It’s likely you’re still recovering from the exuberance of the festive period, or gradually making your way through the junk and out-of-office replies in your inbox, but now is as good a time as any to start putting together a to do list for your forthcoming email marketing campaigns in 2013.
You may be considering the topics you’ll be covering, or adjusting budgets, which are certainly worthy jobs, but we’ve got three areas you might want to add to your project list.
1) In 2012, it was recommended that both email and web design should be optimised for mobile. In 2013, mobile needs to come first. It is predicted 50% of all email opens will happen first on a mobile device, and that is a percentage that is set to rise. Just remember, that focusing design on mobile should continue right through to any landing pages you include within your emails.
2) ‘Batch and blast’ is a common term for email marketing campaigns which are simply sent to every subscriber. 2013 might be the time to start segmenting your lists based on user preferences. There’s two ways to approach this but the goal will be the same – you need to learn more about your subscribers. It may be an idea to contact them directly with a short survey. Find out what they like and what they don’t like. Review their past purchases or returns. The more you know about them, the easier it will be to segment them into lists which ensure they only receive emails that are relevant to them. Alternatively, allow subscribers themselves to determine the frequency and types of emails they receive – most emarketing clients will allow this.
3) If you currently send a ‘welcome’ message to new subscribers before simply adding them to your default list, now might be the time to reconsider that initial communication. Instead, why not develop a series of timed, automated emails for new subscribers which gently introduce them to your brand, product and services? It is becoming a more common practice and is a great way of getting new subscribers on board and engaged.
