4 Ways to Jump start Email

Marketing for 2017

The new year brings much-needed

breathing time to address email marketing

strategies. In this post, I’ll explore email

marketing trends and offer four

suggestions for email strategy for 2017.

1. Nurture New Subscribers

During the holiday rush, your site likely

acquired new subscribers and first-time

buyers. These new email recipients are

extremely valuable to your business. It’s

imperative to nurture them. Consider the

following ideas.

* Use appropriate frequency. New

subscribers from the holidays are likely

gift purchasers. They may require a lower

volume of emails.

* Send relevant offers. Analyze what new

customers purchased, and the amounts, to

send relevant offers.

* Express gratitude. Let them know they

are a valuable customer. Treat them to a

special offer or a simple “thank you.”

2. Emphasize Mobile

For 2017 your email strategy should

emphasize mobile, making it as easy as

possible for recipients to complete a

purchase from an email opened on a

smartphone. Roughly one-third of all

online purchases are now done on a phone

or tablet. If you are not designing emails

for smartphones — to be read and to

enable a purchase — you are leaving

money on the table.

But getting clicks from an email on a

smartphone can be difficult. Here are tips

to increase opens and clicks from mobile

users.

* Use responsive design so email renders

correctly across all web browsers and

email clients. In a study from MailChimp

and Litmus, responsive design increased

clicks from mobile users by nearly 15

percent.

* Preview email creatives (especially

when not using responsive design) on tools

such as Litmus, and design creatives to be

optimized for the browsers or clients that

make up most of your subscriber file. For

most brands, this will likely be iPhone

users on Gmail.

3. Develop an Email Road Map

Write a draft calendar for 2017 that

includes the types of emails or promotions

you want to run throughout the year.

These can be repeats of successful

campaigns from 2016, new ideas, or even

replicating what competitors have done.

The point of the exercise is to physically

write a plan on a calendar, as a high-level

schedule.

This plan will provide a basic roadmap

that can be refined monthly. As each

month approaches, you can finalize offers,

themes, frequencies, and other details.

4. Commit to 1 Email Improvement for2017

The return on investment from email

marketing is typically positive because the

cost to send is so low. Despite this, allocate

money to make at least one overall

improvement in your email for 2017. This

could be an overdue project or another

idea that will generate good results, such

as the following:

* Switch to a more advanced email

deployment tool, to facilitate, for example,

segmentation, abandoned cart emails, and

other auto-generated emails;

* Invest in an email preview service such

as Litmus or Email on Acid

* Develop responsive design templates

* Clean-up your database, including email

verification and data appends (matching

customer info with an email address)

* Attend an email-specific conference or

webinar.