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APRIL2017
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71
THINK
points out that companies
investing at least a fifth of their
marketing budgets in email are
eight times more likely to see
sales attributable to it in excess of
50 percent.
The reason behind email’s
potency? Despite all the buzz
over social media, 58 percent of
internet users say the first thing
they check on their device each
morning is email, according to a
study by Exact Target.
“Here’s the truth: When you
have someone’s email, you’re
allowed to communicate with
them when you want, how you
want,” says Derek Halpern,
owner of Social Triggers, an
online marketing consultancy.
Halpern says he conducted
his own informal test recently,
pitting email against Twitter.
He sent out a post on Twitter
with a link on which he wanted
prospective customers to click.
Then he sent out the same post
and link via email.
The result? Fifty of his
Twitter followers clicked on the
link, while 1,200 of his email
subscribers clicked on the same
link. “Yes, my email list might be
twice as large as my social media
following, but it generated about
24 times more clicks,” Halpern
says. “That’s the power of email.”
Also helping email’s cause is the
work IT departments have been
doing to block spam fromgetting
to company email boxes. Overall,
those safeguards have significantly
decreased the amount of spam
businesses get as compared to just
a few years ago.
Consequently, email open
rates are looking healthy.
On average, 17.6 percent of
emails are now being opened
by recipients, reports IBM’s
2016 Email Marketing Metrics
Benchmark study.
Of course, getting email
marketing right for your
promotional products business
involves more than simply
knowing it works. Here are the
10 most popular best practices
for email marketing, based on
insights from the Econsultancy/
Adestra survey:
1
Engage In Basic
Segmentation:
Seventy-
eight percent of companies
said they’re doing basic
segmentationwith their
email marketing. Essentially,
thismeans they’re creating
slightly di erent versions of
the same email marketing
message to cater to di erent
segments of a company’s
customer base. Some of your
customers in the Southeast,
for example, might get a
slightly di erent message
than customers in the
Northwest. “ e advances in
technology that allowmore
personalization and dynamic
content are great enablers to
help companies di erentiate
themselves in an inbox,”
says Boundless’s Price.
2
Optimize For Mobile:
Sixty-
four percent of companies
said they’re ensuring their
emails are optimized for
mobile. In practice, this
translates into using single
column email designs that
allow for easier resizing,
using responsive design
that automatically resizes
an email based on screen
size and eliminating content
inmobile emails that is
ordinarily displayed on full-
sized computers. “ e usage
trend is clearlymoving to
mobile devices,” says Geiger.
“Emailsmust be viable on
smartphones and tablets.”
3
Clean Your List Regularly:
Fifty-four percent of
companies surveyed said
their email marketing success
also hinged on ensuring
they purged their mailing
list regularly of addresses
that bounced back as no
longer valid. ey also are
quickly removing email
addresses from the list when
customers request it.
4
Encourage Email Sharing
On Social Networks:
Forty-
seven percent of customers
surveyed said they got
moremileage from their
marketing emails after asking
their customers to share
those emails on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagramand other
social media networks.
5
Use Your Transaction Emails
For Marketing:
Forty-three
percent of companies said
they had a standard practice
of insertingmarketing
messages into transaction
emails. In practice, a
promotional products
businessmight pitch another
product or upgrade when
con rming a deal by email.
6
Include Video Content:
Forty-two percent of
companies said adding video
content to their email was
critical to the potency of
thosemarketingmessages.
Given that YouTube is
the secondmost popular
The reasonbehind
email’s potency?
Despite all the
buzz over social
media, 58 percent
of internet users
say the first
thing they check
on their device
eachmorning is
email, according
to a study by
Exact Target.