Gain A Greater Share Of Inbox
And Save The Unsubscribe
Written by Rob Lane.
1. Overview
Most digital-age marketers know that email can be a highly profitable channel for ecommerce… when it works. When it doesn’t work, disenchanted customers can bale with a quick push of the emergency unsubscribe button.
We all know that email can range anywhere from boring and irrelevant, to annoying and irreverent. We’re also cluing into those emails that stand out for the right reasons, giving these valued pieces of information their proper place in the share of our inbox that we actually read.
The key difference between the two is ‘who’s on first,’ the buyer or the seller.
2. Too Many E-Retailers Put Themselves First
Most of us are well-trained to watch for and filter out pitchy, spammy email, headlined by a variety of tugs at our consumer and personal senses such as: the word free; statements that seem so good, they can’t possibly be true; pleas for help from a stranger in dire need; last-chance, ‘because you know we can’t do this all day,’ type offers; or subject lines that are way too long, unclear, or outright misleading as to the actually contents of the email:
“Make your subject line relevant to the message. Seems like a no brainer, but we often see marketers try and get clever with some attention grabbing subject line that has nothing to do with the actual message… [Keep it short] Long subject lines had lower open and click rates than those that were shorter. Try to say it in 35 characters or less, or 2 – 4 words.”
3. Rise Of The Unsubscribe
The powers that be recognize that unwanted email is a scourge to our inbox, like barnacles on a boat. Legislation is cropping up across the world to protect us from spam. Earlier this year, Google made it easier for Gmail users to unsubscribe from unwanted recipient lists, by prominently placing an unsubscribe link at the top of every promotional email.
There is also growing evidence of a greater propensity for people to unsubscribe from consumer product and services sites:
“A survey from SilverPop looking at email marketing in 2012 found consumer products and services received the most unsubscribes with 27% and 25% respectively. The top three industries with the highest spam complaint rates were travel and leisure (1.10%), consumer products (0.9%) and consumer services (0.8%).”
4. Email Consumers Love, Put’s Them First
Ok, so enough of what we don’t want. What really stands out in our email inbox, and is sure to gain more of out attention is email that gives us real value: timely information that we really want to know; a reward offer, or discount on something I desire or have been thinking about; a personal message that speaks to me; fresh, important news, that sparks my interests.
When I see an email parachute in from Netflix saying, “New Arrival: Mockingjay Part 1” followed by a thumbnail of Jennifer Lawrence in full battle gear… well that’s one that will get opened.
For Netflix to know that the next instalment of Hunger Games will likely appeal to me, it only has to examine my profile and see that I’ve watched the first two instalments of this series in the past, as soon as they were available. So Netflix is predicting that I would like to know this timely bit of news, and they’re right. According to the 2013 Email Marketing Study from Experian Marketing Services:
Personalized mailings can drastically increase engagement and transaction rates.
- Personalized promotional mailings have 29 percent higher unique open rates and 41 percent higher unique click rates than non-personalized mailings
- Personalized, triggered mailings have similar lifts, with 25 percent higher unique open rates and 51 percent higher unique click rates
- For promotional mailings, personalized emails generate transaction rates and revenue per email that is more than six times higher than non-personalized emails
- Personalized, trigger campaigns result in more than double the transaction rates of non-personalized, trigger mailings
5. Predictive Analytics Meets Email Marketing
So how does this work in the real world? How can companies offer personalized, triggered emails to scale? Large online retailers are increasingly leveraging the big data they’ve collected about consumers, by applying the latest predictive analytics to their email marketing campaigns. This spring, for example, Macy’s partnered with SAP to boost web sales:
“Macy’s has implemented new technology [email marketing with predictive analytics] into its e-commerce website that will help the company better understand customer buying behavior and optimize email and website marketing campaigns. ”
6. Conclusion
It all comes down to applying the latest technology to offer the most value to each customer, one-at-a-time. Offer up email that customers really want and they’ll be less likely to unsubscribe, while you increase customer retention and fuel the growth of your business, large or small.
At rare.io, we’re inspired to bring these same opportunities, integrating predictive analytics with automated email marketing, to small and medium sized ecommerce retailers; who value their customers and want to put them first in their marketing campaigns.
Rare.io makes it easy to start using automated email campaigns for common challenges like: Welcome Series, Abandoned Carts, Order Follow-up emails and more! You can learn more about our powerful email marketing automation features here or go ahead and get started right away by using Rare.io for FREE.
And if you’re one of the thousands of merchants who are already using Rare’s Smart Email Marketing software and want to see how our Customer Success Team can work with your brand to grow your revenue – feel free to book a call at your convenience here.
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