Rhen: What’s up Fish Fans! This is Marcus, I’m Rhen, and you’re watching Marketing Madness: the Blue Fish weekly vlog! Our goal is to address common questions that business owners may have about marketing and advertising.

Marcus: That’s right, and this week we are going to bring your 6 tips for email marketing.

Rhen: Bruh, I heard email was dead.

Marcus: You are joking right? You are fired. Just kidding.

Rhen: He is joking, and so was I. Seriously though we think content and social media marketing are both wonderful means of watering your leads down the sales funnel, but they always come with caveats. Getting your content in front of leads requires high search rankings or ad spend on social.

Marcus: Yup and with social posts, you have a short lifespan and heavy competition. There is no “guarantee that leads will discover the content published on these channels. But, hold the phone, there is a way that we can almost guarantee that your content created for those leads will be consumed, at least on a high level “subject line”: email marketing --
Now let’s dive into these 6-email marketing tips we have for you this week...

Rhen: -- Tip #1 -- Email blasts are dead
The day of the ole spray and pay email blast is dead. Consumers have gotten use to being marketed to with material that is relevant to their needs and interests at a specific time. We have Facebook to thank for this modern marketing miracle. To earn engagement emails need to be catered to each leads specific interest.

Marcus: To cater specifically to the needs of the leads, instead of using the spray and pray approach, your leads must be segmented into relevant groups. A good starting point is to segment leads based on each one’s stage in the buying journey.

Rhen: If you are using systems like DRIP, this becomes super easy to do. You’ll want a clear understanding of where the prospect is inside the buying journey. This will help you create very specific emails that can either push a sale, or carry the buyer further along your funnel.

Marcus: -- tip# 2 Optimize for Mobile
With any campaign, I hope by now we have beat into your head that you need to be thinking MOBILE FIRST. We guess what, this is even true with email campaigns. Statistically speaking, almost 68% of emails are filter initially on a mobile device. If your emails forgo mobile optimization, you’ll likely lose a huge portion of your audience.
Here are some tips for making sure your emails are mobile friendly:
Use short succinct paragraphs that are broken up and easy to read
Include call to action at the top of the page
Make sure buttons and links are easy to click on a phone
Lead with the most important information

Rhen: -- Tip#3 Engage with trigger based campaigns
Trigger based campaigns use systems like Drip as we mentioned before. This can be a marketers best friend. These campaigns automatically send out communications based on specific actions, or inactions. Some of the most common triggers are things like
Welcome emails
Thank you emails
Reminder emails
Discount emails
Your shopping cart has an item in it emails
Don’t forget your daughter at daycare emails
When these campaigns really start to shine is in the sales cycle. With marketing automation, you can establish a sequence of emails that trigger based on established actions. In essence, the platform guides leads through the nurturing process for you—based on a sequence you design up front—reducing effort, using data to deliver relevant emails, and segmenting contacts into lists automatically.

Marcus: --- Tip#4 Personalized it
Personalization is a trick of the trade that increases open rates and engagement. You have the options to talk about a specific action, call the recipient by name, or speak to the last engagement. In order to personalize emails, you are going to need more than just an email address. However, be careful when attempting to collect this information, this is a delicate balance and you do not want to lose a prospect because you were prying a little too much. Over time you can build an information-gathering strategy that enable the types of personalization that build both relationships and revenue.

Rhen: -- Tip#5 Customize dynamic content
WIth dynamic content you can take personalization to the next level. Dynamic emails can display different content based on historical data collected. There are a variety of uses for dynamic content including:
Showing specific specials based on past purchases
Timers based on when the email is opened to show urgencies.
Personalized by location, time of day, and much more.
To take advantage of these smart emails, you are going to have to be using some type of automated system. Being completely transparent, this will come with an added expense. But understanding the power of these well timed and dynamic emails can unleash your marketing to the next level.

Marcus: --- Tip#6 Make emails interactive
An interactive email mimics the functionality of a web page. Once the email is opened, recipients can perform tasks right from the email itself, such as filling out forms, responding to quizzes, rating content, and providing information and feedback. These can be ever so useful and increase conversion rates big time.

Rhen: At the end of the day, all of these techniques focus on the nurturing leads in a more personal, direct, and engaging way. Boost engagement with interactive emails, build relationships with personalized and dynamic content, nurture with audience segmenting and automatic triggers, and connect anywhere with mobile optimization.

Marcus: To adopt email marketing into your current lead nurturing program, start by implementing a single strategy. If you lack relevant data, segmenting based on gated content downloads is a great place to start. If you have more data than you know what to do with, consider implementing personalization using dynamic content or automatic triggers. By starting with a single strategy, you can grow email marketing initiatives with less stress and more return.

Rhen: That wraps it up this week Fish Fans! Remember if you need help implementing your email marketing campaign to increase conversions and maximize sales give us a call today and and we can set up a 100% free marketing assessment for you and your company.
Marcus: And if you have any questions, please tag us below and we can directly address them for you. See you guys next week
Fin.