While new ways to reach your target market are continuously popping up on social media, the tried and true channel of email is still relevant and necessary for reaching your consumers. We’ve listed some things to make sure you have a handle on in 2018:

Contact Management

First things first, the number of contacts in your database doesn’t mean anything if most of them are bouncing. Take the time to look at who these contacts are and either fix them or delete them. Many email platforms will charge you based on the number of contacts you have and you don’t want useless emails racking up your bill.

Segmentation

Hand in hand with contact management is segmentation. The name of the game right now is personalization but you need to know information about your contacts to do this. What links do they click? Where did they hear about you? Why are they interested in your business? Knowing where you gathered the contact is a good starting point. Say you have a sheet of contacts from a trade show, put these in a list on your email platform that is titled “trade show” and tag them if appropriate. Click segmentation is a helpful tool for those who have a Constant Contact account but other email platforms offer segmentation programs too.

Mobile Friendly

This should be first on your list if you haven’t already boarded this train. Mobile friendly email templates are only becoming more and more necessary as smartphones continue to rise in popularity. A recent study from the Pew Research Center shows that more than 50% of people check their email via their cellphone. The simplicity of checking an email by phone helps you reach that consumer but can also lose you that contact if your template is not compatible. Missing images, weird formatting, and text issues aren’t something people have time to deal with.

Automation

Keeping your customer engaged and making them feel valued is extremely important but not something there is always time for. Automation programs run in the background and can automatically reach out to your contacts through welcome emails, event reminders, follow-ups, and more. Having a personalized email sent out without having to sit down and write it is a major tool for small businesses without enough hands and big businesses who can’t reach all of their consumers.

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