Red C are a Manchester based full-service marketing agency, who have been creating marketing solutions that deliver results, both on and offline, for more than 25 years.
Our email marketing offering is a complete one. We provide strategic support, design, copywriting and HTML build. We also have our own email distribution software, which when required we use to send emails on behalf of our email marketing clients.
For more than 15 years we have been providing email marketing clients with a complete email marketing service. We work with clients to deliver a healthy mix of ‘blast’ emails i.e. monthly newsletters, and automated emails i.e. abandoned basket email. We have extensive experience in both B2B and B2C markets.
We have delivered hard working and engaging email marketing for both B2B and B2C clients. We have created email marketing solutions for clients in the following sectors; travel, financial services, hospitality, sports, retail, healthcare, insurance, gambling and telecommunications.
Email marketing is a form of marketing that businesses use to make customers and prospects aware of products, services, and promotional offers.
Email marketing certainly works! However, just like any other marketing channel, email marketing must be done well, for it to perform to its full potential.
Campaign Monitor report that roughly 1/3 of global marketers say email marketing is the best marketing tool for generating ROI.
For businesses to send email marketing they must invest in an Email Service Provider (ESP) to send marketing emails. An ESP is software that manages, creates and sends email marketing campaigns. An ESP is also referred to as email marketing software, an email marketing tool, an email marketing service, or an email marketing platform. Popular ESPs include Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor and dotmailer.
The first step in creating a successful email marketing strategy is understanding what your email marketing objectives are. What are you trying to achieve? Is it more sales? Is it more downloads? Is it more bookings? Is it more traffic through to the site? Is it increasing your brand awareness?
When developing email strategies for our email marketing clients we often break our thinking into three areas, which we refer to as the three pillars of a successful email strategy: the who (segmentation), the what (content) and the when (frequency and timing).
To improve the relevancy of your email marketing activity it is important to look at ways to segment your email subscribers into smaller pots and then define the content and timing accordingly. For example, could you segment your subscribers by demographic data such as age, sex, or geographical location. Another fantastic way to improve the relevancy of your email marketing is by segmenting your subscribers by transactional data such as whether they have purchased a product or service before, their order frequency or order value or even by product or service category.
As an email marketing agency, we often speak with our clients about the need to create a rich and varied inbox. We believe that it is important to mix up the type of email campaigns you send your subscribers, as if you constantly send them the same messages, then they will become bored and your engagement rates will drop. Try sending your subscribers different types of emails, like newsletters, sale emails as well as advice driven emails. Also try mixing up the email format between short emails and longer templates.
Email frequency is another significant factor that needs to be considered when developing a successful email strategy. How often should you send your email subscribers an email? Our view, as an email marketing agency, has always been consistent. We believe, you should push the email frequency as hard as you can, without impacting negatively on your KPIs.
Watch this email marketing focused Virtual Midweek Masterclass entitled ‘The three pillars of a successful email strategy’.
A ‘blast’ email, or mass email, is the name given to an email which is sent to a large list of subscribers simultaneously.
Automated email marketing campaigns are sent automatically to your customers and prospects based on a schedule, or trigger, that you define. The trigger could be based on transactional data i.e. Post purchase automated emails, behavioural data i.e. abandoned basket automated emails, or demographic data e.g. Birthday emails. Automated emails help you achieve greater relevancy in your email marketing communications and therefore they generally achieve better results than ‘blast’ emails. A more relevant message, to a more relevant person at a more relevant time.
For more information click here and watch a recent Virtual Midweek Class or read this blog, both of which are entitled ‘Making money while you sleep with automated emails’.
An email marketing open rate is a percentage of the total number of subscribers who opened your email marketing campaign.
There are so many factors that determine an email marketing open rate. The quality of the data, the relationship you have with the subscribers, the relevancy of the subject header and the timing of the email, will all impact the open rate.
In 2020, Campaign Monitor report that the average open rate was 18%, but this does differ from sector to sector.
There are five ways to improve your email marketing opening rates.
An email marketing click through rate is a percentage of the total number of subscribers who clicked your email marketing campaign.
Although these measurements share some similarities, they are completely different metrics. A click through rate simply measures the number of recipients who clicked on your email. So, for example, if you sent an email to 100,000 subscribers and 1,000 subscribers clicked then you would have achieved a 1% CTR.
A click-to-open rate measures the number of subscribers who opened and went onto click on your email. So, out of the 100,000, maybe 50,000 opened your email. Then, 10,000 went to click a link, your CTRO is 20%.
Like an email marketing open rate, a click through rate is also influenced by the quality of the data, the relationship you have with the subscribers, the relevancy and impact of the subject header and the timing of the email.
However, the other key factor that influences the CTR is the email’s content. Is the email’s content relevant to the subscriber? Does the email have a strong and compelling proposition or offer? Is it well designed and well written?
Campaign Monitor report, in the yearly benchmark report, that an average click through rate should be around 2.6%.
In our experience a good click-to-open rate can range from between 20% and 30%. However, be aware that this metric, like all email marketing metrics, can deviate greatly from industry to industry.
There are 4 ways to improve your email marketing click through rates, whether it’s the CTR or the CTRO.
The first thing you need to do is decide what metric are you looking to improve, as this will determine what you should test.
Popular email marketing tests include testing the timing of your email distribution i.e. AM vs PM or Tuesday vs Sunday, testing different subject header strategies, testing the length of the email, testing the call to action messaging and testing different imagery.
As an email marketing agency, we have a couple of rules when it comes to email marketing testing. Firstly, ask yourself, what will you learn from the test. If it is very little, then think again. Secondly, do not try to test too much, as you will be in danger of not knowing exactly what has created the uplift or, potentially, the downward trend.
The four best ways to grow your email subscribers’ list.
Email ‘spam’ is unsolicited, and often irrelevant email marketing sent to a mass audience. This can include unsolicited commercial message or even fraudulent messages, like those including lottery scams, selling Viagra, phishing emails or even computer viruses.
In its simplest form a spam filter separates the good emails from the bad email.
All emails go through a spam filtering process, which ultimately determines the fate of an email. Whether it lands in the inbox, the spam folder or the promotional folder, your email will certainly go through a spam filter.
There is no singular spam filter than exists across all of email marketing. Each mailbox provider, company and individual user will have their own variation, but they all do the same job. They make judgement on your email using a set of pre-determined ranking factors and the result of that judgement will determine where you email ends up.
It is undoubtedly becoming more and more difficult for email marketers to avoid spam filters. Unfortunately, email spammers and the spam filters are playing a constant game of cat and mouse. Email spanners are constantly looking for ways to appear legitimate to spam filters, and the spam filters are always looking for ways to spot them.
We believe there are 5 ways to try and void the spam filters: –
Our job at Red C was to design and build templates that were new and exciting, Read More
One of the best ways to encourage sign-ups is to make it fun. We certainly managed that with our Bubble Pop game for Dulux Trade.
Read MoreAfter a lengthy pitch process, that lasted almost 6 months, we were appointed Eurostar's strategic and creative email partner tasked with revolutionising their underperforming eCRM programme.
Read MorePolice Mutual wanted to create an incentive-led campaign to entice members of the Police family to choose the brand. We answered that brief with a paw-fect campaign ;)
Read More