Last month, I shared with you some simple, key takeaways for effective calls to action. Continuing with additional free resources that can help you leverage your marketing investment, I’ve discovered another great report from Hubspot, The Complete Guide to Optimizing Email Marketing For Conversions. I definitely recommend downloading the full report!

1. Email Marketing Optimization Tips For Conversions
Last month, I shared with you some simple, key takeaways for effective calls to
action. Continuing with additional free resources that can help you leverage your
marketing investment, I’ve discovered another great report from Hubspot, The
Complete Guide to Optimizing Email Marketing For Conversions. I definitely
recommend downloading the full report!
I completely understand that everyone may not want to download and read a 41-page
report, so I’ve compiled a list of key takeaways. Of course, ClearEdge Marketing is
always here to help as well!
5 Key Takeaways to Optimize Your Email Marketing For Conversions
These 5 takeaways from the report can help you leverage your email marketing
investment more effectively for conversions:
1. Email marketing is still a strong
marketing tactic. Despite reports to
the contrary, email marketing
remains a critical tactic in an
effective marketing plan. In fact, a
recent DMA study found that nearly
76% of marketers said they were using
more email than they were three
years ago! More research from
Forrester Research found that
investment in email marketing is
expected to nearly double from 2010 to 2014. Simply put: email marketing
remains strong.
2. Email marketing is only as good as the quality of your recipient list. You can
send the most polished, useful emails possible, but if your recipient list isn’t up
to date with relevant recipients, the effort could be for naught. Every year
people change companies, get married and change names, or change their
personal email addresses – resulting in the decay of your email marketing
recipient list. In fact, in B2B marketing, lists on average retain only 75% of
their members per year due to these factors. Be sure to replenish your list with
solid leads each year to balance out the losses that inevitably occur.
3. Don’t consider buying an email marketing list. It can be awfully tempting to
buy a third-party list for an instant boost in your recipient numbers, but resist
the temptation. People who receive unsolicited emails from companies they do
or don’t know are typically not very happy to receive them and are far from
likely to end up conversions. Focusing on inbound marketing strategies instead
can grow your list organically, bringing in real, engaged leads that want to read
your content. Another caveat to purchased email marketing lists: you could be
blackmarked or marked for spam. This could result in many of your emails
getting bounced, having a dramatic impact on your deliverability rate.

2. 4. It’s important to take steps to reduce your unsubscribe rate. While you may
lose up to 25% of your email marketing list each year to name changes, etc.,
you’ll also lose recipients the old fashioned way – they unsubscribe or opt-out.
Why do people unsubscribe? A recent study found that the number one reason
people opt out of emails is because they receive too many emails. The number
two reason? Content that is no longer relevant. To counterbalance number one,
give recipients the option to receive fewer emails after clicking “unsubscribe.”
You can also suggest that the unsubscriber connect with your business on social
media, rather than through emails. This retains the lead and keeps them
engaged with your brand, without alienating them due to unwanted emails.
5. Email marketing is most effective when combined with the rest of your
marketing.Combining email marketing with other marketing channels enhances
the ROI of your marketing investment. Here are a few ways you can integrate
email marketing with other channels:
Social media. One of the most effective marketing integrations combines
email marketing and social media. In fact, 65% of the top 20% of email
marketers in social media lead generation integrate them, compared to the
industry average of 51%.
Search. Integrating your email marketing with search can also be an
effective tool. It can be as simple as offering an HTML version of your
emails on your website. This helps people who cannot see your email in
their inbox, but also has a positive effect on your SEO.
Mobile. Depending on the company and industry, emails are opened on
mobile devices between 16% and 50% of the time, so mobile integration
should be a no-brainer. Taking your email marketing strategy mobile isn’t
as difficult as it may seem – testing your email templates on mobile devices
prior to sending, offering plain text and HTML versions of your emails, and
optimizing mobile landing pages and links can all help improve the mobile
efficiency of your emails.
The full Hubspotebook provides some additional insights and excellent tips to help you
more fully leverage your email marketing for conversions. I highly recommend you
download the full report, but if you start off by implementing these 5 tips, you’ll be
off to a great start.
Do you have a question about effective email marketing or do you need help
implementing an effective marketing strategy? Give us a call!