Email marketing takes experience, with a touch of je ne sais quoi, to have the edge. Of course, ensuring your email program communicates and connects effectively with your marketing software is important, but there other gotchas to watch out for…
Taking your eye off the ball on other channels.
Whether you’re B2C or B2B, your customer base is likely to connect with your brand in various places. There will be many touch points. Communication across your teams and departments is critical, therefore. If one of your audience becomes disgruntled elsewhere, they are unlikely to want to hop onto your mailing list. So in this age of GDPR, where experiences of a brand will affect how customers behave with respect to subscribing, it’s important to pay attention to detail across every channel. Nothing spreads faster in the B2B world than a moan on LinkedIn. One needs to have the ability to juggle many balls in the air at the same time… or work with an outside supplier who can do that for you.
You don’t have enough heads to do the job properly
Or perhaps that can be reworded to say you don’t have enough heads with specialist knowledge to do the job properly. Your email marketing campaigns may not be a full time job for anyone in your organisation. But those campaigns are likely to need the experienced touch of a fair few individuals each time. Think of the components of a campaign that require specialist skills: graphic design, copywriting, coding, email technology, server technology, data, processing leads, and that’s just to name but a few. Individuals with each type of knowledge are scattered across many departments. That’s a lot to coordinate if you don’t have the need for a dedicated full time email marketing team.
Technology is limiting you
There is a plethora of email service providers to choose from. They each have their USPs, their specialisms, their pros, and their cons. If you’re still using one you chose a while ago, it may be time to move on. Successful email campaigners can outgrow the capability of their software very easily, but finding the right replacement isn’t straightforward. It’s worth taking advice from a supplier that specialises in digital marketing. They will have experience and knowledge of what works well in different industries and verticals. They’ll also be fully up to date with all the latest features that you can tap into. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
Your data and data processes are letting you down
We’ve already mentioned it once and got away with it, but GDPR is fast becoming a differentiator now. The B2B marketing world has enjoyed considerably more freedom than its B2C counterpart in approaching its audience up to this point. But that’s changing; and that’s not the only cause for concern. With more automated marketing techniques entering the software feature list, having inaccurate data will send stray bullets flying everywhere.
But holding ever-more detailed data will be what distinguishes between email marketers. The most powerful email marketing systems are useless without the right pieces of data to go in them. Guidance from an outside agency that specialises in digital marketing could save you a lot of wasted time, so it’s worth considering obtaining this before you take the plunge.
Lead times are squeezing out important stages
Yes, even in the B2B world tastes and trends move quickly. But jumping on the coat-tails of the latest fad should not be at the cost of things like A/B testing. The fine tuning you get from testing each campaign and making tweaks is invaluable if you want to connect with your business audience through the perfect voice for their ears. Those extra conversions are customers that are easier to keep in the future if you then track their buying cycle.
Your audience has moved on
With the interconnected nature of marketing these days, particularly on a digital level, the focus of your target market can shift very quickly. How clear a view do you have on a macro level of your audience? Have subtle changes in their behaviour meant they’ve moved on without you noticing? You need to review your KPIs. Take advice from both specialists in your industry and specialists in digital marketing. Direct conversions are all very good and well, but if you’re not engaging and holding your audience too there’ll be trouble in the near future. Now’s the time to consider whether you’re still assessing the right metrics; if you’re not, make a change as soon as possible. You will reap rewards if you do.
