Email marketing is an inexpensive or free way to market your library’s collection or services. Here are the top 5 tips to get you started or improve your library’s current email marketing strategy.
1. Personalization is key
Email marketing software often has the ability for readers to select what content they are interested in reading about. If you send out a few different emails to smaller sections of your audience this can really boost your open rates and increase value to library users. According to Hubspot’s 2021 State of Marketing report, marketers who used segmented campaigns saw up to 760% increase in sales. Though libraries aren’t interested in selling anything, this is a great way to engage your users and encourage higher usage and circulation.
2. Set goals and track open rates and clicks through your email marketing software
Setting goals and regularly tracking metrics will help you to adjust your content to create more value for your library users. Across all industries, the average email open rate is 19.8%, the click-through rate is 11.3%, and the bounce rate is 9.4%. (Constant Contact, 2021)
3. Format Emails for Mobile Reading
Making sure your email is mobile-friendly is really important. The best way to do this is to test by viewing the email from a cell phone. On Mailchimp you can also select mobile-friendly templates and you’ll want to keep an eye out for things like font size, image placement, and keeping important information within the first page of the email (no scrolling to get to it). About 59% of Millennials and 67% of Generation use their smartphone to check email. (Bluecore, 2021)
4. Use a catchy subject line
Experiment with different trends to increase your open rates. Popular trends are emojis and lists.
5. Send emails at opportune times
More than 8 out of 10 people will open a welcome email, generating 4x as many opens and 10x as many clicks as other email types (GetResponse, 2020). You can also use this strategy around renewal time, or after a library user has been inactive for a certain time frame to try to reengage them.
Timing is important too. Globally, Fridays see the highest email open rates (nearly 19%), compared to the lowest open rates (17%) on Saturdays. (Campaign Monitor, 2021)
View more email marketing stats and tips in this article: The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2021 (hubspot.com)
Some examples of well-made email marketing: 30 Brilliant Email Marketing Examples (Best B2B & B2C Examples) (sumo.com)