As an email marketer you pay close attention to how effective your content is. You want to have the most relevant information being sent to the most relevant audience to ensure your emails are being opened and read. But email marketers must also take into consideration design, shareability and user experience when developing their campaigns.
Although your emails and newsletters may have great content addressed to the right audience, if these emails don’t lead to a call to action or a destination optimized for mobile and social sharing, you will miss out on the opportunity to maximize the potential of your campaigns. The following are tips that can enhance your direct marketing efforts via your Web properties:
- Email marketing must compensate for the abundance of different device types used to check email and visit websites. If an e-newsletter fails to maintain its consistency on a mobile device, you’re missing out on a chance for leads.
- Strategic incorporation of social media sharing buttons within the website and newsletter itself is crucial. Social sharing will increase the exposure of your newsletter content.
- Your website should be designed in a way that stresses user experience and digital design; this design should also be emulated in the email newsletter. Consistent design and aesthetics serve to establish your brand’s unique identity and garner trust from customers and potential leads.
- When users reach a specific page by clicking on a link in the newsletter, make sure the page is optimized with a call to action. Whether answering a survey, responding to a poll or downloading a white paper, calls to action are critical when a potential prospect reaches your main site.
- Segmentation is vital for optimizing newsletter content for specific demographics. Use Web analytics to assess visitor data to understand exactly who is viewing your site. This information can then be used to optimize the effectiveness of segmentation for your newsletter.
- Archiving past newsletters on your website is a great way to optimize the impact the site has on the newsletters. This also provides valuable content for site visitors who have not received a newsletter.
- If a user does click through a newsletter to reach your website, be sure to optimize landing pages in addition to assuring strategic information hierarchy for your website. Contact information, details of services, client pages and “about” pages should be accessible in one click or fewer. The worst result is having people click through the newsletter, visit your site and subsequently leave due to poor site design.
- Signing up for the newsletter should be a seamless process. Use social media and create landing pages for signups. Place opt-in sections in strategic places on the website. Require as few steps as possible for opt-in subscriptions.
Devanshi Garg is COO of Icreon Tech (www.icreon.us), a provider of IT solutions, website design and development.
