Does email marketing still work?

It's a recurring question we hear from our customers and the short answer is YES, if done well. An effective email campaign starts with:

1. Database: To a solid, tightly targeted house list.

2. Content: We segment emails into one of three categories.

• Newsletter - educational
• Special offer - targeted, date sensitive
• Invitiation/appointment - 1:1 sales outreach

3. Hook / Call to Action: Email marketing should drive the reader to your website. If there isn't a clear Call to Action in the email - for the reader to want to investigate more, then the email will not be successful.

Email is part of your overall marketing roadmap

As this graphic shows, Email marketing is one element of an online marketing strategy. Too often clients believe that employing one or two marketing tactics is good enough. It usually isn't.

We advise our clients to use email marketing to bolster other marketing efforts. For example, a newsletter style email is great to stay in front of your customers with company, product, and industry relevant news. For events such as trade shows, use email marketing to generate pre-show interest & post-show follow-up with those who visited the booth and those who didn't.

How to tell what's working 

How do you know your email marketing is working? First, test:

1. Database: Test the validity of each list, clean it up before the start of a major campaign.

2. Content: Run A/B testing on the subject line, content and graphics.

3. Hook: Which call to action graphic, words and placement work best?

High tech marketing - email metrics

For Optics and Technology companies' email campaigns, here's some rough numbers we expect to see:

1. Database: Under 6% of your house list should bounce (soft + hard bounces combined)

2. Content: Expect an open rate over 21%

3. Hook: Expect click-through rate in the range of 10-15%

Want more in-depth but broader findings? Check out this excellent report containing key takeaways from Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit 2012.

Want to discuss your email marketing efforts? Call us.