
Advanced automation
Businesses are adopting sophisticated automation flows to deliver relevant messages throughout the customer journey.
The bottom line: Email marketing is an effective channel for acquiring and retaining your contacts. By following best practices and choosing a suitable email marketing tool, you can maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns.
