Five tips for more efficient email marketing

1. Apple’s new update, iOS 15.

iOS 15 amputated your data stream – again – in the autumn of 2021. The iOS 15 update primarily impacts tracking of the following:

• Open rate
• Elements (e.g. various widgets and countdowns based on opening time or when the user opened your email)
• IP address (and which people in the target demographic open your emails)

What to do? We would recommend that you start looking at KPIs other than open rate. You ought to do that anyway. Other KPIs, such as purchases, bounce and clicks, might be more important to your business.

What about your re-engagement flows – that is, the series of emails that you send when a customer or user hasn’t opened your emails for a while?

The solution is to change the trigger for this series. For instance, you might try: when did the user last visit your website? Or when did the user last click on a particular button?

Don’t know whether your recipients open your emails or not? Then create a survey with a gift card competition attached as an incentive. That will give you a better indication of who’s actually reading the things you send.

Simply put, iOS 15 will affect email marketing much less than you might fear. You have lots of tools at your disposal, and this channel can still perform for you and yield a lot of valuable data. In the end, iOS 15 will mostly serve to sort out the sheep from the goats.

2. Have a strong foundation

No foundation, no extraordinary performance. But how should you build your email marketing foundation?

This is particularly relevant for e-commerce: Your foundation will typically consist of a type of lead generation (for instance, leads ads on social media), a welcome email flow and an abandoned cart flow.

This is particularly relevant for B2B: Your foundation will typically consist of a type of lead generation (for instance, leads ads on social media) and a welcome email flow that should have different versions tailored to your target group. How do you know who your target group is? You could find out by asking about it in your lead generation, using questions like What is your job position? or What do you do for a living?

3. Good timing. Better results.

If you tell your customer to make a purchase before they’re ready, you risk them doing the exact opposite.

Timing is crucial when it comes to achieving good email marketing performance.

Your email communications should both be personal and arrive at the right times. Because your customer is on a journey. 

Get an overview of that journey. That makes it easier for you to figure out when to say what. Your marketing budget will thank you for it.

4. “Hello, my name is Lars Larsen, and I have a good offer for you.”

Personalized communication can be the alpha and omega when it comes to creating results with emails.

Danish duvet king Lars Larsen knew just how important it is to get personal. From his very first iconic ad, he created a connection between himself and the viewer. He knew exactly how to deliver a personalized sales pitch and sell his duvets.

Here’s our advice for personalized communication.

1. Use the personal pronouns “I”, “we” and “you” whenever you mention yourself or the person reading your email. This feels more personal and relevant and puts you at eye level. It feels nice.

2. Use the person’s first name. For instance, start your email with “Hi, <first name>”. It feels great when someone addresses you by your name. Your presence in the room is recognized. When a brand understands you and speaks to you, you’re more prone to changing your behaviour and buying into either the message or the product. But use first names with care. Excessive repetition of a person’s name can also have the opposite effect.

5. Mobile-friendly emails

Most users will open your emails on their phone, so those emails need to be optimized for mobile viewing. Do you know how to make your emails user-friendly? If not, read on.

1. Avoid using images in your emails. And if you must use them, make sure to use significant file compression. A banner at the bottom or a single image at the top will require close to the maximum amount of loading time you can expect your subscriber to tolerate.

2. Plaintext, plaintext, plaintext. Clear text is key to a good mobile reading experience. When it comes to kilobytes and megabytes, text takes up almost no space. And you’ll move your readers towards clicking on your messages faster. Don’t have any images? Then even readers with a slow internet connection will be able to load your emails quickly and easily.

3. Mobile-friendly emails can also be optimized for both dark and light mode viewing. 

Most phones default to light mode, but many of your readers will be using dark mode. Seeing and reading content on a dark screen feels easier on the eyes when it’s dark outside. But this can impact your emails.

Do you have a transparent image? Or do you use a particular font color? When dark mode is activated, a phone inverts the colors in your images and text, changing them to their opposites. That can make it difficult to distinguish certain colors from one another in your image, text or background. It all depends on your color scheme.

For that reason, you should remember to send a test email to yourself and open it on your mobile in dark mode. Don’t take any chances. Your risk losing a reader to frustration, and who knows? They might have become your best and most profitable customer.