EMAIL MARKETING

Be customer-centric to maximise your email marketing opportunities

By our News Team | 2021

Because all businesses use email, this is a channel that continues to have great marketing potential – providing you put the customer first.

Email marketing is something most businesses are doing, but few get right. Often, this causes frustration because responses are low, or customers simply ignore the campaigns altogether. 

Fortunately, advises Candice Lee Reeves of African-based email marketing specialist Everlytic, by tweaking their approach email marketers can make great inroads to creating content that drives engagement.

The first rule is to know your audience. It’s about understanding the needs of the people you’re writing for, presenting them with solutions to their problems, and making it personal. This is especially important in digital communication, where the communication is one-to-one, she explains.

Email marketing

Image by Prodeep Ahmeed from Pixabay

“Welcome to the age of customer-centric marketing that centres on the value and business impact that a brand brings to the consumer,” Reeves says. Here are her five tips that can help marketers shift towards a customer-centric approach in their emails:

Know your audience
Do market research and competitor analysis so you can understand the customer personally and put yourself in their shoes. Once you have this information, you can create buyer personas to help you develop personalised email content for different segments of your audience.

Get smart about collecting data
Your chances of getting someone to complete a subscription form go down with every form field you add. So use a short form that only asks for the information that you actually need – such as email address and first name.

Once the person has subscribed, there are two ways to gather more data: by asking them via a survey or update-profile campaign, or by tracking their email engagement and behaviour. Examples of the latter include seeing which emails are opened most, and which links get clicked.

Test different content strategies
Email marketing is still the most-used channel for interactions between people and companies. But there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to email content. Instead, test and find what appeals to your specific audience. Stay committed to adding value and A/B test things like subject lines, images and calls-to-action to see what gets the most impact.

Customise your content at scale
Automation and customer journeys enable you to use subscriber data not just to customise individual messages, but the entire email experience – automatically. For instance, you can set up parameters for personalisation in a bulk-communication platform like Everlytic and automate personalisation in real-time on every email sent.

You can also create message workflows, customising things like sending dates and times, delays between messages, and conditions for sending based on personal data or customer engagement and behaviour.

Be self-aware and agile
This is your degree of openness to adapt and receive new information, because what works now can change at any time. Assume there’s always more to learn.

Another common pitfall to look out for is knowing the difference between being content-centric and customer-centric. Content-centricity focuses on generating and distributing content – a process so many marketers can fall into. Customer-centricity, on the other hand, keeps the customer continuously at the centre of our view: who are they, what channels are they on, what are they interested in? Only from this point do we create content for those touchpoints; content generation and distribution comes last.

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    Dr Kin Kariisa

    Group CEO - Next Media

    Dr. Kin Kariisa is an extraordinary force at the helm of Next Media Services, a conglomerate encompassing NBS TV, Nile Post, Sanyuka TV, Next Radio, Salam TV, Next Communication, Next Productions, and an array of other influential enterprises. His dynamic role as Chief Executive Officer exemplifies his unwavering commitment to shaping media, business, and community landscapes.
    With an esteemed academic journey, Dr. Kariisa’s accolades include an Honorary PhD in exemplary community service from the United Graduate College inTexas, an MBA from United States International University in Nairobi, Kenya, a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Huazong University in China, and a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics from Makerere University.
    Dr. Kariisa pursued PhD research in Computer Security and Identity Management at Security of Systems Group, Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands. As a dynamic educator, he has shared his expertise as a lecturer of e-Government and Information Security at both Makerere University and Radboud University.

    Dr Kin did his PhD research in Computer Security and Identity Management at Security of Systems Group, Radbond University in Nigmegen, Netherlands. He previously served as a lecturer of e-Government and Information Security at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and Radbond University in Netherlands.

    Dr Kin did his postgraduate courses in Strategic Business Management, Strategic Leadership Communication and Strategies for Leading Successful Change Initiatives at Harvard University, Boston USA.

    • Other current and previous roles played by Dr Kin Kariisa:
    • Lecturer of e-Government and Information Security to graduate students at Makerere University, Kampala and Radbond University in the Netherlands
    • Director of Eco Bank Uganda Limited, one of the largest banks in Africa
    • Chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters, an umbrella industry association for all Television, Radio and online broadcasters in Uganda.
    • Chairman of Board of Directors of Nile Hotel International, that owns the leading hotel in Uganda, Kampala Serena Hotel.
    • Chairman of Board of Directors of Soliton Telmec Uganda, the leading telecom company in Optic fibre business managing over 80% of optic fibre in Uganda.