{"id":1088,"date":"2016-06-30T15:33:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T23:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.checkworks.com\/blog\/?p=1088"},"modified":"2019-06-18T09:59:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T17:59:20","slug":"how-to-gain-the-best-roi-from-your-email-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/how-to-gain-the-best-roi-from-your-email-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Gain the Best ROI From Your Email Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Businessman<\/a>
\nBy MJ Plaster<\/p>\n

The reports of the death of email marketing have been grossly exaggerated! Lately, I\u2019ve heard people talk about email as old tech or low tech and, therefore, ineffective. This is a misconception, as you\u2019ll see. In fact, it\u2019s one of the last best effective marketing avenues, since people have tuned out ads\u2014physically and mentally. If you\u2019re one of the millions of internet users who use ad blockers, then you know how easy it is nix ads from your view. If not, then you\u2019ve probably blocked the ads mentally.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Shine Has Dulled on Ads<\/strong><\/p>\n

Try this experiment: Turn off your ad blocker for a few minutes. Visit a popular website and look at the ad-to-editorial ratio. If you\u2019ve shielded yourself from ads for the past few years, you\u2019ll quickly become overwhelmed. It\u2019ll feel like an assault, or at a minimum, an onslaught.<\/p>\n

The Atlantic<\/a> wrote in 2014, \u201cThe Internet was supposed to tell us which ads work and which ads don’t. But instead it’s flooded consumers’ brains with reviews, comments, and other digital data that has diluted the power of advertising altogether.\u201d It boils down to too much information, TMI to those who prefer acronyms.<\/p>\n

The article further reported eBay and Facebook studies showed that people who are influenced by ads aren\u2019t actually clicking them. Google ad users showed an increase in return on investment (ROI), but users said they were going to buy anyway. It seems they used Google ads as a shortcut to the site.<\/p>\n

AdWeek<\/a> admits that online display ads don\u2019t work. It blames traffic bots for the fact that human eyes never see 54 percent of ad impressions\u2014impressions paid for by businesses. That\u2019s called fraud.<\/p>\n

Building Trust With Customers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Repeat business is a key to growing your business. It\u2019s easier and far less expensive to keep customers coming back than it is to attract new customers. The cost of acquiring a new customer is known as the customer acquisition cost (CAC).<\/p>\n

Email marketing is inexpensive in terms of CAC and can be far more effective than internet advertising. However, email marketing is a two-way street. With a few clicks of a mouse, the email recipient can dissolve the relationship and stop you from sending any further emails. One of the keys to email marketing is to build trust with your audience.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve harped on the trust issue in numerous articles on the CheckWorks blog, but even in faceless, e-commerce transactions, people want to do business with retailers they trust.<\/p>\n

A Case Study in Trust<\/strong>
\nConsider Amazon. I use an ad blocker, so I don\u2019t see their ubiquitous ads in my travels through cyberspace. I do, however, receive emails from them. Amazon keeps in constant touch with its customers. I receive an email confirming my orders. When an order ships, I receive an email with a tracking number. I receive daily emails with suggestions based on my purchase history, and I receive the \u201cDeal of the Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a Prime member, I get weekly updates on TV shows, movies and music of interest. Do I resent these emails? No. If I\u2019m busy, I delete them, but when I\u2019m not busy, I look at them. I\u2019ve found incredible new products through these emails and discovered shows such as Bloodlines through the emails. More important, Amazon is always on the tip of my keyboard when I need something\u2014anything.<\/p>\n

Amazon makes a fortune off me, but (thankfully) I haven\u2019t seen the inside of a mall in over a quarter of a century! Would I buy from Amazon without their constant parade of emails? Of course, but I guarantee you, I wouldn\u2019t spend nearly as much money with them. They have trained me to look to them first.<\/p>\n

I trust them to deliver my purchases and to make good on purchases that don\u2019t meet my expectations, and they always have. You can\u2019t rely on email as your primary marketing method unless you go the extra mile to establish trust.<\/p>\n

Thanks to brilliant email marketing campaigns, a few select companies have sold me, upsold me, cross-marketed me, and earned the loyalty of my friends. They have struck gold through their efforts.<\/p>\n

Now that you understand the strength of email marketing, let\u2019s look at some best practices to gain the best ROI from your email marketing.<\/p>\n

10 Best Practices for Email Marketing<\/strong>
\nIf you\u2019re already using email marketing, look through the list below and make changes as needed. If you\u2019re starting from scratch, do it right from the beginning and tweak as you go along. If you have an established email audience, keep tweaking until you hit on the perfect combination\u2014the combination of factors that brings the greatest ROI from your emails.<\/p>\n