Online marketing has been the main thing for a couple of years now. How many people do you know who still watch TV in their leisure time now as much as they used to a few years ago? The advent of smartphones, electronic devices, and social media has made people stray from watching television. Now, most people spend their free time looking at the screens with a smaller distance from themselves, using Facebook, checking their emails, and other online sites.
This new trend had opened many avenues for business marketers who did not have enough budget for traditional marketing places before the advent of digital mediums. Email marketing is one of the best ways to make use of online marketing effectively. And now, email marketing technologies are used by 82% of the business and companies around. Marketing through emails has created a surge in sales and profits when done right.
However, when running a business, one doesn’t have the time to manage all the marketing sides. The owner may have many ideas, but implementing them may take a lot of their time. Also, the owner or the team present for marketing may lack the proper skills required for effectively marketing online.
This gap is where email marketing consultants come into play. These are professionals who possess the proper skillset and knowledge required to execute all the email marketing techniques. Hiring them can be a great help.
Where to find email marketing consultants?
The best place to find email marketing consultants is on the internet. And a huge number of them are available. Email Marketing Consultants are those people who you hire to consult on your current email marketing strategies. They go through them and tell you how to make them better from experience. They also weigh in with their ideas on what they believe would look better and tell you another approach that you can go about. These consultants help you increase the open email rates, the click-through rates, and finally, the conversion rate where the customers end up where you want them to.
Searching for email marketing consultants will lead you to two places. The internet will show you a list of freelancers, or it will show you a list of consulting agencies or firms who have teams upon teams of experts just waiting to do your work for you. A differentiation between freelance workers and proper companies can be how the communication process is and the cost to hire them. Either way, a hirer needs to be on the lookout for some key aspects depending on the business that will aid them in finding the right email marketing consultant.
Aspects to consider when hiring an email marketing consultant
Having to do email marketing yourself can turn into a big hassle. It requires time, money, and effort, and it still might not bring out prolific results. So yes, hiring a professional who is an expert in email marketing is the best way to go. An email marketing consultant must have a few basic skills that will help your business flourish.
Familiarize with the Business
An email marketing consultant needs to be active and attentive enough to familiarize themselves with the business they are hired to work for. Creating a better understanding of the business, its products, customers, and sales can lead to more effective marketing methods. This action will help the consultant understand the consumers’ buying behaviors, preferences, and whatnot. Consequently, it will lead to a more targeted and segmented system of delivery of the emails.
Automation
The person you are looking to hire must know how to send out automated emails. A business may have a wide range of products and a huge customer base to target through email marketing. They can create a proper algorithm. This way, the promotional emails of specific products and services go to specific customers based on their buying behavior, history of purchases.
The direct marketing association has found out that segmented and targeted emails to specific consumers generate about 58% of the revenue when email marketing is done right. This figure shows how effective email marketing is and why it is essential for the consultant to know these skills. Those businesses who go for automation have seen that the conversion rate (getting your desired result) is 50% higher than when mass emails are sent out.
Editing and Coding
An email marketing consultant needs to know the basic editing and proper coding. This skill will enable them to create designs and templates that are more appealing to the email receiver. For this purpose, the person you are looking to hire should also know what attracts the average person. What kinds of colors to avoid, what font style and font size to go for? They should do some basic research.
Research has also shown that the conversion rate is higher when promotional emails avoid using text links instead of using the call-to-action buttons. These buttons are more noticeable and more appealing to people, which will increase the number of consumers or potential consumers to see what you are marketing.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a marketing term for when two or more designs are created for one purpose. Then these two designs are tested to see which of the variants gets the better response. This testing will give an idea of what would be more liked by the potential consumers. An email marketing consultant should opt for this method when they are creating the designs. They should not just limit themselves to one possibility and roll with it.
Brainstorming
An email marketing consultant shouldn’t just be someone who creates what you want. You may be out of ideas at one point, and then what will you do? An email marketing consultant should also communicate with the business that hired him/her and let them know his/her ideas. It may be better received. A consultant should also speak from experience when coming up with ideas to know what is tried and tested and has proven to have been useful.
Knowing When to Send
An email marketing consultant should know how frequently they should send out emails to the consumers. One after another, a surge of emails can annoy the consumers into reporting your promotional emails as spam. This way, instead of gaining more customers, you will reach a big dead end.
The database marketing institute has concluded that the open rate of emails is higher when consumers receive only two emails a month.
Final Thoughts
You should include the aspects mentioned above in the things you look for when going through the hiring process. How you test, the knowledge of your candidates is up to you. When communicating with the person you’re looking to hire, they can either be cross-questioned, asked to show samples, given scenarios, and asked for solutions to come up with, etc. This way, you can tell if your candidate is eligible for the work you’re looking to outsource or not.
