Marketing trends have changed a lot over the years, however, email marketing remains unbeaten as one of the most effective tools. Whether it’s to gain brand awareness, nurture potential leads or generate traffic to your product page, high-quality email campaigns can have significant returns with little investment.
However, there is a fine line between effective campaigns with skyrocketing metrics and ending up in the unread, marked-as-spam pile of emails. Creating an attractive email with an engaging message requires some know-how.
Luckily, Odoo ERP system has great email marketing and automation tools, making the design and the technical side of things a breeze. Meanwhile, we can teach you how to get started on your attention-grabbing email campaigns. So, without further ado, here is everything you need to know about email marketing and campaigns on Odoo ERP.
What is the purpose of email marketing?
There is little point in sending out newsletters or promotions to your clients unless you have a clear goal of what you are trying to achieve with them. Email marketing is a powerful tool when used with a clear purpose, and in order to establish your strategic direction, it’s important to firstly understand what that purpose is for you. Here are the key uses for emails:
- Customer engagement: Using direct communication with your customers in order to gain new or repeat sales and increase your brand awareness (aka: keep your brand fresh in their minds).
- Customer retention: Regular, valuable communication that fosters customer loyalty and reduces the likelihood of them moving on to a different company. Personalised content and offers are often used for customer retention.
- Conversion: Well-crafted emails with compelling calls to action aimed at driving online and in-store sales. These could either be cold emails to new customers or nurturing warm leads for conversion.
Odoo Email Marketing module
Odoo ERP, an open-source suite of business applications, is renowned for its comprehensive and integrated approach to managing various areas of a business, such as sales, CRM, accounting, and project management. The cloud-based ERP integration offers businesses such benefits as process automation, higher operational efficiency, real-time data analysis, cost savings and much more.
Marketing is no exception, as Odoo ERPEmail Marketingmodule offers powerful tools and functionality helping you design, schedule, send, and track engaging email campaigns easier. The module has an extremely user-friendly interface, combined with a drag-and-drop style editor, easing the process of creating visually appealing, professional-looking emails. The reporting capabilities are particularly useful, as they effectively track your campaign performance and analyse customer behaviour, helping you readjust your marketing efforts in future campaigns.
How to set up an email campaign on Odoo?
In case you are yet to set up your first email campaign on Odoo BMS, the process for this is very simple. Below are the steps to follow:
1. Open your Email Marketing module
2. Create a New Campaign
Click on the “New” button. This will bring you to a new page where you can start designing your campaign. Choose and customise one of the existing templates or create your own from scratch.
3. Design your email
Use the convenient drag-and-drop editor to add your own headers and footers, text, images, social media handles, CTA buttons, etc.
4. Input campaign details
Enter the essential details like the campaign name, subject line, and the mailing list. If you don’t yet have a mailing list ready, you can simply create one in the “Mailing Lists” section at the top.
5. Test and schedule your campaign
Once your email design is complete, you can test it by sending it to yourself or a colleague. If you are happy with everything, you may send the campaign immediately or schedule it for a suitable date and time.
You may also use the smart A/B testing functionality, that sends out multiple email versions and decides which one is more effective.
Using marketing automation tools
Marketing Automation is another app you should know about on Odoo ERP system. This tool performs email sequences based on specific triggers or intervals that you have set. For example, you may want welcome email to be sent to all newsletter subscribers. Or, perhaps, your sales team to be automatically notified once a subscriber registers to an event through your email campaigns.
Marketing automation is invaluable for maintaining continuous engagement with your audience and improving conversion rates, yet further increasing the cost-effectiveness of these campaigns by saving your valuable time.
Understanding your email campaign performance
Measuring the success of your email campaigns is essential to improving your strategy over time. Odoo ERP provides insightful marketing metrics, which you can use to better understand the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Key metrics include:
- Open Rate: The percentage of subscribers who open your emails. This can help you understand how compelling your subject lines are.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of subscribers who clicked on a link within your email. This metric is crucial for understanding subscriber engagement with your content.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of subscribers who leave your emails as soon as they open them. A high bounce rate might indicate a problem with your email copy, or simply show how many uninterested subscribers you have. This could damage your email reputation over time (e.g. mark it as spam), so you shouldn’t keep sending emails to subscribers with high bounce rates.
- Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of subscribers who opt-out of your email list after receiving an email. You cannot send any more communication to them after they have unsubscribed, as this is against the GDPR laws.
These metrics can be found under each campaign in Odoo. Using them, you can refine your email marketing strategy, focusing on aspects that resonate with your audience.
Other tips for effective email marketing
Creating a successful email campaign isn't just about the tools you use; it also requires strategic planning and understanding of your audience. Here are some useful tips on how to create engaging emails for your marketing campaigns.
Know your audience
Understanding your target audience's needs, wants, and behaviours is key in any marketing campaign. Ask yourself such questions as “what are my customer’s main struggles?”, “how does my product or service solve them?”, “what kind of content is useful for their specific lifestyle and needs?”, etc.
Do your research and use this information to tailor your content and offers to match their unique interests. This will guide you on every decision, from the tone of voice of your copy to the overall look of your emails.
Set clear objectives
As mentioned before, each email campaign should have a clear purpose. In order to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, make sure you set your goals for each campaign. Whether your objective is to drive website traffic, boost product sales, or improve customer retention, having SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) provides a clear roadmap for your campaign.
Segment your audience
Not all of your customers are the same, even if they are interested in the same products or services. For example, an insurance services provider will have multiple types of customers. A single mum will be primarily concerned with her family’s security and her children’s wellbeing, while a young career-minded business person might only need to insure their company and assets. The communication to each of those will differ.
Therefore, segment your audience based on certain criteria, like buying behaviour, interests, demographics and other relevant information. Tailor your email campaigns to each of those segments, so each subscriber finds them relevant to their own situation.
Craft compelling content
Marketing is all about creating content that is interesting or useful for your audience. This, unfortunately, means that boring and generic copy will only get you as far as the junk folder. From the email subject line to the CTA button, try to stand out from the bunch by offering valuable content that is informative, yet easy to digest. If appropriate, use personalisation features to build a friendlier relationship with your audience.
Final word
Email marketing is a highly efficient and cost-effective tool for companies to drive traffic, gain new customers, and retain the loyalty of existing ones. With the right amount of research and planning, your marketing campaigns can become a core aspect of your customer relationship.
And, you could not find a better tool for this than Odoo business management software! It does not only allow you to design and automate your emails with ease, but also seamlessly integrates all of your campaigns and data with other business processes, such as CRM or Project Management. Improved efficiency, better collaboration, and optimised resources are only a few benefits such centralisation brings.
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