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How to succeed in your e-mailing campaign?

#Technology

Written by Elodie Restiau

27 Jul 2022

Within the framework of the projects that we develop, the questions around email routines but also emailings often come up. Whether you want to inform, retain, prospect or interact with your audience, emailing is still an essential communication channel. In 2022, what are the elements that make this tool impactful and relevant in your communication strategy?

How to succeed in your e-mailing campaign?

Your contact list

What would a mailing be without a target audience to send it to?

Over time, you've built a database full of interested and willing contacts under the GDPR.

Beyond the restrictive nature of the RGPD, having a database of committed contacts guarantees you a lower unsubscription rate as well as a better opening rate and a better click rate.

This list of contacts has therefore taken shape thanks to various channels and marketing/communication actions: a newsletter registration form on your website, a contest action with a partner company, requests for quotes, contacts made at a trade show, etc.

Some e-mailing solutions offer their own forms to be integrated into your digital channels, directly linked to your contact list.

RGPD Info: Before, it didn't matter where your contacts came from or if they gave their consent to be on your list. Now, everyone in your database must have given their explicit consent beforehand. You see that little checkbox that allows the company to send you advertising emails? Yes, that's it, the opt-in! And make sure you keep the consent register on hand, you need to be able to prove their commitment at any time.

What is in your contact list?

Basically, the only data that is mandatory to have is an email address... But this is a bit too minimalist if you want to reach your audience.

The more data you have, the more you will have the opportunity to reach your audience through various targeted campaigns with precise objectives. Indeed, you can create for a contact as many variables as you want: Name, first name, language, country, gender, source of contact,...

Targeting strategy

First, centralize!

All these variables mentioned above will help you refine your targeting strategy.

The first thing to think about beforehand is to centralize everything. Gather in your tool all the contacts collected during your actions.

Segmenting contacts

Segmenting your contacts will allow you to offer targeted and relevant content to your audience. If, on the other hand, you offer them content that does not correspond to them, they will end up not being interested in you!

There are several ways to do segmentation, depending on your internal organization, your audience and your objectives.

You can create several lists, to classify your contacts according to the type of emails they want to receive for example, or their origin. You can of course have a contact who is in several lists.

Another strategy, which we think is the best, is to create a single "Master" list, on the basis of which you create segments.

You can then segment your contacts according to their language, city, age or any other variable created beforehand for each of your contacts.

It is possible to go even further with "marketing automation" which allows you to automate the segmentation according to the behavior of your audience. For example, if a person has performed such and such an action, we assign him a score and you can then classify him in a list of "engaged leads" to send him a specific campaign.

Creation of the email

Structure and design

Here again, there are several ways to create your mail template.

You can do it in-house if you have the necessary resources. Many e-mailing solutions offer a wysiwyg type editor where you just have to drag and drop text and image blocks and fill in the boxes until you get the desired result.

You can also entrust this task to your digital production agency. We can create for you a unique template for your campaign based on your graphic charter and your content. We can also create a reusable template, which will always keep the same base but where you can add different content blocks.

No matter which solution you choose for the creation of your template, make sure that your email is responsive, that is to say that it displays correctly on all types of screens (mobile, tablets, etc.).

Content writing

As we said, promotional e-mail is an essential communication channel. In fact, you are certainly not the only ones to send e-mail campaigns. You will have to stand out to attract the attention of your audience.

Here are a few ways to take your campaigns to the next level:

  • Respect your graphic charter

As for your other communication supports, use your graphic charter in the design of your template, both in terms of colors, typeface (when possible, always with another typeface in fallback for email clients who will not know how to interpret it - especially Outlook), the presence of your logo, links to your social networks,...

  • Write qualitative and targeted content

Think about your audience, offer them content that corresponds to their expectations and interests. Address them according to the objective of your campaign: do you want to inform them or build their loyalty?

  • Create interaction

Create interaction through engaging visuals, via CTAs (Call to action) in the form of links or buttons that lead them to your site, an article, a form, a contest,...

  • Speak directly to your prospects

Use personalized variables: Address your audience with personal data collected in compliance with the RGPD (language, last name, first name, gender,...).

  • Identify yourself!

Use your company name as the sender and an email address with your domain name extension. First, authenticate your main domain name through SPF and DKIM records in your DNS zone.

  • Make the subject of your e-mail striking

This is the "title" of the mailing, which is displayed even before the user has opened the e-mail. It is this line of text that should make the user want to open the email!

Don't give it too serious a tone, but not too offbeat either (you can even use emojis if the case lends itself to it). No false promises, no spam words (Free !!!!). And it is obvious that this label must reflect the content of your email.

  • Don't forget the unsubscribe link

It is mandatory. There is no point in keeping contacts in your audience who are no longer interested in your company, and therefore no longer engaged. If you are reported as spam too often, you run the risk of being blacklisted by your sending solution.

  • Beware of "spam words"!

When an email arrives in your inbox, it is scanned by your email solution. Thus, if a word spam is detected, your mail will be classified as spam and not in the main inbox.

When should I send my email?

If you are just starting to send campaigns, the best thing to do is to test several schedules until you determine the time when the opening rate is the highest.

Indeed, depending on your field of activity, the day and the hour with the best opening rate can be very variable.

All sectors considered, the best days to send your mailings are Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, around 10am or around 2pm.

You can send your mailing manually when you decide to do so, but you can also schedule the sending in your tool so that your campaigns go out at the right time. This is useful if you prepare your campaign in advance and you only want to send it the week after... No risk of forgetting!

Beware of the repercussions!

Great, your email was sent to your database of 300,000 people, with CTAs that all redirect to your website.

Have you thought about the traffic boom that will be generated on your site? It's great in the abstract to have 300,000 visitors who can potentially respond to your email campaign. But can your website handle that much traffic at the same time?

If not, consider splitting your campaigns further.

You have a campaign available in 3 languages? Send them at different times! For example, FR in the morning, NL in the late morning and EN in the afternoon.

But what if my contact list has 200,000 people in FR alone? Try to split based on another variable.

As a last resort, consider increasing the capacity of your servers, so that they are able to absorb the traffic load related to this sending.

Analyze your results

After each sending, analyze the results of your campaign: the opening rate, the click rate, the unsubscribe rate, ...

Make comparisons with other campaigns, this will allow you to identify what works well or, on the contrary, what does not work at all.

After a campaign, don't forget to clean your contact list. Delete non-existent or inactive email addresses.

Continuing to send emails to a contact who is no longer interested can be harmful.

Which platform to choose for your email campaigns?

There are many tools on the market that allow you to manage your email campaigns. We can mention for example Mailjet, Active Campaign, Sendinblue, Mailchimp.

We will not go into detail about each solution here. Some tools are more basic, others more elaborate with features such as sending SMS marketing.

At MV Studio, we adapt perfectly to the constraints and tools of our customers. We regularly create reusable templates and set up marketing automation via tools such as Mailjet, Malchimp or others.

Need help with the design and implementation of your future campaigns? Or in Marketing Automation? Do not hesitate to contact us.

And in the wake of this article, we are also launching our newsletter. So don't hesitate to subscribe via the attached form to be kept informed of our latest news.


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