Email Marketing for Professional Service Firms

Although we all have too much email and it seems to take forever to get through our inboxes, email marketing succeeds. I subscribe to several lists and groups, and I eventually get through most of those emails. Sure, I delete the travel offers and air fare deals sometimes without opening them, especially after a vacation, but other times I do open them. These marketing emails provide special offers, highlight services, and even remind me when to order flowers for special occasions. (The best florist I had the pleasure of working with still sends me reminders.)

Open Rates

Excluding spam, marketing emails have an open rate of nearly 20%. But even before your email is opened, you’ve already had the opportunity to remind your customer or prospect about your professional service firm, company or product.

A strong but short subject line and personalization are key to getting your email opened. Limit your subject line to 75 characters or less, and include a relevant statement about the content of your email. And, email marketing isn’t just for products. Professional service firms benefit from email marketing as well – highlight your service or introduce new skills with a client benefit.

CTR or Click Through Rate

Now that you’ve crafted the perfect subject line and have gotten your customer or prospect to open you email, you want them to take some action – usually click a link to get more information or purchase a product. CTR on average is slightly more than 5%. However, using an image and having a clear call to action will improve your CTR. Be sure where your subscriber clicks to is just as targeted as the email they come from.

But, don’t count them out either

What about that subscriber that never seems to open an email or never clicks an offer? Don’t count them out just yet. Think about moving those older or stale email address to a new campaign. A 2013 study found that a phrase in the subject line such as “Miss you” and “Come back” perform better than sales offers. And, email open and click rates continue as long as 90 days after sending.

Of course, if your content isn’t relevant nothing will bring a subscriber back. So have good content and whenever possible, segment your lists.

Mobile devices are more important

More and more emails are being opened on smart phones and tablets, making messages designed primarily for the desktop less effective. Design your email to be mobile friendly or depending on your audience, mobile first. That also means links to your landing pages should be mobile friendly as well.