It’s very tempting, when you start thinking about email campaigns, to just crack on and start writing content about how brilliant you are, and how many years you’ve been in business etc.
But hold your horses, and do some thinking first. It’ll pay off in the long run (and in the really short run too).
Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal, so the following tips are really worth following and getting right.
Tip 1. Establish your goals
Establishing what you want to achieve from your email marketing will dictate the type of campaigns you send, who you target, the content you include, and how you measure success.
The key to establishing the correct goals is to align them with your company’s wider marketing goals & KPIs.
E.g.
Drive more leads for your sales team
Improve margins
Fill your pipeline
Grow market share
Planning what you want to achieve with your email marketing before you start sending makes it much easier to identify what to send and who to send it to, and helps you create focused, high-performing email campaigns that will achieve your objectives.
Tip 2. Build segmented email lists
Once you’ve identified your email goals, identifying who you need to email is easy with your Glenigan subscription. Glenigan provides you with all the options you need to easily segment your prospects into lists depending on what you’re targeting in each email.
E.g.
Sector
Location
Role on a project
Total project value
Etc.
Check-out the short video below to see how to generate segmented lists in Glenigan that will allow you to target exactly the right people, working on the right projects to help you achieve your email objectives.
Once you have your lists, you need to decide whether you’re going to send really personalised emails e.g. an individual - bespoke - message to each person on your list, or a standardised message to all the names on your list.
If you’re going to send individual messages then you’ll be okay to use your standard email software e.g. Outlook.
Email software and data management responsibilities
If you are going to send the same message to many people, then we’d recommend you use an automated email marketing solution that allows you to personalise each email from the data in your lists.
Automated email solutions also provide reporting so that you can monitor your open rates, clicks, click-thrus etc. and make changes to your campaign if you’re not seeing the results you’d like.
They’ll also include responsible data management tools within their templates to ensure e.g. privacy policy and unsubscribe links are present, to help you abide by GDPR and PECR laws.
Although it’s important to note that you should not rely on the email software to ensure that you are managing data responsibly. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are GDPR and PECR compliant.
Some examples of automated email software you could look at - although we’re not recommending one over the other - are:
Campaign Monitor
Pure360
Marketo
Hubspot
Dotdigital
Tip 3. Write your emails
Now that you’ve identified the objective of your email, and the list to send it to - and you’ve got your email software sorted - it's time to start working on your email content.
From your very first thought, you should focus on understanding the following:
What are your prospect’s needs and challenges?
What features and benefits do your products/services deliver to answer those needs?
Is my email content going to be relevant to my prospect?
Start with your subject line, and make it as relevant to your prospect as possible.
Think of the subject line as a headline in an advert. If it’s not relevant then you wouldn’t read the rest of the advert. The same is true with email. If the subject line isn’t relevant then your prospect won’t open your email.
Things to consider
Include the name/address of the project you are emailing about, and the benefit of your products/services regarding that specific project.
For instance, if you provide security services and you want to supply your services on a specific project, then thinking of a two-part subject line might help.
E.g.
Relevance: Somerville House Scheme
Benefit: Reduce theft, fire and damage risk
Once you’ve got your subject line, then start working on your content.
Your email should be short and succinct. Everyone is busy, so expecting your prospect to read a long email is unrealistic.
Below is an example of an email that a security company might send to the senior site manager on a project (The Somerville House Scheme, from our example above).
Subject line: Somerville House Scheme: Reduce theft, fire and damage risk
Email text:
Dear Mr Long,
Do you want to reduce theft, fire and damage at your new Somerville House scheme in Rodney Road, Twickenham?
A manned security solution from [your company name] will help you do just that.
Our SIA licensed, and highly experienced security team have X years’ experience protecting construction project sites just like the Somerville House scheme, as well as associated plant & materials, and have manned security teams currently deployed at:
• [List out similar sites to the one you are prospecting for]
• X site, where our client is Y company
• Y site where our client is Z company
We offer flexible packages depending on your requirement and have teams available to deploy to fit your time-frame.
It would be great to schedule a call to discuss how we can help you protect your new scheme, are you available this week for a conversation?
Many thanks and kind regards
[Your name, job title, company, and contact details]
Email footer:
To provide reassurance of your professionalism and experience, add logos of professional qualifications and accreditations in the footer. If you have case studies or testimonials on your website then include links to these in the email footer too.
Notice that the email recognises the need/want, it’s relevance to a specific project, and how the security company can answer the prospect’s needs.
Although this email is short, it actually covers quite a lot:
Benefit - the benefit that your product/service will deliver to your prospect
Relevance - include the project that you want to get involved in
Experience - how long you’ve been supplying your services, and what relevant experience you have in working on / supplying products/services to similar projects
Examples - an explanation of your products/service - the features and benefits, and how well it will answer or solve the needs of this project
Qualifications - illustrates that you are a professional company and meet industry standards
More benefit - in this case it’s flexibility, but it could be around e.g. your solid supply chain and that you are able to deliver in relatively short time frames
Call to action - in this example there is a clear time-frame of when you would like to set up a call
Evidence of your professionalism - include accreditations etc.
Evidence of your past experience and previous satisfied customers - with links to case studies or testimonials on your website. It’s important to link out to supporting documents or web pages rather than attaching documents, as attachments can prevent emails from being delivered due to your prospects server-side security measures.
Of course, you’ll be able to add design elements to your emails once you’ve chosen your email software, but as a basis for your actual communication, the steps we’ve covered here should stand you in good stead to start your email marketing on the right track.
Tip 5. Sending your emails
Now that your emails are written, and you’ve created a strong design (if you’re using automated email software), now's the time to plan when to send them.
Many studies report that sending emails at 8am on a Tuesday morning returns the best for a lot of businesses, and so it’s certainly worth trying this for your first send. However, if you know that a certain day and time works well within your industry then try that first. Whichever You decide, we’d recommend following email marketing best practices and A/B testing to discover the day your audience is most engaged.
So try sending half of your emails on e.g. Tuesday morning at 8am, and half on another day at 8am. Just remember that a true A/B test should test just one change in your campaign. So that might be day, or time, but not both.
Tip 6. Measure results and manage expectations
Once you’ve sent your emails, you might expect to receive a raft of enquiries straight away, but before you set your expectations too high, here are some global construction-related industry benchmarks* that should help you manage those expectations:
Industry averages: Construction, Contracting, and Manufacturing
Open rate: 22.40%
Click-through rate: 3.20%
Click -to-open rate: 14.00%
Unsubscribe rate: 0.30%
Bounce: 2.20%
*Source: Campaign Monitor: 2020 Global Email Benchmark data
Of course, your highly-targeted and relevant messages sent to data you’ve identified in Glenigan should mean you see increased percentages to the above.
Tip 7. Test and refine
Now you’ve sent your first email campaign/s, you’ll need to analyse your results.
Did you see the results you wanted? If not, go back to your email analytics and compare against the averages identified above.
If open-rate is high, then you know your subject line is working. If not - change it, and A/B test the email again.
If the click-through rate is low, then take a look at your segments and make sure the message is 100% targeted at this segment. Look at whether it’s relevant to this segment or not. If it’s not 100% relevant, change it so that it is.
Tip 8. Keep going
Email is proven to be one of the most powerful marketing tools to generate new business - and with Glenigan data powering your campaigns to ensure you’re sending the right message to the right person at the right time - you will see success with it.
There’s a lot to get right with email marketing, but once you do, you’ll be glad you persevered!
Good luck!
If you’d like any further tips on email marketing then please contact your account manager who will be happy to arrange a call with one of our marketing team.