Words: Belinda Connolly
In digital marketing, where the next shiny thing can steal everyone’s focus and marketing strategies resourcing, there’s an old favourite slaving away behind the scenes bringing in ROI that social platforms can only dream of.
This stalwart is email, and the numbers it continues to generate are beyond impressive. Consider this: more than half the world’s population (over 4.2 billion people) were active email users in 2022.
So how can you make sure that email is a core part of your digital marketing strategy mix, and your emails are doing their job? Read on for hints on how to boost your sales with email in 2024.
Email: the quiet achiever
In her presentation at AdWorld 2023, Melanie Balke pointed out precisely why email is such a workhorse:
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- One billion active Gmail users spend 6 hours in their inboxes a day.
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- It’s 8x cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one.
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- 87% of companies engage in email marketing.
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- You’re not at the mercy of algorithm changes, unlike on social platforms or with SEO.
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- Email creates a jaw-dropping ROI: for every $1 spent the average return is $44.25, which is a 4,400% ROI.
Email is access to existing customers who you can ‘own’. They have already signalled interest in your brand or company and have signed up to receive more information from you. Here are five easy ways Melanie Balke suggests to boost your email game.
Email hack 1: A/B test
Sometimes changing the wording of your offer is enough to make people take the desired CTA rather than clicking delete. If you’re having a limited time offer or sale, slight changes in the wording can result in different results. The psychological effect of offering email users
$10 off vs. 10% off can increase sales or lead to people not buying. Her suggestion:
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- When the item costs more than $100 = use $ off
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- When the item costs less than $100 = Use % off.
Email hack 2: One day only sale
You may already email people who have abandoned their cart before finishing their sale. The secret, according to Melanie, is to send a third email with a longer time delay. She recommends an email highlighting a flash sale that doesn’t seem to be part of the abandoned cart flow. Importantly, this flash sale is to last only one day, creating a sense of urgency (and a fear of missing out).
Email hack 3: The quiz
For B2C brands, sending a personalised quiz email can create a boost in attention and engagement, as people love learning about themselves. Research from Campaign Monitor shows that interactive emails, like quizzes, can boost click-through rates by up to 73%.
Quiz emails encourage participation, as well as data sharing. If you’re stuck for inspiration think: what would Buzzfeed do? They made their name by creating wacky quizzes on everything from favourite cupcake flavours to best childhood cartoons.
Read more about using quizzes as part of your growth strategy.
Email hack 4: 12 Days of Christmas
You may just be able to scrape this one in before the festive season but if you don’t have time, fear not: there is always a seasonal aspect you can tie this email hack to. For instance, the 12 days of Easter, the 12 days of school holidays, the 12 days of Halloween… be creative and you probably make this theme work.
This flow keeps email subscribers engaged while offering special offers on different goods and services each day. This also leads back to the sense of urgency in point #2.
Email hack 5: The re-engagement giveaway
Sometimes your customers just do not engage with any email you send, regardless of the strategies you use. That’s when email retargeting can help. By reaching out to subscribers who’ve show interest in your products in the past but aren’t engaging, you may be able to convert them.
Research by Return Path shows around 45% of email subscribers are inactive, and re-engagement emails can help recover up to 12% of them.
By offering an exclusive giveaway to these email subscribers you can reignite their interest and remind them of your offering, ultimately leading to them taking the desired actions in your CTAs.
Email provides access to a valuable audience—your existing customers who have signalled their interest in your brand. Using email hacks, from A/B testing to the use of flash sales, quizzes, and re-engagement giveaways, provide actionable strategies to supercharge your email marketing efforts. These techniques not only boost retention but also generate more leads to keep your audience engaged while driving growth for your brand.
As a full-service digital marketing agency, we can help with all aspects of your marketing campaigns. Get in touch to find out how we can work together to help you get great ROI on your email campaigns.
