Email marketing is a strategy for the promotion of commercial messages and is a great way to increase brand awareness and generate sales. With people regularly checking their emails and opening on average 34% of promotional emails Constant Contact (Jan, 2023), email marketing is an easy and affordable way to share content and messages to a mass audience at one time.
Check out some of the do’s and don’ts below that will help you reach success in the implementation of your email marketing campaigns.
A woman sat at a desk in front of a laptop on Mail Chimp, a email marketing provider
1. DO keep your emails short and concise
Statista (2021) found that on average people spend 10 seconds reading emails from brands. Therefore, is it important for the content of your email to not only draw people in with compelling copy but to be short and sweet. Recipients should be able to scan the emails you send and get the gist relatively quickly.
2. DON’T send too many emails per week
We all know the feeling of receiving too many emails from a company… it can be frustrating as nobody wants to be bombarded with promotional emails every day. We recommend a maximum of 2 emails per week, but it is always good to test what works for your audience and to adjust accordingly.
3. DO optimise emails for mobile
Email Blaster UK found that in 2018 at least 50% of emails were used on a mobile device, which is a significant amount. Therefore, it is important that you are optimising your emails for mobile use. You can make your emails mobile-friendly by:
Using device detection – many email providers such as Mail Chimp and Campaign Monitor offer device detection where emails can detect and adapt to different devices.
Length of subject line and pre-header text – It wise to check the length of both the subject line and pre-header text and keep them short and succinct. This will be the first thing a recipient will see before opening an email. If the most important messages are cut off when viewed on a mobile, people may be less inclined to open it.
Testing emails – a good way to ensure your emails are mobile-friendly is to send a test to yourself and open it via mobile.
4. DON’T forget to segment your audience
Email marketing isn’t a one size fits all, so make sure that you are tailoring your emails to specific groups. Different demographics will want to receive different information. For example, if you work in e-commerce and were building an email about the women’s online clothing sale, it wouldn’t make much sense to send that email everyone in the database i.e. men. Ensure you are sending relevant emails to the relevant people; you can do this by creating segmented lists for different audiences based on demographics or interests e.g., age, gender, location and interests such as sales, accessories, new season.
5. DO personalise your subject lines
Personalising subject lines typically includes a recipients first and/or last name. By making an email personal it can help to gain the curiosity of the recipient and thus increase email open rates. But don’t just take our word for it, Klenty has found that personalising subject lines doubles email open rates. For non-personalised subject lines, the average open rate they found was 16.67%. For personalised subject lines their data indicates an average open rate of 35.69%. So, the next time you send an email, add a touch of personalisation.
6. DON’T include multiple call to actions (CTA’s)
Depending on the context of the email, be wary of bombarding your email with too many call-to-actions. For instance, a newsletter may include a few CTA’s for people to find out more information, but for more sales-led emails 1-2 CTA’s will suffice e.g. ‘Check out our new sale’ and/or ‘Read our blog on the hottest trends this Spring’.
For more helpful tips and tricks on digital marketing, take a look at our other blogs here.
Digital marketing metrics are one of the most important aspects of your digital marketing strategy. It’s necessary to have a good understanding of how your digital campaigns are performing in order to improve them. This will also help you compete effectively among competitions. In this article, we’ll go over some of the key digital marketing metrics that marketers need to track. By the end, you should have a better understanding about which metrics matter most and how best to use them in order to achieve your goals!
Finding the right digital marketing metrics to track the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts is key
Tracking your digital marketing efforts helps you identify what type of content resonates with customers and highlights areas for improvement.
It’s important to understand that ‘success’ will look different depending on what type of business you have and what goals you set at the beginning of a campaign. For example, if one goal is to increase sales by 10% over a period, it’s important that you measure the results in terms of increased sales rather than just clicks, views or impressions – even though these may be useful as secondary measures.
Before starting any work on creating ads/content etc, the first step involves defining an objective or goal for each campaign. This will help you understand which metrics are important. It can also determine how much money should be spent on each channel, streamlining what needs improving during future campaigns.
Reach
Reach is the number of people who saw your content. It’s a great metric to measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts because it shows you how many people viewed or interacted with your message.
Page Views
Page views are a good indicator of how many times your content has been seen. It is tracked in two ways: by unique visitors and total visits. The first includes only the number of people who see a page on your site, while the second takes into account all of their visits to any page on that site—including multiple visits by a single person.
The best way to measure page view growth is through an analytics tool like Google Analytics that allows you to compare metrics over time. This will give you insight into whether or not your content is gaining traction with users, which will help you determine whether or not more resources need to be devoted toward its production and promotion.
Unique Visitors
Unique visitors refers to the total number of people who have visited your website in a given time period. This is useful for understanding how many people have seen your content, which can be good for measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns. Long dwell time measures how long visitors stay on your website before leaving again, and it’s helpful because it shows you how engaged they are with what they see on your site.
Time Spent On Site & Pages Per Visit
Time on site and pages per visit are important metrics because they show if your audience is engaged. A high time on site and pages per visit indicates that audiences are engaging with your content and staying on your site longer – this means they’re finding your content useful and interesting.
