I feel almost bad for hooking you in with such a ridiculous headline. Of course it’s not dead, and the vast majority of you will be reading this because you’re on our mailing list. Or at least you were until you saw through my sly clickbait tactics.
Count yourself lucky that we didn’t try to hook you in with a TikTok dance.
So how alive is it?
When we look at current marketing trends, most people immediately think of social media, viral videos, punchy branding or controversial concepts. Whilst they absolutely have their own place in reaching certain demographics, email marketing effortlessly sits as a foundation underneath these more modern methods. It cuts a throughline straight to your audience’s inbox and more importantly, their mobile phones.
So let’s look at a few tips to ensure your Email Marketing campaign doesn’t fall at the first hurdle or inbox.
Be concise
Brevity might be the soul of wit, but it’s also vital in your email not going straight to spam. People are very busy and even if they’re an active subscriber, there needs to be a reason to open and read your mailer. Exclaiming that “you’re delighted to announce” simply doesn’t cut it any more. You need to be giving your audience something they want.
The subject line matters
The probability of an email being opened can be calculated from the first few words of a subject line and your opening paragraph. Misunderstand what your audience wants and your list of subscribers will dwindle by the day.
If your campaign is going out to a large number of people, think about running some A/B testing to see which opening gambit returns the best results.
You’re in the right industry
According to statistics from Campaign Monitor, healthcare services had one of the highest open-rates for all industries (19.12%). Still holding at around 19.7% in 2020, this is only predicted to increase as we begin returning to some sense of business ‘normality’.
Make it mobile-friendly
No matter how good your content, if images don’t load and the layout breaks on mobile – you’re dead in the water. Test your landing pages, links and load times, then test again to avoid embarrassment. With iPhones making up nearly 30% of the email client market share, this certainly isn’t just a nicety.
Think of your email campaign as your shop window; you really want to keep it sparkling clean.
Don’t be dissuaded by unsubscribes
Obviously, if everyone decides to unsubscribe from your emails, there’s a major issue. However, don’t be put off by people choosing not to receive your content. It purely means you can focus more attention on the audience that remains. Count yourself lucky that this isn’t a print campaign, where those unsubs would translate into a huge unnecessary expense and a lot of discarded paper.
Make it personal
Email marketing is still one of the most cost-effective ways to reach your audience. Tools such as HubSpot and Salesforce have made it increasingly easy to target select content to specific demographics within your audience. This allows you to turn a single marketing email into a multifaceted campaign, aimed at the members of your audience with the highest engagement rates.
How can we help?
Having sent more HTML emails than we care to admit, we know what works in this heavily regulated industry. From internal staff announcements that need to catch the eye, through to Global Drug Development updates; we use those pre-installed ‘healthcare smarts’ to deliver your message in the right way.
Take a look at how we can help here.
