Your members are busy professionals. They’re managing their career, family, community activities and their membership in your association. How do you cut through that noise and communicate important messages to them? Despite our inboxes being saturated with messages, communicating through email still reigns king, according to a new report from The Radicati Group. “Worldwide email use continues to grow at a healthy pace. In 2015… email users will be nearly 2.6 billion. By the end of 2019,… [that] number… will increase to over 2.9 billion. Over one-third of the worldwide population will be using email by year-end 2019.” So even if your members receive over 100 (the average is 122) emails a day, it still seems to be the best mode of communication.
Personalized Email Content
I recently read a post by our parent company, ArcStone, about email marketing. Lisa Carnes, our VP of Marketing, talked about unique messaging and how your content can drive success (or failure). She highlighted the idea of analyzing your message through a friends perspective. Would your message come across as stuffy or impersonal? Does your tone match the type of industry you serve? After drafting up your message, edit your message as if you were someone else. Be honest with your initial reaction and make changes when it doesn’t feel right.
Creative, Honest Subject Lines
Your subject line is the first thing your members will see. It provides a snapshot of your message and affects your open rate. Make sure members click by drafting creative, yet professional subject lines. Add personalization and specific information about the email to entice them to open.
“Make sure that you aren’t deceptive,” says Carnes. “Pulling the old “bait and switch” on your readers will only make them mad and distrust your… [association],” (Carnes). Even if you’re just trying to be clever, it’s more important that you’re honest.
A Friendly From
To ensure your emails are opened, enter your own email or a company email like “info@” or “support@” so members know who it’s coming from. “An email with a real person’s name listed in the “from” address is more trustworthy than an obscure address,” (Carnes).
The Best Time to Send
Now, the reason you read my post – timing! Timing is everything when it comes to email marketing. Your open rates, reply rates and click throughs can significantly vary based on when you sent it. The tricky part is that best practicies in terms of timing can change every year. So what’s the current trend?
The answer is not concrete. It depends on many variables, like:
- Audience
- Industry
- Type of Message
- Email Content
After you’ve considered each variable and how it could affect your strategy, let’s take a step back. If we look at email marketing from a high level, we can conclude a few common sense takeaways. Think about when you most frequently check your email – it’s probably not on the weekend right? It’s probably not in the heat of your day or over your lunch break.
For me, it’s one of the first things I do each morning. It’s quiet in the office, I’ve already had a cup (or 2) of coffee so I’m alert and ready to tackle the long list of messages waiting for me. I filter past the clutter and open the most important emails first. But that’s just me – am I like others? Let’s look to some of the pros for their opinion.
Let’s Hear from the Experts
Hubspot developed a huge report on email marketing in 2015. Even though we’re two years down the road, many objectives still apply. To save time and let you get on with your day, I’ll get right to the nitty gritty details
Best Days to Send: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
Best Times to Send on a weekday: 10am – 12pm
Best Time to Send on the weekend: Sunday night @ 9pm
Test, Measure, Analyze, Repeat
We can share bench mark reports and offer as much advice as we want but what it really comes down to is the type of audience you’re serving. You have to test, measure, analyze and do it all over again until you find your sweet spot.
Don’t have time to create or manage an email marketing campaign? Let us help! ArcStone (AMO’s parent company) specializes in email campaigns. Email me at aketcham@arcstone.com if you’re interested.
