How to Make Your Email Marketing Content Relevant

“First featured on Only Influencers on 16 August 2022, I’ve decided to republish this article here because the information is more relevant today. Email marketing continues to evolve, ensuring content relevance remains a top priority.”

I choose data, analytics, and research before emotion and preference vs “a survey of one” when I let my preferences influence website and or email content.

We each have unique talents that we bring to the market whether as a team member and employee, or entrepreneur.  

Sometimes I’ve found I’m too close to a topic to have an objective view.

In an effort to better understand the “audience” I’m trying to serve, my go to is data, analytics, and research.  As a fellow email professional, I’m not going to cover email data.

However, today’s discussion is around aggregate data enrichment via analytics.

The data I’m using is directly from Google Analytics for a health related content website that I was evaluating as a potential acquisition for a client.

So, the data is both current (June 27, 2022 to July 27, 2022) and real.  For privacy and an NDA, I’ve redacted the brand and domain.

Yes, I’m aware of the plethora of companies and SAAS products that offer data enrichment as a service.

If you’re collecting transactional data, you’ve already gained some additional insight to your email subscribers based on previous purchases, and additional demographic information.

With sites that don’t sell online and don’t collect attributable demographic information such as content sites, and consulting service websites, it can be difficult to do.

POP QUIZ 

What is the secret to running a successful restaurant?

1. Ambiance?
2. Location?
3. Menu?  
4. Chef? 

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“A Starving Crowd”

In our discussion around making your email marketing content relevant,  where is the starving crowd?  

What sources can you access to enrich your knowledge of your email subscribers to better understand their needs and interests?

Last year, before putting my hands on the keyboard to begin the article for the Only Influencers Blog, I began with keyword research.

For blog post topic and content, I needed to see what aspects of email and email marketing were receiving high amounts of search traffic “interest”, and showed lower numbers of competitors meeting that need with content that answered the search queries, “the starving crowd”.

The results. 

Temp Email and The Fake Email Generator

• 102,320 visitors to the post.  
• This made this post one of  the highest trafficed  posts on the Only Influencers website.

TIP: If I was writing for my email marketing newsletter vs a blog post, I’d resist the temptation of filtering the results number of ranking competitor posts on the same topic, because SEO isn’t a factor for email, relevance is.

How to better understand your email subscribers.

Take a look at the aggregate data of who’s on your email list and what else are they interested in?  

The quick and free version.  

• Invest a few minutes looking at your website analytics.
• Leverage Google’s world view of the aggregate data from internet users that carry over to your website visitors, and thus your email subscribers.

A New Email Marketing Metric

• New Visitor
• Returning Visitor

Why is this important? – 

It’s measurable.  

You can track the percentage of returning visitors vs new visitors.

If your email marketing is effective, you should see the returning visitor percentage increase. [I personally use a UTM in my email links so I can quickly see the results in analytics].

Most visitors classified as “New”.  So, any success you have at driving subscribers back to your website, product page, blog post, white paper will increase the “Returning Visitor” numbers.

Competitive Research

If you sell “email marketing platforms”, I can tell you that in the USA that exact term gets 2,400 searches per month.

I use a SAAS tool called UberSuggest.  Their is a free version that you can use to do the same research.

If you want to compete for that term using Google Adwords, it’s going to be expensive, real expensive.  The average cost per click to rank high is $78.03.

The top three websites getting the traffic for the search term email marketing platforms are as follow:

1. influencermarketinghub.com – Visitors Per Month 112 of 2,400
2. sendinblue.com – Visitors Per Month 61 of 2,400
3. sproutsocial.com – Visitors Per Month 47 of 2,400

At the very least, you could expect potential customers to to Google the search term as part of their buying process and research.

This information is valuable to ensure you’ve positioned your brand and offering in a superior light.  

Your brand unique selling proposition.

Once you read the content on your competitors page that’s getting the traffic, create better more through content, and share it in a post sales call email.

Additional Resources:  

• Increase Conversions With Timely Relevant Messaging… Email Marketing for the Buyer’s Journey!
• Marketing Channels Strategy
• Are Email Marketers Missing Their Share of the $41.1 Billion Advertising Spend?