Do Emails Still Succeed in 2015?

5 Ways You Can Get People To Read Your Emails

During your lunch break, you feel like you’re glued to your computer. You check your emails and inevitably stumble across a long list of emails containing offers that you didn’t ask for. You read the first subject line: “The Best of what’s New, Plus the sale continues.” You ignore it. And then you read another subject line that creeps you out: “Five new-arrivals that you need in your closet this season." I can already anticipate your reaction: “Who are you people?”

Delete. Delete. Delete.

This is the sad story of the emails that landed in your spam folder without actually being opened. Does this mean that email marketing is dead and buried? No. It actually means that there is a fine line between determination and desperation and your readers know the difference between these two concepts. Have you crossed this line? If your honest answer is yes, remember that it’s never too late to correct your errors, as email marketing is here to stay.

The Top 5 Reasons Your Business Won’t Reach the Next Level without Email Marketing

Wondering why you can’t (and shouldn’t try to) promote your products and services without unleashing the power of email marketing? Here are a few good reasons why clever emails should still be a part of your arsenal.

1. Emails Still Stimulate Sales. Can emails still help you boost sales? A 2014 study published by Econsultancy indicates that the answer to this question is affirmative. According to the numbers unveiled by this source, email marketing is alive and well. Moreover, the surveyed companies attributed 23% of their sales to email marketing, up from only 18% reported two years ago, in 2013.
2. Marketers Are Exploring New Tactics and Channels to Exceed Their Own Efforts. The old tricks in the email marketing book are now complemented by new strategies revolving around a proper segmentation, increased personalization, much more creative and compelling web content and a tendency to engage readers via social. These brand-new tactics stimulate the recipients to become more receptive to the message that the email marketer is trying to send through clever, user-oriented copy.
3. Prospects Still Check Their Inbox on a Daily Basis. Let’s face it: these days, people see smartphones, tablets and laptops as an extension of their body. They won’t even leave the room without making sure that they have their phone in their right pocket. They check their emails religiously. Naturally, they perform a certain selection and choose to send some of the most dull and uninspiring emails to the land of no return- the spam folder; but even so, their solid bond with their gadgets and their ardent desire to surf the Internet and stay connected 24/7 gives you the perfect opportunity to perfect your email copy and raise the interest of your targeted audience.
4. Social Media Can’t and Won’t Overshadow E-Mail Anytime Soon. Worried that all your competitors are winning their battles on social networking websites? This doesn’t mean that you should invest all your resources in social media campaigns and ignore the colossal potential of email marketing. Let’s face it: not all your prospects are active on Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis. Some stories might make it into their news feeds, while others could simply pass unnoticed. With emails, things are very different.
5. Email Marketing Is Cost-Efficient and Delivers an Impressive ROI. According to Advertising Age, email marketing, organic search campaigns and paid search represent the most effective and popular channels that actually deliver a substantial ROI. Moreover, email marketing won’t burn holes in your pockets, taking into consideration the fact that a smart message can cost you only a few pennies.

Now let’s cut to the chase: want to become an exceptional email marketer without going back to school? Here are five great tips that will support your goal.

