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Top 7 Rules of B2C Digital Marketing
One of the most exciting things about the digital revolution is access to information. In the past, getting data was nearly impossible, and robust software tools were expensive. Thanks to Google Analytics, social media, and marketing automation tools, these advancements are available to a greater audience than ever before.
Businesses now have access to tools and data that giant retailers and national chains could have only dreamed of twenty years ago. But if everyone has access, what’s going to set you apart?
In a world where everyone has equal access to game-changing technology, strategy is what separates the winners and losers. The question is: How do you create a strategy that’s going to get results?
Let’s look at seven digital marketing tips to maximize revenue for B2C marketers while saving time and delivering maximum joy to customers.
1. Choose your tools wisely
Your tools are only as good as how you use them. You don’t have time to be everywhere all the time, nor do you need to be to pull off an effective marketing strategy.
Focus on the channels that generate the most engagement with your target audience and overall ROI. Be sure that your work on one platform complements the others. Your social media presence should reinforce your email marketing efforts (and vice-versa).
2. Prioritize email over other channels
B2C marketers who prioritize email marketing average an 89% higher contribution to revenue. What’s more? Email has the highest ROI of any marketing channel, generating $44 for every $1 you put in. B2C marketers can see upwards of 50% conversion rates from email campaigns.
People prefer email over other types of digital marketing, too. Seventy-two percent say they prefer to receive promotional content via email, while 73% of millennials say that email is their preferred way to interact with brands. These numbers point to an obvious conclusion: email is where you should focus a large part of your marketing attention.
3. Use email for brand-building
Email is one of the best ways to tell your brand’s story over an extended period of time. With email newsletters, you can easily reach your subscribers and get them up-to-date with your latest news and offers. Be consistent, delivering relevant content on a regular basis to stay at the top of your customers’ minds.
When you’re not sure about what to send, strive to write the kind of emails that get people talking. As Seth Godin reminds us: “Remarkable means worth making a remark about.”
4. Get personal
As you get more advanced, you can target emails to groups of customers in very specific ways. Email personalization can be anything from including first names in your subject line to customizing the body of your email so that it’s location or gender-specific.
Data shows that it works: 74% of marketers say targeted campaigns increase their engagement and emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to get opened.
You can get creative with how you use personalization, going much farther than adding a first name. For example, you can send emails with promotions based on a subscriber’s birthday.
5. Start with a welcome message
Everyone’s looking for email hacks and tricks, but one of the most effective things you can do is to create a welcome message that capitalizes on the forward momentum of a new sign-up.
Think about it: A welcome email is your very first contact with new subscribers, and it’s also the email they’re most likely to open. Welcome emails have an open rate of 70.5% and click-through rates of up to 152%. Sadly, those numbers tend to fall off with subsequent emails. Don’t waste your chance to make an outstanding first impression.
6. Set it and (sort of) forget it
Over 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered campaigns. Customer data and profiles allow you to set up triggers based on customer behavior that will automatically deliver emails at a time when they’re most relevant (which reduces the legwork required on your end of things, too.) Triggered campaigns can be anything from special birthday discounts to abandoned cart reminders and remarketing emails.
7. Take a data-driven approach
This final catch-all tip applies to every aspect of your marketing strategy. Whether or not you focus on email, and whether or not you take full advantage of tools like automation–your strategy should be supported by data. Use A/B testing to compare different subject lines. Put your time and marketing dollars behind what works.
The beauty of data-based insights is that they make success repeatable. We see this in B2B marketing where 59% of marketers say they can duplicate the results of an effective campaign by testing and optimizing based on data. Let the numbers be your guide.
Wrap up
Having the right tools is the easy part. Success in digital B2C marketing is a matter of having the right knowledge to build a strategy to get the most out of your tools. It might feel like this comes with a bit of a learning curve, but the good news is that the most revenue positive email strategies are also the easiest.
Personalization and automation not only get you better digital marketing results, but they’re also often easier to use and scale than low sophistication alternatives. Data takes the guesswork out of knowing what’s working, what’s not, and what it takes to crush your marketing objectives.
