Email marketing works. You already know this but so do your competitors, companies from outside your industry, and nearly everyone who’ve wished for a higher return on their investment.
The daily number of emails exchanged in 2022 is forecasted to be 333.2 billion - talk about a cluttered marketing channel. The only way you can differentiate yourself from others is by creating conversion-focused emails. This is where holistic email marketing makes an entrance.
And who better to explain this than the woman who coined the holistic email marketing approach, Kath Pay.
Kath describes this approach as “...creating conversion-focused, customer-centric personalized marketing strategies, with email at the heart.” In this interview, the EEC’s Thought Leader of the Year 2021 and bestselling author shares her top tips and insights on creating impactful email campaigns.
Let’s get started.
How vital is email marketing in today’s day and age?
Absolutely vital. The pandemic has more than proven emails worth and necessity.
How can emails contribute to a company's success?
Many ways. Firstly, by directly driving revenue, but there are other ways that it contributes by indirectly driving revenue. This is because it's a push channel and a strong retention channel, and so it contributes significantly to the customer experience and customer lifetime value.
What are 3 elements every good email must have?
They should be:
helpful,
customer-centric,
and personalized.
How crucial is design in successful email campaigns?
Design is crucial - but not in the way that everyone thinks is important. We tend to focus too much on the design aesthetics and not enough on using design to help people with their decisions. I don't believe we put enough focus on designing for conversions. It's a delicate balance between designing for aesthetics and designing for conversions. When you achieve this, you have success.
What is one email marketing pet peeve you can’t stand?
Brand-centric copy.
What is one overlooked element when creating emails?
Scientific A/B split testing using hypotheses, recording the results, and implementing the learnings throughout your email program.
What’s the biggest challenge that email marketers are facing today?
The same as always - underappreciated and under-budgeted. The pandemic has changed the dynamics and demand for email, and it is now being more recognized and appreciated - however, we still have a long way to go.
Minimalist email designs or maximalist email designs?
Conversion-oriented email designs :)
What’s a good ratio of textual to visual content in emails?
It depends upon the sector, e.g., B2B vs. Ecommerce have different objectives and requirements.
Is email marketing in competition with other marketing channels, like social media, or can they be used together?
Their strength lies in being used together. Social is a great channel to use to grow your list, and email is a great channel to use to convert and retain.
How can small businesses with limited budgets benefit from email marketing?
Email can be used to upsell, cross-sell, retain, increase Average Order Value (AOV), increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) - you just need to be very savvy and use this brilliant push channel wisely.
What’s one email marketing trend to look out for in 2022?
I personally dislike trends, as it usually means that marketers are doing something simply because they saw someone else doing it.
What I'd like to see is marketers creating the 2022 strategy for email marketing, scoring the tactics identified based upon ease of implementation and Return On Investment (ROI), and ensuring that tactic is implemented. That will give them a far better result than following a trend.
If you could give one piece of advice to email marketers just starting out, what would it be?
Question everything that you read, and if, after questioning it, the advice still holds appeal, then do a series of scientific-based A/B split tests to confirm that it's the right tactic for your brand.
Wrap Up
Holistic email marketing should be a top priority if you aim for high conversions and stronger customer relationships. Once you’ve got your strategy in check, it all boils down to the emails you design. With Unlayer’s premade HTML email templates, you can design conversion-oriented emails in a matter of minutes.
That’s all for today, who should we interview next?
