While companies of all sizes have been realising the increasing business potential of social media, SEO and online marketing, email marketing is also on the rise.
It’s important not to overlook the basic email as both a broadcasting and promotional tool. As long as you constantly review what you’re sending to your clients, customers or potential customers and it’s not irritating or spam, then there can be a lot of benefits and rewards tied to email marketing.
We came across a post over on the Econsultancy blog which was full of infographics and information about email marketing and how best to approach it. We’ve collected some of our top tips from the article in this blog post for you, to make the most of email marketing and make sure your messages aren’t just being disregarded as spam.
When’s the best time to send an email?
Many online marketing and social media companies are very interested in what people do on a day-to-day basis. The devices they use, the messages they consume and most importantly when they consume them.
If these online marketeers can understand when people are most likely to consumer information, they can tailor all of their communications to that particular time.
Unfortunately there isn’t an hour set in stone everyday when everyone checks their email accounts religiously! But, there are some generally accepted time periods that are good to be aware of:
Between 9am to 10am people are receptive to offers and news on their way to work before they get too heavily occupied in their day-to-day tasks.
Between noon to 2pm people are receptive to news and magazine features instead of marketing material while they are taking their lunch break.
Between 3pm to 5pm some promotional emails are opened, but work still takes priority.
Between 5pm to 7pm people are likely to open business emails and possibly start browsing other pieces of information.
Between 7pm to 10pm people look at personal offers and services in their inboxes, like clothing and holidays for them.
How do people consume emails?
There are obviously all kinds of ways that people consume emails and I’m sure one person could have dramatically different habits to the next.
However, there’s plenty of research to suggest that more and more people are using their mobile devices to read emails, around 38.5% of their time on their phones to be exact!
Therefore, it’s important to consider how your email will look on a much smaller, mobile device. Will the text be easy to see? Will the graphics look out of place? These are all things that need to be considered as there’s a good chance emails will now be read on mobile devices as well as regular computers.
What do people like to read?
Again, this could change very much between person to person, so it’s important to try and build up an idea of the kind of person you’re hoping to reach before you begin any kind of email marketing campaign.
However, it’s interesting to note that the two favourite types of emails people like getting from businesses are to do with promotions, with 27% preferring to get details of special offers and 21% preferring to receive other kinds of vouchers and deals.
Important things to consider
- Are all of your links working?
- Do you have both a plain text and HTML version?
- Is your email personalised?
- Do you have an unsubscribe button?
- How does your email look with different services?
- Have you checked that your email lists and the data you have is in line with the Data Protection Act? Have a read of these postal and email marketing guidelines from the ICO.
Image via ilamont.com’s Flickr.
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