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It’s been almost a year since I stepped into my role working for the marketing department at Albi. Every day I learn something new that helps enhance our marketing strategies. A few months ago, I attended a trade show conference. These conferences usually have guest speakers who bestow their knowledge onto those eager to learn about a specific topic. Ron Cates, a digital marketing expert with decades of experience, led this seminar, and I want to share some of my main takeaways from his presentation.
You have plenty of options to get your company’s message out there. These platforms include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and even print! But if you had to pick one channel to give your priority towards, it’s email marketing. WHY? Email marketing has the highest ROI (return on investment) of all the previously listed platforms.
How often do you go to the store and get asked to plug in your email? A lot, right? About 95% of internet users between the ages of 18-64 send or read emails. On average, people check their email 12 times a day. A small business owner checks their 24 times a day. It’s one of the most commonly used apps on an iPhone or Android. The average ROI for email marketing last year was $43 for every dollar spent.
There are two key elements you need in your email for it to be successful. It needs to look professional. Emails that appear amateurish will make the difference between people opening them or not. The reader will assume that your product or service is second-rate or inferior, ultimately making it not worth their time to check it out.
You can immediately lose credibility if your subject line contains misspelled words. First impressions are everything. Having images and click-throughs makes the difference in helping your email stand out.
Targeting your emails is another thing to keep in mind. You need to know who your audience is. A current customer and a prospect should NOT be getting the same emails. Creating separate lists helps you target your audience.
So what tools can you use to create a sleek-looking email? A few examples include Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Emma Email Marketing, just to name a few. The team at Albi uses Hubspot. Most of these services have templates you can use to create a professional-looking email.
Your email should have three images or less and shouldn’t have more than 20 lines of text. Why? You’ve heard the saying you can have too much of a good thing, and that’s true. You don’t want to overwhelm the person receiving your email.
Pictures are fantastic, and you should use them. But don’t let it make up the whole email. The image should be an embellishment, an enhancement if you will. But it should NOT be the primary focus. Why? Depending on the email provider, some images are blocked by default until the recipient approves them. So what’s the problem? If you send an email with a picture that takes up the entire space, you end up sending an email that looks empty… potentially running the risk of losing the messaging entirely. So instead of looking like this.
It ends up looking like this
Pro Tip: Make sure to add a link they click to but make sure you don’t add more than one link. The more links you add, the more it turns them off.
Starting with the “From line,” which indicates who you’re getting an email from. More than 60% of email recipients decide whether to open the email based on that “from line.” Most email recipients see both the sender’s name and email address.” Depending on your email provider, both appear, or sometimes one or the other. If the latter is the case, it should make perfect sense to the reader WHO they are getting the email from.
The subject line has about a 35% open rate. Subject lines need to capture the readers’ attention. It should be short, quick, and to the point! The ideal subject line is 40 characters or less, including spaces. If your subject line exceeds 40 characters, does it still make sense if it gets cut off? The best subject lines tell you exactly what you’re going to get.
Don’t be discouraged if your email doesn’t get opened. WHY? More than 34% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when they receive marketing emails. Even emails that don’t get opened contribute to staying top of mind for the consumer. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most: to be remembered. You will be the first company the person thinks of when deciding between your company and the competition.
If you have a regular customer/ current client, you can get away with sending them emails more often and with more promotional content. If it’s a prospect, you don’t want to bombard them or worse—get them to hit the unsubscribe button, so sending an email once a month is acceptable. The content they get should be more educational than anything else.
By sending a mix of promotional and educational content, it helps your company stay top of mind. An example of this is sharing an educational article in an email. You can include a brief synopsis or part of the article and have a button at the bottom that says, click to continue. This will lead the customer to your web page – hopefully leading them down the rabbit hole of reading through the article, consuming more content, and eventually purchasing your product/service.
So how do you get someone’s email? Approximately 67% of people will give out their email addresses if asked. So what are the best ways to ask for the email? You can do it over the phone, include it in the email signatures (everyone on your team should have “click here to join our email list” in the email signature), or have a text-to-join option.
You don’t need to give people a financial incentive to join an email list. Make sure your wording and phrasing sounds appealing enough that they want to join. Say phrases like “Become an insider” and “Be the first to know about our updates,” etc. It’s valuable to have people sign up organically.
Pro Tip: Don’t forget to include ALL of your social media accounts at the end of your email. WHY? People can then start sharing your information on their social media platforms, reaching other potential customers.
Engaging your target audience on multiple platforms should be your goal if you’re not already doing it. The following are Hootsuite’s recommendations regarding how often you should post on each platform.
By applying these concepts, you can make a drastic difference in your digital marketing and develop strategic plans to crush your goals!
Michele Rave is a Content Manager at Albiware. Although she’s completely new to the restoration industry, she’s eager to learn and most importantly create fun and interesting content to help restoration contractors. Michele spent the last five years working in the news industry. She started off working as Assistant Producer for WBBM Radio in Chicago.
She eventually became a television news reporter for the ABC/Fox affiliate in Rockford, IL, leading her to report in Spanish for Univision, Dallas. If you would like to share your ideas to Michele, you can email her at mrave@albiware.com Connect with Michele directly through any of the options below
