Tag: email marketing

Other than having quality content, having a quality email distribution list is one of the most important aspects of any email marketing campaign strategy. Your email list will impact who opens your emails, if anyone, and the integrity of your business.

Active clients
Active clients should be the first people you add to your email distribution list. If you have someone who often likes, comments, or shares your post on social media, it is likely they will read and engage with your email campaigns.

Keep list current and up-to-date
Your email list should always remain current. If you write new policies, keep note of this and at the end of every month, add these people to your distribution list. Since they are new to your agency, they will be most likely to open and engage with your emails.

Keep it clean
Just as you should add new customers, you need to remove clients you no longer work with. Not only does this avoid these people marking you as spam, it can increase your engagement and open percentage by removing people who are ignoring your emails.

Segment lists
A list segmented into different policies such as personal lines and commercial, allows you send targeted messages to a specific group of people. You can go even further and create a list of home insurance policy holders who don’t have auto insurance and create cross sell campaigns.

Things to avoid:

• Buying email list: These people don’t know you and more than likely don’t care to.
• Prospect list: Before you blast out an email campaign to a list of prospects, be sure these people know who you are and are aware you will be sending emails. This list should also be current and have legitimate email addresses.
• Over selling to current clients: While it is great to have your list segmented so you can cross sell to current clients. Be mindful of how often you are sending cross sell campaigns. Overselling to your current book of business could cause them to ignore or unsubscribe from your mailing list.

Whether you’re experienced in email marketing or just starting out, you should be continuously revisiting your email marketing strategy to find ways to improve.

Over time I have found that there are 4 factors that will always impact your strategy and should be considered as best practices.

1. Segment Lists
Your email distribution lists should always be segmented or broken down into relevant groups. What I find most common and effective for insurance agencies is to break down the lists by policy (personal, commercial, and farm). You can go even further by creating a list for home insurance policy holders without auto insurance to increase cross-sell campaigns.

Why do I need to segment my lists?
This helps create targeted campaigns that are relevant to those specific groups. In turn, customers will find your emails valuable and will more than likely open them in the future.

2. Perfect Send Times
MailChimp will provide you with reports for every campaign you send. Take advantage of this by paying attention to the time subscribers tend to open your emails. If you notice most subscribers read your campaigns in the morning, then you should be sending your campaigns at the beginning of the day versus the end.

How can I figure out my best send time?
Work with your strategist to review your reports thoroughly to find your best send time. You could run a test by utilizing MailChimp’s A/B Testing option. This will let you send to the same email to one list at two different times. From there, you can find what works best for your subscribers.

3. Effective Subject Lines
Your subject line and preheader text are the most important part of your email strategy because they are the first thing subscribers see. You need to make sure your subject line is short, sweet, and relevant to the email.

What type of subject lines are most effective?
Again, short, sweet, and relevant are the big three when it comes to subject lines. You can also utilize emoji’s and hashtags if you see fit and only if they make sense. The A/B Testing option is a good way to test subject lines on your audience.

4. Quality Content
The content is the meat of your email strategy and the retention piece. This will be the determining factor on whether subscribers open your emails in the future. The content should be relevant, relatable, and easy to read.

How do I know if my content is relevant?
Engage with your customers and ask them what type of information they would like to learn more about. You could run a poll on twitter or pose a question on your Facebook page.

** Bonus: 55% of email subscribers open emails on their mobile device. It is important to make sure your emails are compatible and appealing on mobile devices. You can do this with the preview mode on MailChimp.