5 Ways on How to Make Your Readers Think (and Take Action) inside Their Inbox

1. Picture the Entire Journey and Don’t Focus Solely on Short-Term Goals. Some marketers waste a lot of time tweaking their email copy, perfecting the subject line, adding visuals and highlighting the main call to action. Only a few of them actually take the next step and ask themselves: “OK, so now what?” What promise does your email actually deliver and where will it make your reader land? Let’s be honest: an absolutely flawless email that will only drop your potential client on a mediocre landing page is not exactly efficient in the long run. On the other hand, according to Forbes, customized landing pages that send your recipient right to the offer or product promoted in your email can boost your conversion rate by 25% or more. Therefore, try to get the bigger picture here and make sure any type of content that you create-blogs, articles and on-site content-are user-oriented gems that will do your emails justice.
2. Get Up Close and Personal with the Recipient. Do you want to know what major flaw makes your recipient sigh, yawn and send your email to the spam folder with just one click? Depersonalized content is your worst enemy when it comes to crafting email copy. Your readers want to realize that you understand and appreciate their uniqueness. They feel flattered when you approach them as an old friend in need of good advice (or a substantial discount), and not as potential clients who will (hopefully) take your bait. Every minute invested in in-depth research meant to identify the particularities, demands and necessities of your audience is a minute well spent. After determining what your recipients would like to hear from you, you can test various methods to personalize your email copy. According to Hubspot, first name personalization, the oldest and simplest trick in the book, can take your click-through rate from 5.8% to 7%, so don’t hesitate to individualize your readers and ditch the counterproductive “one-size-fits-all” approach.
3. Offer Your Readers Discounts via Email. Here’s another aspect that you should consider: freebies will never go out of fashion. Yes, your savviest readers will appreciate your polished copy that generates a great variety of emotions. They will love your sense of humor and your great writing style. But the rest of your prospects will just want you to cut to the chase: What exactly are you offering? All your recipients appreciate coupons and discounts. Citing a Juniper Research report, Business 2 Community indicates that the overall number of coupons sent to prospects via email is expected to double over the next five years. Follow this trend and you won’t regret it.
4. Use the Latest Tools to Reinforce Your Email Marketing Efforts. The most successful email marketers are the ones who count on a great variety of tools designed to support their efforts. Here are five options that could take your next email marketing campaign to a whole new level, on time and on a budget.

• Litmus. This straightforward web-based email application enables you to test and track your emails. Gathering spam filter testing, analytics and email previews in one place, this tool is the best solution to your daily marketing-related challenges.
• MailChimp. When would it be best to send my emails? What’s the smartest method to target my subscriber base? How can I grow my list? Let’s face it: all these questions have been bothering you for weeks in a row. MailChimp offers the simplest answers to these questions. Moreover, this first-hand email marketing service provider also ensures advanced analytics and help you figure out what automation and personalization are all about in this field.
• Visual Website Optimizer. Recognized as a premier A/B testing tool, the Visual Website Optimizer allows you to test websites, landing pages, ecommerce pages and everything in between without overstressing your IT specialist.
• BombBomb. BombBomb encourages you to explore the tremendous power of email video. Images are great, but cool videos that resonate with your viewers ensure that dynamic effect that can’t be replaced by anything else. So why not upgrade your email copy by adding a stunning, funny video that will stimulate your recipients to take action? BombBomb lets you use videos in emails in a creative manner to consolidate your relationship with your audience.

The good news is that you can test this service before spending a dime on it. A free trial lets you send BombBomb email videos for 14 days without making any commitments.

• Constant Contact. This handy tool gives you everything you could ever need to develop email marketing campaigns that actually reach their target. From email campaign and email template creation to apps and integration, this tool has everything covered and can lend you a helping hand when you’re short on time or need another direction for your email marketing campaign.

1. Great Images Plus Great Layout Plus Great Copy Equals a Brilliant Email Newsletter. Just imagine how much easier your life would be if you could just apply a certain pattern to come up with flawless email copy. Unfortunately, there is no universal recipe for success that could guide your steps in the right direction. You may not know the recipe, but you do know its main ingredients. In this case, we are talking about stunning visuals, a clean, user-friendly layout and excellent, on-point copy. These are the three elements that can fuel your success. RunKeeper does a great job at putting all these pieces together. The images are so great that you almost feel tempted to ignore the copy. You see pictures of people that you can actually relate to. These images evoke a wide array of emotions. Accentuated by a simple layout and on-point copy (“ For Laughs: Quotes That Don’t Inspire”, “3 Tips for Making Running a Habit” or “Four Simple Ways in Which You Can Get Faster with under Armour”, this type of visuals make your heart skip a beat and convince you to click, click, click and then click some more.

Don’t Let Your Email Marketing Campaign Die Way before Its Time

All in all, you have no reasons to put your pen down and mourn the death of email. Content creators who constantly reinforce their connection with their readers, display excellent targeting and customization abilities, test their strategies and use a plethora of free and almost free tools to back their own efforts are fully aware of the fact that email marketing is not on the verge of extinction.