Why Email Marketing is Like ‘The Hunger Games’

By Seamas Egan

With retailers ramping up their email marketing efforts during the holiday season, they need to take steps to ensure their emails are ending up in their subscribers’ inboxes rather than the dreaded spam folder. Consider these five tips, with an ode to "The Hunger Games":

1. Channel your inner Katniss with fail-safe precautions. With her life on the line, Katniss never makes the same mistake twice. Taking fail-safe sending precautions prevents the same from occurring in your email marketing campaigns. You'll be sure to ruin your chances with customers if you spam them with emails they can't open. With more and more consumers reading email via smartphones or tablets, be sure to implement responsive design templates to make your content is easy to read and interact with. Otherwise, similar to how the cannon blast signals a tributes demise, you'll become a victim of the delete button and will leave the email marketing games early.

2. Your email marketing Mockingjay — make an impression. When you look good, you feel good, right? Similar to how Katniss puts on a façade to entice her sponsors, email marketers need to adopt a mix of eye-catching graphics and personalized content to make a lasting impression. To avoid the dreaded delete button and safely reach your subscribers’ inboxes, your emails need to be personalized and tailored to your audience's desires.

While this may sound like a complicated and time-intensive process, with the help of analytics tools and A/B testing capabilities, you'll be able to easily find the winning formula from the get-go. Be sure to test a variety of factors, including subject lines, calls to actions, graphics, etc., to determine which campaign aligns best with your customers’ preferences and will result in a victory for your brand.

3. Play the dating game. While forced together by chance, Peetah eventually won over the heart of Katniss. Similarly, email marketers need to turn on their charm and win over the hearts of ISPs to gain entrance into their customers elusive inboxes. To do so, be sure to avoid promotional topics in your subject lines and "From" sections — and never come across too needy. Sending timely, targeted emails is a surefire way to gain the trust and respect of an ISP, resulting in a second date with the inbox and breaking up with spam. Never give up if those tricky ISPs play hard to get at first. You didn't see Peetah giving up, did you?

4. Tick tock … deception is coming. Competition is fierce during the holiday season. While "The Hunger Games" arena is filled with competitors, obstacles and traps, customers are often sent confusing and useless offers during the email marketing games. For example, some marketers may be inclined to try and beat the competition by claiming that their deal is ending in the next 30 minutes, when, in reality, it's available for 24 hours. If you choose to adopt a similar strategy, you'll surely burn bridges with your customers. No one wants to find out they made a purchasing decision based on scare tactics. Loyal customers will stay true to the companies that send honest promotions and realistic offers.

5. Your email marketing "Tribute." Katniss always remains loyal to her family and loved ones, as seen in her willingness to volunteer as tribute in place of her sister. You can do the same for your returning customers by implementing a customer loyalty program. An effective program will offer personalized, relevant and targeted discounts to returning customers. Instilling loyalty in your key customers will increase sales and build an effective customer base to reap the rewards time and time again. Combined with email marketing tools like segmentation and A/B split testing, you'll improve your customer experience, brand loyalty and bottom-line results — effectively surpassing the spam folder and entering the inbox.

Seamas Egan is the manager of revenue operations at Campaigner, an email marketing services provider. Seamas can be reached at seamas.egan@j2.com.