If you see a drop in these metrics, it could mean that something’s off-kilter: visitors aren’t finding what they want on the page or they don’t like the look of it (and therefore aren’t sticking around). If this happens to be an issue with design or usability, take steps to fix it as soon as possible.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the average amount you spend to acquire a new customer. It’s important because it helps you understand how much money you are spending to acquire a customer and whether this is sustainable over the long term.
To calculate Cost per acquisition (CPA), you divide the total cost of acquiring customers by the number of customers acquired: $10,000/1000 = $10.
CPA = Total Cost of Acquiring Customers / Number of Customers Acquired
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is the number of clicks on a link or button divided by the number of times it was displayed. The higher your click-through rate, the more likely people are to click on your links. CTR is a measure of how enticing your content is to visitors, so it’s important that you understand what influences this number and adjust accordingly. For example, if you notice that one particular page has a low CTR compared with others, take a look at why: does it include too many ads? Is it hard to navigate? Are there technical issues preventing users from accessing it?
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits to a website. It’s a measure of how many visitors to your website leave without continuing on to another page.
Bounce rate is a good indicator of whether your content is engaging enough to keep visitors on your site and it can help you improve the conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on your website).
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost per click (CPC), also known as the “click-through rate,” is the amount you pay for each click on your ad. It’s a great metric to track if you’re paying for clicks, but not so good if you’re not.
For example, it may be tempting to track the CPC of an ad that has a low click-through rate because it means fewer people are seeing it, but this can be deceiving: if the advertiser is paying $1 per 2 clicks, then the cost per view is really high!
Downloads
Downloads are a great way to measure the success of your content marketing efforts. If you have a website or mobile app, downloads can be downloaded from either location. The number of times your content has been accessed is measured by the download.
Downloads can help you determine if there’s interest in what you’re offering, but don’t get too caught up in this. Downloads don’t necessarily translate into sales or leads right away, and they may not translate at all! So make sure that you’re tracking other key metrics like clickthrough rate (CTR), engagement rate and bounce rate so that you know where improvements need to be made before making any changes based only on downloads alone.
Email Open Rate
Email open rate is the percentage of email subscribers who opens an email out of the total number of subscribers. They are a great indicator of how many people are seeing your email. However, they aren’t always the best metric because they can vary based on a number of factors:
Your list is small or large
The subject line and content of the email were compelling enough for people to want to open it and read more (or not)
Do you have a footer that encourages clickthroughs? If so, this can improve clickthrough rates as well.
Email Unsubscribes
It would be great if every customer loved your emails and read each one immediately! Unfortunately, this is not the case. There are several reasons why a customer might unsubscribe from your email list:
No longer interested in your offering or product
You send too many emails
Their inbox is overcrowded
Likes, Comments, Shares
Social media engagement metrics are a good way to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts. The more people who like, comment or share your posts, the more successful you’ll be at engaging with them and encouraging them to take action in the future.
Focus on the digital marketing metrics that are most relevant to your goals and can directly impact your bottom line
It’s important to understand which digital marketing metrics are most relevant to your goals and can directly impact your bottom line. These metrics should be actionable so that you know what actions to take in order to improve the performance of you digital marketing campaigns.
It’s important that these metrics are consistent so you can compare them over time to find trends and patterns.
Remember, these are just some of the key metrics that digital marketers should be tracking. There are many more out there, but these should get you started with a solid foundation.
We’ve all been there, actively searching the internet for that specific dream job, yet we rarely ever know what that dream job actually is. With pressures to go to University and become a vastly successful businessman, there’s no wonder you’re here. However, do not fear! University is not for everyone. One option that’s often forgotten about is Apprenticeships. But are they for you? With a 26% increase in Apprenticeship starts since 2018, they are quickly becoming popular. Within this, Digital Marketing apprenticeships are quickly gaining popularity above the rest. As a current Digital marketing apprentice, I will give my honest insights, as well as how you can succeed within one!
Working Ways in a Apprenticeship
Going into any job can be both very exciting but also very nerve-wracking. However, for most new apprentices, this is to be expected. This is because, often, this will be many of our first jobs after leaving school. Once you have control of your emotions, you will start to get more involved with day to day activities to help your business. Firstly, its important to know that no two days will be the same! Some days, you may have a lot of reports to fill out, and other days, you may have campaigns to set up. By having this variety day-to-day, each day is exciting and new. This variety will also quickly teach you communication skills, analytical thinking and time management.
Please do note that it’s okay to not fully understand everything within the first few weeks/months of starting. From personal experience, it took me a very long time to get to grips with the day-to-day processes. I have social anxiety, so suddenly working with lots of new people was a big shock for me, but, if you keep your mind open and let them know how you feel, you will succeed. Now that I have worked as a Digital Marketing apprentice for a little over a year, I have a few recommendations on how you can succeed:
Ask your team for help, there’s no negatives in asking for help, as it will help you grow.
Keep up to date with your workload. If you’re struggling to keep on top of everything, let someone know before it becomes overwhelming.
Keep a positive mindset throughout your apprenticeship.
