4 Effective Event Email Marketing Tips That Will Benefit Your Association
Email marketing: it’s a phrase that seems so simple, doesn’t it? On the surface, it’s pretty self-explanatory, but if you don’t understand the intricacies of your email marketing tool, your association could be losing in on some big benefits.
How, you ask? Let’s take a look how effective event email marketing can enhance your association’s outreach:
1. Adding a Personal Touch
Personalization is deeper than meets the eye. To begin with, the chances of a member opening an email that doesn’t speak directly to them are pretty slim these days, so it’s imperative that your message appeals to your human audience. According to PRNewswire.com, “People open emails with personalized subject lines at a 50 percent higher rate compared to emails without personalized subject lines, yet only 2 percent of emails employ personalization.” If your association is among the 98 percent of organizations using generic subject lines, this is a fundamental opportunity to focus on improvement.
Addressing your association’s members and staff by name in the subject line is just the start.
Effective event email marketing also encompasses segmentation so you can talk to your targets at the appropriate point in the process. In other words, the messages you send to people who have already committed to attend an event should be very different from the things you say to people who haven’t even clicked a link in your emailed invitation.
When you’re able to tailor your messages to specific segments of your association, the things you say are more likely to resonate with your respective readers.
2. Increasing Engagement
Audience engagement is closely tied to personalization. If you want to get your members’ attention, you have to deliver content that’s relevant to them. It also has to be available to be read when they’re available to read it.
People today rely on their smartphones to access information whenever, wherever. Event email marketing is effective because its messages are delivered in the language modern people speak.
Whether you’re updating your members about your upcoming workshop or networking event, reminding people to RSVP, or inquiring about what kind of experience people had at your last hoorah, well-crafted email marketing will get the point across while helping you collect invaluable information.
3. Making it Mobile-Friendly
According to HubSpot, 70 percent of all U.S. email users access their messages via their mobile phones, including your members. If your messages aren’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to inform people about your brand. People aren’t going to go out of their way to hear what you have to say. If you want to break through the no-response barrier, you have to make your message accessible from any device.
Before you unleash your event email marketing out into the world, be sure it translates well on all the top browsers, on every type of device.
4. Keeping Up with Trends
Email marketing automation is on the rise. This is great news for your association because, in many respects, it allows you to have a set-it-and-forget-it approach to for many of your events’ milestones.
With automated event email marketing, you set up a workflow upfront. As your members and staff interact with your campaign, they’ll receive different messages, appropriate for their specific behavior. While you’ll still have access to all the important analytics, the software takes care of much of the dirty work, allowing you to sit back and manage other elements pertaining to your organization without getting caught up in email-creating chaos.
For example, when a member RSVPs, you can automatically shoot them a note telling them you can’t wait to see them there. If the RSVP deadline is just a few days away, you can gently poke at the people who haven’t responded either way without manually trudging through your contact list or dealing with frustrating spreadsheets.
Event email marketing is a special science that requires the perfect combination of organizing, saying, and doing.
There’s an element of timing, a dash of know-how, and a few ingredients intended to optimize the end result. Of course, when you have the right technology at your fingertips, you up the ante and increase the chances of efficacy.