The modern consumer, and corporate purchaser for that matter, is a bit more demanding in her expectations of brands when viewing marketing and sales content. This is largely the product of marketing’s rapid evolution throughout the past decade, in which more targeted, personalized and engaging campaigns are becoming commonplace thanks to the availability of more prolific and advanced digital technologies.
As such, marketers cannot approach campaigns in a flippant fashion and expect anything but poor results, as consumers are only going to react well to initiatives that have been handled with care. In the case of email marketing, advertisers must be especially intelligent in their decision making and planning, as the average recipient’s inbox will likely be filled with literally thousands of other messages from brands that are vying for their attention.
Using the right approach to email marketing is not necessarily an easy task, nor one that can be nailed down once and never again viewed given how quickly customer preferences and industry best practices are evolving.
So, it might be helpful to look at what types of smart and effective email marketing campaign strategies are becoming popular, and how best to incorporate the ideas and processes into each initiative launched in the coming years.
Play off behavior
Econsultancy recently reported that the vast majority of email marketers are ignoring behavioral cues when developing campaigns, essentially balking on the insights that are readily available and flying by the seat of their proverbial pants. According to the news provider, 80 percent of email advertisers are not focused upon behavioral strategies, which is likely impacting their campaign success rates in a negative fashion.
As a note here, it is worth saying that behavioral marketing is a very new concept, and one that would not have been all that feasible for small businesses only a decade ago. However, thanks to innovations and progressions in the technology sector, virtually all companies can now be using more advanced analytics and research solutions to understand prospects on a deeper level. Then, they can craft strategies to touch upon every preference and behavior among the pool.
Metrics should and often do reveal behaviors among recipients for past campaigns, and this information should always be considered when beginning to plan out the next initiative. Although so few email advertisers are currently using behavioral tactics in their campaigns, Econsultancy found that the rate is set to double in the next couple of years, with 40 percent of parties researched citing plans to do so in the near future.
In fact, only 34 percent do not have any plans to begin using behavioral targeting in the near future, meaning that the majority of firms will indeed be pursuing these tactics soon. Businesses that have not yet laid down a foundation to begin leveraging behavioral strategies in their email campaigns should certainly do so soon.
![Email marketing metrics matter]( "Email marketing metrics matter")
Email marketing campaigns: metrics matter
When discussing what a marketer can do to improve performances today, virtually all roads of thought will go back to the concept of metrics-based decision making. So many platforms used to manage and deploy campaigns in the digital realm come standard with either broad metrics or more focused ones, while the solutions available to supplement the included tools are also more accessible and affordable than ever before.
As a result, so many firms are already leveraging advanced intelligence solutions to continuously improve their email campaigns as time goes on, and those that do not will likely become a bit more obvious in the eyes of consumers before long. The time is now to get smart with email marketing and use the necessary metrics tools to do so.