Congratulate yourself on small achievements, this helps towards building a positive mindset.
Don’t be a afraid to push yourself to learn more.
Pretty Portfolio Pointers
As part of the level 3 Digital marketing apprenticeship, you will be required to produce a portfolio as part of the apprenticeship itself. Ultimately, this is simply a ‘collage’ or proof of work you have completed at work. If you are able to keep on top of this, I highly recommend putting just 1 hour a week to work on this project. Although sounding simple, from experience, it can quickly become a problem. A portfolio is showcasing your best work you complete day-to-day. Therefore, if you start to fall behind, I advise you to tell your line manager. This is because if you leave it too long, you may find yourself rushing to finish it and submit it before the deadline, as I did. As I mentioned earlier, time management will become vastly important, and this is one of the main influencers of this.
Within the portfolio, you will also need to complete a list of competencies. Some of these include confidently using 3+ technologies, communicating with internal and external clients and examples of customer service. You can find the full list with the following link ‘occupational-brief-digital-marketer-1.pdf‘. Many of these, you will naturally complete with your showcase of work throughout. However, I highly recommend asking your portfolio coach (you will be assigned one) for any help on how you can hit any competencies that you are struggling with. You can go through the list and ask your coach before your monthly sessions, as that is what they are for!
Key Takeaways
Overall, the main takeaways for portfolio success are:
Keep on top of everything
Set aside at least 1 hour a week to work on this
Make sure you understand how to hit each competency with your coach
Keep your team updated on the progress of your portfolio.
Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship Exams and knowledge
Exams and Knowledge
Unfortunately, exams are a part of many qualifications, and can be the make or break for some candidates. During the level 3 digital marketing apprenticeship, there will be 3 main exams, these are Principles of Coding, Marketing Principles and a Google Analytics IQ exam. Both Principles of Coding and Marketing Principles exams are timed and are done in exam conditions (no cheating) and will take place at a specific time that will be designated to you. I highly recommend that you also set aside at least a hour a week in the lead up to your exam to revise for these.
The Google Analytics IQ exam is more independent and can be taken any time throughout your apprenticeship but before Gateway. Gateway is basically a process where you will sit with your line manager and portfolio coach, and decide if you are ready to complete your EPA (End Point Assessment). To be ready for this, you need to have your portfolio complete, have completed your exams and have your employer reference written. Therefore, I recommend having everything ready at least a week before to ensure there is no stress.
Synoptic Project and Interview
Once you have passed Gateway, you will be undertaking your Synoptic Project and Interview. I am currently doing my Synoptic Project. It is a 4 day assessment where you’ll will be given a brief and will have to complete tasks based on this brief. You will not be working your normal day to day jobs during this time. You should definitely speak with your coach and focus on practicing for this. In terms of your interview, you will have a 2 hour interview session allocated to you. During this, you will talk about your portfolio, your synoptic project and your employer reference. I recommend going over each of these to have a answer for any possible question. For more information, please visit the following link ‘digital_marketer_assessment_plan.pdf‘.
Key takeaways
Overall, again, I will sum up what the key takeaways are here:
Revise for all three exams well in advance of the test date.
You need to have these done, as well as the portfolio and reference before Gateway, I recommend at least 1 week before
Try to learn what is expected in a Synoptic Project.
Go over your pieces of work before your interview.
OTJ hours in your Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship
Along with your day to day work, it is required that at least 20% of your working hours are spent ‘Off the job’. This means you should work on non-day-to-day related pieces of work. Examples include your portfolio, revising for exams, researching the latest market trends or self improvement.
I highly recommend speaking with your line manager and coming up with specific times during the week to complete this. This ensures that everyone in your team is up to date with your apprenticeship. During this time, I recommend you also track the time you spend not working, as if you are under that 20% threshold, you will know well in advance of your Gateway.
Conclusion
Finally, our top ten tips on the Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship are:
A term heard throughout the apprenticeship of a digital marketer. A measure of how well an online business or brand is doing in its social media efforts. Engagements are shares, likes, comments and any other interactions. Historically, engagement has been a common measure of social media success.
How is it calculated?
Total engagements / Total followers X 100
Tips for better Social Media Engagement
Know your audience – Research into who it is you want to target and find out their interests, what platforms they use and at what times. There is so much you can learn from researching the target audience!
Create interactive content – The more engaging the better! how many times have you gotten sucked into random BuzzFeed quizzes? Interactive content is great because it can create emotions of curiosity, excitement and fun.
Use a social media management tool – Tools such as Hootsuite or Meta business Suite not only allow marketers to plan and schedule content best to fit their audience but also provide analytical features. This means you can track how well campaigns and posts are doing for future success!
Know the difference between Reactive and Proactive Marketing – Marketing campaigns that are proactive require specific preparation before release, while marketing campaigns that are reactive respond spontaneously to current events. Use both accordingly!
Respond quickly to queries – Customer service is key. You want the customer to feel valued always respond in a professional, timely and friendly manor. Keep inline with bet industry practice and your business or brand social media policy.
Somecontent ideas for boosting social media engagement:
