E-mail marketing is a powerful channel for companies seeking to communicate with a B-to-B or B-to-C audience. But to run a successful e-mail marketing campaign, it is important to follow certain best practices and choose the right tool. So how can you best initiate, manage and monitor your e-mail marketing campaigns? How can you adopt the strategy that best suits your needs? Nicolas Henry, digital marketing expert, explains.
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 such as sending emails or text messages, managing social networks, tracking customer interactions on a website and personalising marketing messages.
Automation allows marketers to set up campaigns or tasks that run automatically according to specific criteria. For example, sending a welcome email when a new customer signs up. These tools also enable your audiences to be segmented according to their behaviour, preferences and demographic data. This makes communication more targeted and personalised.
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 do you choose your e-mail marketing tool?
There are many e-mail marketing tools available on the market, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. To choose the right tool for your business, there are a number of criteria to consider.
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 according to the number of subscribers, sending volumes, features and the level of service offered.
Functionality
E-mail marketing tools offer a wide range of functions. These include mailing list segmentation, campaign automation and orchestration, A/B testing and monitoring and reporting of your actions.
Integration
Choose a tool that integrates easily into your IS ecosystems, and in particular with the business and marketing tools you use. For example: cash register software, loyalty programme, stock management tool.
Customer support
It is important to have access to reliable customer support that is available when you need it.
Ensure good deliverability of email marketing
E-mailing means deliverability. To write a good e-mail marketing campaign, it's important to follow these tips to ensure that an e-mail you send arrives in the recipient's inbox:
- Write a short, catchy subject line that encourages recipients to open the e-mail.
- 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 carry out a specific action.
- Personalise e-mailing according to the interests and behaviour of recipients.
Example of personalized content based on behavior:
If a customer has recently purchased a specific product, send them a follow-up email with recommendations for similar products or relevant accessories: "XXX, discover your exclusive offer - 50 % on your favourite products!" Make sure your e-mailing works on both desktop and mobile: e-mails optimised for a smooth user experience on all platforms.
To summarize, what are the advantages?
Personalisation: e-mailing enables in-depth personalisation based on the customer's behaviour, preferences and buying cycle, thereby boosting engagement.
Profitability: compared with other marketing channels, e-mailing is often more profitable, offering an excellent ROI.
Performance tracking: analysis tools allow you to track campaign performance in real time, providing data that can be used to optimise future strategies. For example: an abandoned basket campaign will give you the sales generated by this campaign.
Segmentation: segmentation of the mailing list makes it possible to target specific groups of subscribers, guaranteeing more relevant messages.
Best practices to put in place
To maximise the effectiveness of your e-mail marketing campaign, you need to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You need to obtain the explicit consent of 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 e-mails regularly to keep recipients engaged.
Keep it healthy and engaging. Finally, test different topics, designs and calls to action to find out what works best.
A/B test on the subject line
Send two versions of your e-mail to different segments of your list with different subject lines. Some tools even allow you to send 10 % of your database one subject line, then another 10 % a second subject line, and the segment with the highest open or click rate will be the one sent to the remaining 80 %.
KPIs to monitor for an effective e-mailing campaign
Once the e-mail has been sent, it's time to analyse it. To track the effectiveness of your e-mail marketing campaign, remember to monitor 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 e-mails sent. This rate includes recipients who have opened and accepted to display the images. Recipients who click on a link in the e-mail are added to the calculation even if they have not agreed to display the images. The open rate is one of the most reliable rates. It should be noted that new Apple privacy features have been introduced, which may affect the tracking of e-mail opens. For example, Apple Mail Privacy Protection prevents senders from knowing whether an e-mail has been opened by preventively downloading web beacons, regardless of whether the user has actually opened the e-mail or not.
Analysis of the A/B test on the subject line
After sending the two versions of the e-mail to different segments, analyse the open rates to determine which works best.
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
E-mail marketing is an essential communication channel for B-to-B companies. According to a study by Belacom, a well-optimised campaign can achieve open rates of up to 35 % and click-through rates of 5 %. These figures are lower than in the B-to-C sector, with less decision-making power 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 e-mails, such as polls, quizzes and image galleries, help to increase engagement and gather feedback. For example: sending a selection of complementary products that can be added to the shopping basket directly via the e-mail. AMP technology.
Example of interactive e-mailing with survey: "What type of content would you like to see more of in our next e-mails?".
Advanced automation
Companies are adopting sophisticated automation workflows to deliver relevant messages throughout the customer journey.
What you need to remember: e-mail marketing is an effective channel for acquiring and retaining your contacts. By following good practice and choosing the right e-mail marketing tool, you can maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns.
