You’ve probably Googled “What’s the best day to send my email?” before a high-stakes email campaign and found that most results say Tuesday is the best day.

You’ve also probably seen these claims backed up with different kinds of data. However, as an email marketer, you should consider the sample size and the industries contributing to the data. Extrapolating the findings of a different industry to your industry might not yield the best of returns.

So if you haven’t completely studied the behavior of your target audience, but you believe that Tuesday is the gold standard, it’s safe to say that you’re entertaining a myth.

In this article, we’ll discuss why the Tuesday preference exists and some tools for cracking the best-time-to-send-email code.

The human psychology factor

Every email marketer wants their emails to arrive in their recipients’ inboxes when they’re inclined to open them. Unfortunately, there’s an element of presumption in predicting how people react to different days of the week.

With Friday being the last day of the work week—when most people are preoccupied with the weekend—and Monday being the getting-back-to-work day, most marketers overlook them. As a result, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday become the natural choices for sending emails. Since Tuesday is followed by two more supposedly high-productivity days, it’s assumed that it will garner higher open rates.

While this theory looks reasonably good on paper, open rates ultimately come down to the sensibilities of your audience. For example, a mobile-savvy person can check (marketing) emails any day, anytime—while waking up in the morning, standing in a queue for their coffee, catching a ride, and more.

In summary, opening an email is a subjective process, and you’ll have to do some testing to identify the optimal sending day and time for your mailing lists.

To read the full article please visit Zoho.com

Drip emails are a series of emails that are sent to follow up with subscribers. They are linearly set up with different send times. Once the defined time arrives, based on the action of recipients, they’re automatically sent to the subscribers by your email marketing platform. To learn more about drip campaigns from a very general point of view, read our article that explains the 7 ways to maximize your drip marketing efforts.

Considered one of the most effective ways to engage subscribers, drip emails are a natural fit for the ecommerce industry given the time visitors often take to make a purchase. Today we’re going to take a look at some highly personalized types of drip emails you can create if you have some data about your visitors and subscribers. These emails will be a great way to boost sales during the post-holiday season.

Clearance sale

This is a type of email customers expect to see after the holidays, so it’s good to fulfill those expectations. You can sell your remaining products to the right customers simply by setting up drip campaigns that show them items they’ll be interested in that are on sale. One way to do this is to segment customers who were active during the holiday season and show them items based on their previous purchase patterns. Your email should also indicate that there are only limited quantities left. This will give the email a sense of urgency, hopefully inspiring some of your recipients to go ahead and purchase a few items.

To read the full article please visit Zoho.com

Sensitive emergencies and outbreak times like our current one highlight how emails are a predominant means of communication for people across the world. Whether it’s HR sending employees company emails or customer-focused COVID-19 precautionary steps, awareness campaigns, and brand messages, the last few weeks had everyone glued to their inbox.

We at Zoho Campaigns know the importance of conveying information to both employees and customers who matter to your business, and that’s exactly why we’re introducing our new set of crisis-related, COVID-19 email marketing templates.

We created these email templates with the following points in mind:

• Simple themes and fonts to ensure responsive behavior and easy readability for all audiences across multiple devices. (Less time spent in editing) 

• A non-heavy HTML look so emails render without any breaks in different email clients of the recipients. (Better deliverability)

• Empathetic content that highlights the need of the moment and the safety measures to follow. (Maximized engagement)

With the ongoing global health emergencies, home is becoming the headquarters for most of our work. The continued emphasis on working remotely is largely shaping the way teams digitally collaborate, coordinate, and comply on KPIs and outcomes.

So, what does this mean in the case of your email marketing campaigns—something that involves the contribution of cross-sectional teams? If you’re a marketer, sales person, designer, or a rep concerned deeply about the best way to realign your email marketing campaign goals owing to remote work, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article, we discuss the essence of shared responsibilities in tasks like setting up email design systems and running marketing campaigns, and we show how Zoho Campaigns can help you conveniently and steadily execute your email marketing functions in the advent of working from home and other remote places.

