Marketing is continuously evolving. The tactics that won over subscribers last year won’t work quite the same in 2020.
Read on to discover some 2020 email marketing goals to hone your tactics and create amazing campaigns.
12 email marketing goals to win the inbox and boost your strategy in 2020
Make 2020 the year you commit to learning about your audience. With so much data available, it’s easier than ever to create a super relevant and unique experience for each subscriber.
Commit to some of these 2020 email marketing goals to get started.
1. Increase your open rates.
The average email open rate varies by industry but we found a global average of 17.8% when we looked at billions of emails sent across the globe. However, you should look at your individual industry to see exactly where you should be aiming.
To stretch your open rate beyond the industry average, start by revamping your:
Subject line to boost intrigue and urgency
“From” field to feel like a personal conversation
Preview text to explain the email contents
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that people are most likely to open personal emails, so creating an immediate connection with your subscribers is critical. Anything you can do to foster a more personal relationship, you should. That means being transparent about who sends your emails and what’s going to be in them.
2. Establish automated campaigns.
Automation doesn’t need to be robotic or generic—quite the opposite, actually. Automation can help take your 2020 email marketing goals to new heights by freeing up time and personalizing your communications.
Start with some easily automated campaigns like:
Welcome emails
Thank you emails
Transactional emails
Birthday emails
Automated campaigns deliver better open and click rates because they’re timelier and more relevant. Welcome emails, for example, can produce 50% open rates, on average. Meanwhile, birthday emails provide a 481% higher transaction rate.
Here’s an example of a resourceful welcome email from Coursera:
Source: Gmail
3. Design personalized customer journeys.
Once you’re comfortable setting up automated campaigns, add automated customer journeys to your 2020 email marketing goals.
Also known as a drip campaign, automated journeys are timed to go out at different intervals, and they contain highly relevant content.
When someone new signs up, you could send them a series of premade campaigns to introduce them to your brand. You could also time product reminder emails to go out when you think a subscriber’s stock is running low.
Why not set up an automated re-engagement series?
That’s what Samsung does when they notice a customer has switched to Huawei. The subject lines said: “We’ve missed you; let’s catch up,” and “Let’s get to know each other again.”
Source: Gmail
4. Make a point to connect with your subscribers.
In an increasingly digital world, people crave human connection.
Start by segmenting your subscriber list based on demographics like location, gender, age, and interests.
Next, revisit how you write your copy. Pretend you’re writing for one person—not dozens. Your writing should sound more like a conversation than marketing copy.
The Nation’s editor authored this warm email and even included his signature at the bottom:
Source: Gmail
5. Make sure your emails are accessible.
By 2022, there will be 4.3 billion email users around the world. That figure includes people of all abilities and backgrounds. For example, 1 out of every 12 men and 1 out of every 200 women suffer from a color deficiency.
As part of your 2020 email marketing goals, try to make your campaigns as accessible as possible.
Follow guidelines such as:
Sharp contrast ratio between text and backgrounds
Using alt text to describe images
No flashing lights that could induce a seizure
Including captions or scripts for videos
Avoiding complex sentences and vocabulary
You could also break your list up into age groups and create campaigns with larger, bolder fonts for older audiences.
6. Include some interactive elements.
Interactive content can help increase engagement because it encourages subscribers to click.
You don’t have to search out places to include interactive elements. Instead, look for ways interactive features would fit into your overall email strategy. Reviews are the perfect place to start.
You could also send out interactive menus, image sliders, quizzes, polls, and games.
Penguin Random House sent out this fun email with an interactive game. Subscribers had to guess the book based on the emoji combination.
Source: Really Good Emails
7. Improve your click rate.
Getting your email opened is half of the struggle—but how can you get them to click your links?
The average email click rate is just 2.5%, so it’s essential to do everything you can to keep subscribers engaged if you want to produce the highest ROI from your marketing efforts.
Aside from following the other 2020 email marketing goals on this list, revamp your CTAs.
Stick with a single goal and CTA for each email.
Use a prominent CTA button in a contrasting color rather than a hyperlink.
Surround your CTA button with plenty of whitespace.
Use actionable language without friction words.
It’s also a great idea to consider your composition. Look how UNICEF uses an inverted pyramid and zigzag shape to point at their CTAs:
Source: Gmail
8. Integrate your email marketing campaigns.
Too many marketers still create their email marketing campaigns in a vacuum without taking consideration of other strategies.
Make it part of your 2020 email marketing goals to integrate your email campaigns with other platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or SMS.
Analytics and integration options from email service providers like Campaign Monitor make it easy to track your subscribers around the internet and create personalized campaigns.
Facebook Pixel does the same, so you can easily segment your list by Facebook activity.
Paravel embedded some of their best user-generated content from Instagram for a summer wrap-up email campaign:
Source: Really Good Emails
9. Level-up your newsletters.
Long gone are the days of generic email blasts. Today, people expect personalized content—67% of people, to be exact.
Even newsletters should include some personalized content. Start with some basic segmentation based on the information you have about your subscribers’ interests, behavior, and demographics.
You can also set up a landing page where subscribers can adjust their email preferences. Ask them to pick their favorite topics and how often they’d like to hear from you.
Lululemon forwards new subscribers to a landing page immediately:
Source: Lululemon
10. Set up a membership program.
Who doesn’t love to feel special?
If you don’t have a VIP or loyalty program, now is a perfect time to start. If you do, make it one of your 2020 email marketing goals to promote your program through campaigns.
Loyalty programs aren’t just for luxury brands. You can also use them to collect information, prevent churn, and encourage word-of-mouth advertising.
Allergan uses their Brilliant Distinctions loyalty program to send personalized post-treatment check-in emails, promote their app, and highlight referral discounts:
Source: Gmail
11. Optimize for mobile readers.
Over half of all emails are opened on mobile devices, so optimization is critical to engagement and ROI.
Yes, design plays a crucial role, but so do your copy, content, and media. Consider your subscriber’s state of mind when you send your campaigns.
Images and landing pages also need to load at lightning speed (especially as 5G coverage grows).
Copy also needs to be straightforward. No fancy wordplay or novels—just get to the point. TurboTax used concise language here and even highlighted ways customers can save time filing their returns:
Source: Gmail
12. Avoid getting junked by using a clean email list.
Finally, you can’t capitalize on your 2020 email marketing goals if your campaigns go straight to the spam folder or if subscribers are junking your emails
Gmail recently started asking users if they want to unsubscribe from lists they haven’t opened in the past 30 days. Marketers should take a hint here and make sure to keep their lists clean.
Send out a re-engagement campaign. If subscribers don’t reply, it’s probably time to cut the cord.
Source: Gmail
Wrap up
Start with one or two of these 2020 email marketing goals and focus on getting them right.
Think of it like lifting weights: Proper form is better than lifting as much weight as possible.
Improve your open and click rates.
Optimize the entire experience for mobile readers.
Keep your list clean.
Set up automated campaigns and customer journeys.
Include some interactive elements.
Revamp your newsletters.
Focus on accessibility.
Looking for some more ways to level up your 2020 email marketing goals? Read this comprehensive guide to elevate your email engagement.
The post 2020 Email Marketing Goals You Should Plan For appeared first on Campaign Monitor.
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