News
News Article
GO! Network News
Thu
23
Feb 2023
With the number of email users in the UK rising to 48.7 million, representing a growth of 4.1% from 2019, we explore how email marketing can play a key part of your business’s success in 2023.
A successful email marketing strategy can help build relationships with your customers, increase brand awareness, and generate more leads and sales, but can take a lot of time and effort to craft.
In this edition of our 'Marketing 101' series, we ask our network of industry experts how the email marketing landscape is changing in 2023, and to share their top tips for a better chance of success.
Check out our calendar of free virtual workshops, designed to tackle the key challenges of our network.
As technology and consumer preferences evolve, marketers need to stay on top of the changes to remain competitive and successful.
For this year, expect to see an increased focus on personalisation, automation tools becoming more prevalent and sophisticated, and an increased focus on mobile-friendly designs, with mobile devices expected to account for 66% of all email opens in the UK.
Our experts highlight two areas that will shape the landscape of email marketing in 2023 - privacy laws and automation technology.
As the world continues to move towards a more digital-centric lifestyle, Harry Evans, Associate Director of Digital at Aira, warns that changes in privacy laws are likely to have a significant impact on email marketing in 2023, specifically around tracking.
“We have already seen some of this with Apple's mail privacy changes. This means email marketers need to adapt. Those who are to be successful will shift the conversation away from vanity metrics such as open rates to reporting on incremental growth using CRM systems to provide reports on pipeline and revenue growth.”
Jon Hudghton, Ecommerce Director at Smartebusiness highlights that advances email service providers are making in automation technology will continue to accelerate email marketing strategies in 2023, allowing businesses with limited resource to explore welcome series and abandoned basket flows, but warns that “there’s a huge amount of revenue being left on the table by a lot of brands.”
Brand loyalty, authenticity, and more; we asked over 150 marketing leaders to share the Marketing Communications trends, opportunities, and challenges they’re predicting for 2023. Download the “Pulse Check: 2023.”
Like all strategies in marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all solution when planning for a successful email marketing strategy. What works for one person won’t necessarily work for the other.
Often known as ‘batch and blast’, Harry warns against sending the same email to the entire database.
“This can have a direct impact on sender reputation, and a “damage to sender” reputation could potentially stop you reaching the people you want to.
Similarly, don’t assume all contacts are at the decision stage of their buyer’s journey. Tailoring content is crucial.”
For Jon, “a real focus on how to build an email list is probably the most common problem I see today.
Just asking people to ‘sign up for news and offers’ doesn’t cut it in 2023 and hasn’t for a long time. Without working to build that database with a compelling reason for customers to sign up now, so much work done on the email marketing side is wasted.
A connected issue is having a great sign-up offer but then not reflecting it in all sign-up locations on a website; for example, only having your compelling sign-up offer in an entry overlay but not next to your footer sign-up box is a common oversight.”
After exploring the mistakes to avoid and how the landscape of email marketing is changing in 2023, we asked Jon and Harry to share their top tips on how to ensure a better chance of success for your strategy.
As Smartebusiness share, “Give people a compelling reason to sign up to your email list - it doesn’t always have to be discount based,
Alongside this, make sure your core automation flows in place - this is to maximise returns from email, both pre-purchase and post-purchase."
Aira adds to this, sharing the importance of the above. "Use automation to help you send the right message at the right time. This can potentially be lower effort for higher impact compared to writing new content every week.
It's also important to continue to test and refine your automation flows based on data; knowing when to target returning customers, for example, is key."
In summary, here's the 5 points to focus on for your strategy:
#1 - Give a compelling reason to sign up to your email list
#2 – Have core automated flows in place
#3 – Continue to test and refine automation flows based on data
#4 – Understand your buyer personas and their customer journey
#5 – Be consistent with your strategy
When it comes to developing a successful email marketing strategy, an external support team can provide expert knowledge in areas where in-house teams might not have the resource, or the skills needed to realise their strategy’s full potential.
Jon highlights that creating high-performing email automation flows is a particular skill, and that engaging an external partner with genuine expertise in this area “can result in a huge ROI.”
So, how else do our experts believe external support can benefit your email marketing strategy?
“External agencies will often have partnerships in place with leading email services such as Klaviyo, and will also have the understanding necessary to unlock key insights from your order data. For example, the average time between orders placed on your website is critical information to understand for email retention campaigns, but many brands still don't know internally how to obtain this data.” – Jon Hudghton, Smartebusiness
“Working with an external partner allows you to unlock years of experience and resource quickly. The right partner will consult with you, taking the time to understand your customers and your ideal customers (they can be different) and should ultimately add value beyond email marketing.” – Harry Evans, Aira
Continue the new year with confidence! If you have a marketing need that will keep you ahead of the curve, let us know your requirements and one of our senior team will be in touch to offer free, impartial advice.