To read the full article please visit Zoho.com

As you decorate your brick-and-mortar or online store to win shoppers’ attention on Small Business Saturday, take a moment to appreciate the progress you’ve made thus far. Building a business is no small feat, and we’re happy to see you flourishing. Whether your company has been around awhile or your ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled tomorrow, we wish you the best on your entrepreneurial journey. 

While Small Business Saturday can be that big shot in the arm you’ve needed, it’s also important to foster the relationship you’ve made with contacts. Supposing a family dines in your restaurant for the first time, your service coupled with communicativeness could be the catalyst for their next visit. Emails, by their very essence, can help you build successful relationships with your customers. Their simplicity and one-on-one nature means you can reach out to your audience any time in a personalized manner.

To help you maximize the impact emails can have on growing your business, we at Zoho Campaigns are launching a site dedicated to providing email marketing educational resources for small business owners.

To read the full article please visit Zoho.com

Many small business marketers hold a misconception that email marketing isn’t effective or worth trying due to their campaigns potentially being marked as spam.

If you’re a small business owner who wants to use email marketing for its cost-effectiveness and flexibility, yet shy away because of the spam factor, this article is for you. We’re here to shed light on a few things that’ll help you understand the nuances of spam and how to avoid letting it become a roadblock to executing a successful email marketing campaign.

To read the full article please visit Zoho.com

Tim Watson, a leading independent email marketing consultant from Zettasphere, shares his expertise on what kind of email content makes customers happy and stick to a brand. Tim has 14 years of email marketing experience, providing strategic guidance to enhance email campaign performances. He’s also been a twice-elected member of the Email Council at the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) and chair of Email Best Practice hub.

Expert Diaries from Zoho Campaigns connects avid email marketers to the experts in this space, and help them learn some best practices and tips. As #HolidayEmailMarketing is approaching, let’s begin with getting our email content right for acquiring and retaining more customers.

Make your customers happy and deliver value in your email marketing.

Makes sense, right? Customer-centric emails that make them happy recipients of your marketing—it’s a win-win.

Only one problem. What is value to consumers?

The recent Email Addiction Report, carried out by Zettasphere and Email Monday, provides some answers. The report is based on findings from a consumer survey and is freely available.

One question probed the type of content that consumers want, asking “What new email innovations would interest you?”

The top three answers are all related to having more value in the information being provided.

• Product ratings. Valuable information that gives buyers the evidence to support products are worth buying. Social proof.

• Products and offers based on purchase history. Consumers want offers on the things they want to buy. They don’t want offers on irrelevant products. It doesn’t matter how financially enticing an offer is—if the product isn’t wanted, the offer is worth zilch.

• Offers depending on location. With half of emails read on mobile devices, email is a 24/7 connected channel. Automated timely emails are effective and, better still, relevant to the context of the consumer.

The more functional items, such as playing video in the email or buying from an email, are not seen as valuable. Consumers aren’t feeling burdened by the need to click a link to play video or buying on a webpage.

And they don’t seem keen on having a computer sort and delete emails in their inbox. Despite the often-reported email overload, consumers still prefer to be in control. Swiping to delete emails isn’t a burden.

Value ISN’T pure content  

A big trend of recent years has been content marketing. It’s an important part of marketing activity for many brands. The idea is to provide interesting content and consumers will fall in love with you.

A major reason for content marketing is the Google juice that follows. Content is a major part of an SEO play.

But the idea that consumers want only interesting helpful content in emails is wrong.

Don’t expect engaging conversation to magically turn into conversion. You still need to sell, to promote, to ask for the purchase.

And consumers are wanting and expecting this.

A further insight from the Email Addiction Report. Consumers were asked what they expect to receive having signed up for brand emails.

The key point is that consumers sign up expecting offers, savings, and new product information.

Consumers expect to be sold to—that’s one of the reasons for signing up.

Take care to balance pure interest-led content with a good old-fashioned promotion. You’ll be disappointing your customers if you don’t sell to them.

Value is helpful content that helps people buy.

Don’t forget to grab a copy of Email Addiction Report, which is stuffed with research.

