Everyone is struggling to understand what the new normal will be after the COVID-19 pandemic. For email marketers, the future still involves creating great content that your subscribers want to open. We’ve checked the numbers for March and April this year, and email marketing communication remains a vital tool for businesses and marketers.
However, not everything is the same. You’ll want to take additional steps to ensure your subscribers remain engaged with your content. When you send out business updates to your subscribers, ensure you follow email marketing best practices.
Recipients for government agencies unsubscribed from campaigns 38% less during COVID-19 than previous years.
Source: Campaign Monitor
What the statement above shows is subscribers still want updates about the COVID-19 pandemic. They want information from the brands and agencies they trust. Send rates also increased over March and April of 2020, and more people depended on emails to get up-to-date information from national and local institutions.
What’s the best way to notify your subscribers of business changes during COVID-19?
Subscribers still prefer the same things they did before the coronavirus pandemic. The quality of your content is still what’ll drive your open and click-through rates. Our study showed that, although there were changes in send volumes, unsubscribe rates remained mainly the same.
Making drastic changes to your campaign strategy isn’t advisable during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that Mondays and Fridays still provide the best open rates, even during large-scale remote working. These are also the days with the lowest send volumes per weekday. So, if you’re sending out an important business update to your subscribers, you’ll want to ensure it arrives on a Monday or Friday to get the biggest response.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Workers are trying to maintain regular routines even while they shelter in place. Until we notice anything different, you don’t want to change any of your strategies in the short-term. If you’re sending out regular updates about your business changes, ensure you follow the same rules as normal campaigns.
How to notify subscribers about business changes
The best way to approach the problem is by giving your subscribers the option to receive additional updates. If you’re sending out business updates during this time, create another segmented list where your recipients can opt in for your regular updates. You can provide some updates in your regular content, but you don’t want to overwhelm your subscribers with daily emails.
Create a campaign specifically for your business changes during COVID-19 and send it only to those who signed up to receive it. If you send out too many updates, you may notice increases in your unsubscribe rates (although we haven’t noticed massive changes in this metric during the pandemic).
Why you need to measure your business notification metrics during COVID-19
When sending out regular updates, keep track of increased unsubscribe rates or decreased open rates. Changes in these metrics mean your subscribers aren’t appreciative of your efforts. Only send updates when they provide value. A daily update now—while you only sent out weekly newsletters previously—will frustrate your members, leading to higher unsubscribe rates.
Does it really matter?
Email fatigue can lead to your marketing campaign failing during this time. While people are studying their inboxes closely, frequent updates may frustrate your subscribers. Make sure you only send out an update when it matters to the consumers on your lists.
What now?
Keeping your subscribers means only giving them valuable information in your campaigns. Make sure you time your emails so that they reach your subscribers when they prefer to receive them. Use personalization techniques and request opt-ins if you provide daily updates. And always optimize your campaigns for mobile devices, as this can help you add value to your list members and build better engagement going forward.
Knowing how to keep your subscribers informed is only the first step. Stay up to date on marketing during the pandemic with our COVID-19 marketing resources.