By Anders Rasmussen, CCO, Passendo
Emails. We all get them – lots of them, in fact. They’ve become so much a part of everyday life that it’s easy to forget email was once a revolutionary communication method that transformed how people interacted. As a result, email has become part of the furniture, and is easily overlooked when it comes to its marketing potential.
But in an increasingly complicated digital advertising landscape, in which audiences’ attention is pulled in every direction by thousands of ads daily, email is experiencing a renaissance. This is largely thanks to its inherently privacy-safe nature, and the creative opportunities it presents.
Contributing to this comeback is the arrival of newsletter advertising, which is helping to enhance its value and relevance. Anders Rasmussen, CCO at Passendo, talks us through seven ways in which you can revolutionise your email marketing campaigns, and make the most of the opportunities email offers.
- Centre your marketing around email
Approach email as a critical, trusted channel, delivering meaningful content to audiences that want it, look forward to receiving it, and use it to discover new ideas, products and services. The funny thing is, because executing an email newsletter campaign is easy, its value is overlooked, and often it is seen as a secondary channel to digital advertising on the open web. Change your mindset, otherwise your email newsletters will have little value. Give it the same attention you would any of your primary channels, because that’s what it is.
- Unleash the potential of your data
Newsletters can educate, entertain, inspire, grow awareness, build loyalty and sell products and services. Brands invest considerable sums in getting themselves noticed and acquiring valuable, opted-in, first-party user data. Make the most of this investment by ensuring your email newsletters are a key vehicle for activating this critical asset. After all, this communications channel’s more intimate than many others and much more versatile. Remember, people share their data with you because they’re interested in your brand and want to hear from you. So make sure they do hear from you. and take full advantage of this pre-engaged audience.
- Employ the right tech for maximum effect
Your tech stack must consider the reader, so relevant email ads are shown to them based on your first-party data. Make sure your platforms are set up to put you in control and keep you ahead of the competition. Email newsletter success means having control over your content and personalising your in-email advertising. If you’re using new email ad formats but continuing to serve the same ads to every recipient, you’re not being effective. Ensure your technology allows you to gather the critical data to inform your thinking and future activity. It will help you understand your recipients’ preferences, what’s working and what’s not, what’s resonating with readers and what’s being overlooked, and what’s driving activity, engagement, and sales.
- Ensure the ad format fits the channel
Start exploring new customisable formats designed to be integrated into emails that complement the environment. Newsletters are very different environments to web pages, so don’t simply apply ad formats from the internet (banner ads, for example) and hope they’ll work in your newsletter. While it’s easy to do, it’s lazy , old-school thinking and wildly ineffective. By innovating around your formats, you’ll elevate your in-email advertising, and your newsletter will become one of your most reliable profit-builders.
- Go back to the future with email
‘Privacy-first’ is a term of increasing significance in the advertising world, but the regulatory and public concerns plaguing targeted advertising today don’t exist in email newsletter marketing. Here, user data remains private and secure, so you’re reaching an engaged audience in a compliant, safe and effective way that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies. Take full advantage of this future-proofed channel driven by first-party data, which provides the control and transparency needed to build subscriber trust.
- Align audience and content
Make sure your email is not only content-heavy, but clearly focused on whatever subject people have signed up for. People subscribe to and engage with newsletters because they reflect their interests – be they red wine, cats, Italian food or knitting. In this way, your audience and your content are in alignment. Building out newsletters focused on verticals within a topic area delivers strong, engaged audiences.
- Innovate into the future!
Whether it’s ad formats, technology or layouts, keep testing your email newsletters to find out what works – then keep on testing. This means you’ll avoid your emails becoming staid and uninteresting, and they’ll remain a critical and profitable channel for you.
Anders’ bio:
Passendo co-founder and current CCO, Anders is a veteran Danish entrepreneur who has founded many different internet-based companies within the email advertising space. With over two decades of experience as a Sales Director at multinational organisations, including Ad Pepper Media Group, he brings a genuine passion for online advertising and an unrivaled determination to succeed. Anders is dedicated to seeing the full value of in-email advertising being realized – for which his natural ability for recognizing commercial opportunity proves very useful.