Pundits have unanimously predicted that the popularity of email marketing will further soar in the coming years. 2019 has almost come to an end and we saw emails on mobile, personalization and AI (Artificial Intelligence) topping the marketing trends.

Digital Marketing expert Dharaneetharan GD feels that the key is to stick to the basics while being aware of the changes in the trends and smartly incorporating the two to execute effective campaigns.

He is the Director of Social Eagle, a digital marketing agency based in Chennai. Social Eagle handles over 80 clients that include Azus, Haagen Dazs, Ricola, Singapore Management University, Loyola College, Naturals salon and more.

Dharaneetharan sat down with us for our Expert diaries series to answer some of the most common email marketing questions asked to marketers.

1. How can businesses — including digital marketing agencies use email marketing to their advantage? 

To start with, email marketing is relatively easy, quick and inexpensive. While newsletters are the most popular form of email marketing, there are many ways for businesses to reach their target audience. After collecting the email addresses of their existing and potential customers, businesses can send them special promotions, holiday emails, sale coupons, new arrival notifications and so on. Consistent communication will help businesses develop a personal relationship with their clients.

For digital marketers, email has many uses. For instance, we can send out research material about social media trends that can make us come across as thought leaders. Furthermore, many digital marketing influencers use email marketing tools to promote and conduct online courses.  Agencies can also use tools to conduct surveys to understand social media trends.

2. How do you encourage your clients to invest in email marketing?

As a digital marketing agency, we run simultaneous promotional campaigns on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp, in addition to SMS and email marketing.

People often assume that a social media channel like Facebook is more viable, but that’s far from the truth. You might collect customer data like email addresses and phone numbers on Facebook, but it all falls under one segment. Email marketing, on the other hand, allows you to give each group of customers the right offer. This way, it comes across as a one-on-one personal conversation with your customer. This is largely impossible on social media platforms.

3. What are the features that marketers look for when choosing an email marketing tool?

First of all, we always look for a user-friendly tool that allows us to send more emails with less restrictions. A good email marketing tool should be able to send 5,000 – 10,000 emails at a time. We also look for tools that allow autoresponders for email customization. Most importantly, a tool must allow us to embed images and videos.

4. How much time does a brand or business need to spend on email marketing?

Again, email marketing is part of a larger digital media plan. Preparing content and images takes us a couple of hours, and sending emails through a campaign only takes a day. A brand can easily do four campaigns every month.

5. Is there a guideline that one must follow when sending out newsletters?

I follow three basic rules:  First, keep the content crisp and clear. People have hundreds of reasons to be distracted online. Keeping your newsletter to the point means that your content is more likely to register in the minds of your subscribers.

Second, keep your emails visually appealing and play with the color theme of the brand. A lot of science goes into choosing the colors of the brand, so stick to that.

Third, always have a call-to-action button. If anyone is interested in what you have to sell or say, they should immediately be redirected to your website or landing page.

6. Can you give us examples of brands that effectively use email marketing. 

I enjoy emails from Success Resources. They’re leading global providers of educational resources, seminars, and workshops. Both Jack Canfield—a self-help book author and motivational speaker—and Brian Tracy—a life coach and motivational speaker—have used email marketing to build a personal brand.

7. What are the challenges of email marketing?

First, we have to educate people about email marketing because they’re unaware of its advantages. Second, we need to ensure that people read marketing emails. They often land in folders other than inboxes and we still haven’t figured out a way to get around that.

Finally, clients sometimes expect us to send mail campaigns almost every day; however, that doesn’t work. There’s no hard-and-fast rule about how many email campaigns to send, but the number solely depends on the brand and the services they provide. As a digital marketing agency, we need to figure that out.

In this fast moving world, change is inevitable and this expert feels that the only way to move forward is to observe and learn.

Here’s a blog piece by Izabelle Hundrev from G2, a B2B review marketplace for software and services. She specializes in sales, marketing, and real estate content. After earning a degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri, Izabelle moved back to her hometown of Chicago, where she currently resides.

