Email might seem old school when you’re selling marketing services. But over half of small and medium-​sized businesses (SMBs) use the format and applaud its effectiveness. However, there’s always room for improvement, and you can help clients address their email marketing pain points.

Email Effectiveness

There’s a reason that SMBs continue to use email marketing. Yes. They hear the buzz about social media commerce. They use social media.

But Constant Contact research reveals that email rules as the marketing tool that retains existing customers and finds new ones.

Email Engagement

Consumers do not allocate much time to reviewing email. The typical engagement with an email message lasts eight seconds. In that amount of time, your client must impress the reader. They must convince their target audience to view the offer and then possibly make a purchase.

According to Constant Contact, the average open rate is 32.55%. But SMBs in some industry verticals experience a higher open rate. Child care services (47%), nonprofit organizations (38%) and faith-​based organizations (41.3%) all fare better than average.

For industries that score a lower-​than-​average open rate, encourage your clients to test varying subject lines. Tweaking a few words can make a big difference.

Email Campaign Timing

Consumers tend to check out email messages soon after they receive them. With the ability to access messages on their always available phones, consumers know the second something new arrives.

Enticing recipients to open and click on a message can be one of your clients’ biggest email marketing pain points. Data from operators such as Brevo show that email campaigns do better when they’re sent on Tuesday and Thursdays. And the 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. drop times generate higher opening rates.

But there is some variability by vertical. For example, messages from hospitality or brick-​and-​mortar retailers do well on Thursdays between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. This response activity may have to do with consumers who are planning their weekend activities.

Up to now, we’ve been talking about open rates. But clicks matter more. The highest click rates happen on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But since each vertical generates slightly different responses, you should work with your client to maximize clicks. You may need to use A/​B testing to determine which day of the week and time of day yields the best outcomes.

Personalization

Help your client design a personalized email campaign, and they’ll see a higher engagement rate. Personalized details range from name or other profile data (80%) to customer segment (64%) to past email interactions (42%).

Reducing Bounce Rates

SMBs can’t afford to develop a bad reputation but that’s exactly what happens when their email bounce rate is too high. In fact, a high bounce is one of the most common email marketing pain points. 

Your accounts can fix this problem by maintaining clean email lists. If they don’t have enough time to delete bad email addresses from their list, offer to do it for them. Managing email lists in this way reduces the hard bounce rate.

Constant Contact reports the average bounce rate is around 10%. However, Brevo analysts caution that any bounce rate over 5% signals trouble.

Help your client detect the reason for an increasing bounce rate. In addition to using bad email addresses, marketers’ messages may be getting trapped by a spam filter. To escape that fate, the subject line and email text should not include spammy terms like “cash bonus” and “free offer.”

Return on Investment

Only 56% of SMB marketers claim to be “somewhat confident” regarding their current marketing strategy. They want to use multiple media formats to connect with their audience.

With AudienceSCAN data from AdMall, you can show them which marketing formats are most likely to result in generating a response. Whether it's direct mail, video or email, consumers are searching online after they see an ad.

If they complain about email marketing pain points, share ROI data. Let them know that the average ROI for email marketing is $36. For SEO, the comparable number is $22.24 and for Google ads, it’s $8. Then offer to help them put together a winning email campaign.

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Pexels.