Expert Diaries from Zoho Campaigns connects avid email marketers to the experts in this space, and help them learn some best practices and tips. We’re kickstarting this with some thoughts on how to liven up the your efforts over the next half of this year, helping you perform #SmartEmailMarketing.

Email has proven to be an effective marketing tool for decades. It helps brands drive traffic, nurture leads, and, ultimately, drive sales.

But now more than ever, buyers in the digital age are flooded with messaging across all applicable channels. Marketers face a new challenge: how to cut through the noise.

As we’re rounding up the first half of this year, there’s no time left to waste. Over the next six months, it’s important to look at email marketing through a different lens and focus your efforts on strategies that are proven to deliver measurable results.

An effective email marketing campaign can take many forms (newsletter, nurture campaign, etc.) but should have a strong tactical foundation. In this article, we’ll cover five email marketing strategies to implement that will help you push the envelope and convert more buyers into paying customers.

Audience segmentation  

Email allows you to cast a wide net and connect with your audience in an easy and accessible way. But that doesn’t mean you should target all of your subscribers with the same messaging. Think about it: different people value and care about different things. Someone who just started their own small business has different problems than an executive at a Fortune 500 company. While both of these personas might fit within your target audience, you need to speak to them differently.

This is where audience segmentation comes in. By segmenting your audience into different email lists, you can still reach a lot of people at once, but the messaging will be more relevant to them. How you decide to segment your audience will ultimately be up to you. You can build out email lists based on demographics, level of engagement, or even what stage of the funnel your prospects are in.

Personalization  

The reason audience segmentation is so effective is because it makes an email campaign more personalized. Everybody wants to feel special, and if a brand is able to make you feel like you’re not just another email on their list, you form a stronger connection to that company and their message. 

There are a lot of ways in which marketers can make their email marketing campaigns more personalized. Small touches like switching up the subject line to include the recipient’s name or including a name in the “from” field can make a big difference. Show your subscribers that you value them as individuals and not just for their wallets.

Send-time optimization  

Unless your business only serves a local market, there’s a good chance that your audience doesn’t live in the same time zone. After all, what’s the point of sending a carefully-crafted email if your recipient is asleep when they receive it?

If you check existing research about the best time to send an email, you’ll notice that the results are varied. The truth is there isn’t a universally accepted time that will ensure your email is opened and read. The workaround is that you can test which times work best for your specific audience.

First, start with timezones to make sure you’re hitting your target audience during daytime hours. From there, it’s best to conduct A/B testing to determine which times of the day and days of the week will yield the highest open rates.

Optimize email content for mobile  

The days of having access to email only on a desktop are long gone. Nowadays, most people use their smartphone to keep tabs on just about every aspect of their daily life. If the content of the emails that you’re sending isn’t easily readable on a mobile device, you might have a major problem in your hands. To be frank, it’s just bad email marketing.

Luckily, this is easily preventable. When looking at an email inbox on a smartphone, you’ll notice that each message has three major components: the name of the sender, a subject line, and pre-text. There’s a good chance these elements are the only thing the recipient will see before they decide to click on your email or delete it altogether, so you’ll want to make sure they’re optimized to fit the mobile experience.

Another factor to remember is the size and formatting of your email once it’s opened. If the reader is enticed enough to open your message, you don’t want them to delete it because it’s too difficult to read on their phone. 

Use technology to your advantage  

The final piece of the puzzle is finding the right technology to help you execute. If you pair these email marketing strategies with the correct software tools, you’ll be on your way to converting email subscribers to loyal customers in no time. 

Email marketing software plays a big role in running a successful email campaign. Users can create email lists, make custom templates, and send emails in bulk with the click of a button. In addition to helping you be more efficient, an email marketing solution will provide you with valuable data to track your campaigns and their performance in real time. You can track bounce and click-through rates, as well as the number of users that unsubscribed from your campaign. These insights are valuable when it comes to deciding which campaigns to keep and which ones to get rid of.

Final thoughts  

There’s no silver bullet when it comes to email marketing, but you can do your best to find out what works for your brand and audience. By following these five email marketing strategies, you’ll be able to fully maximize your efforts in no time.