7 Things to Consider Before Hiring an Email Marketing Consultant
Do you wish to engage your customers with tailored messages delivered right into their inboxes? If yes, you need an effective email marketing strategy.
Email marketing is one of the oldest channels that marketers use to reach customers. Yet despite the chic appeal of newer, popular channels like social media, video campaigns, and webinars, email marketing remains the winner, yielding up to $36 per $1 spent.
However, the people you want to reach and convert are busy, so you must have a sound emailing strategy to get their attention. This is where an email marketing consultant comes in.
In this write-up, we weigh in on how to find a competent email marketing agency by discussing the things to consider before hiring an email marketing expert. Let’s dive right in to get you started on translating emails into ROI (Return on Investment).
Who Needs To Hire An Email Marketing Consultant?
Hiring an email marketing specialist can benefit anyone looking to grow a business. Know who that is? Literally every business owner.
It doesn’t matter whether your business is small or big, with a well-established email marketing list or none at all—an experienced email marketing agency can help your business establish deeper connections with customers and increase ROI faster.
Experts typically deeply understand industry best practices, strategies, and trends that can benefit a business.
They have access to resources and knowledge they can use to appeal to a wide range of customers and deliver measurable results.
Situations When Hiring an Email Marketing Consultant Is Beneficial
While hiring an email marketing agency can benefit any business, certain circumstances make it even more crucial. Here is a quick summary of the situations when hiring an expert for your email campaigns could be inevitable.
Your current email marketing campaigns are not providing the desired results. This could point to a gap in your strategy; an expert can provide a fresh set of eyes to check and evaluate your strategy from a better perspective.
In the case of a high-volume email campaign, for instance, you may need a hand during a new product launch that needs to reach many prospects at once.
You lack the proper knowledge of email marketing. This may be the case for a business that is new to emailing.
You are a small business with no personnel to spare for email marketing services.
You have no experience using various email marketing tools or personalizing emails. An email marketing agency can help personalize your campaigns and create content that target and appeal to specific segments of the market for you.
You wish to automate your email campaigns. An email marketing specialist can help create automated campaigns that reach your target customers on time.
What To Consider Before Hiring an Email Marketing Consultant
Now that you know the importance of hiring an email marketing consultant, how do you get one to work with? With many agencies on the market, deciding who to trust with your business can be challenging.
Thankfully, there are various pointers that can help. Here is what to consider when deciding who to trust with your email campaigns.
The Consultant’s Track Record
Like any service provider, a competent email marketing agency will have a good record of success, giving them a good reputation.
You can gauge their reputation from what previous clients say online or offline. We recommend seeking references or reviews from previous clients to help you gauge the consultant’s reputation, reliability, and the value they have provided to other businesses.
If an email marketing consultant has successfully steered other businesses to growth, the chances are that they will do the same to your business when. Positive reviews and testimonials are powerful indicators of the consultant’s expertise and professionalism.
Did anything go wrong with the previous clientele? How did their relationship start and end? Were any previous clients in the same industry and size as your business?
This information can provide a general idea of how the specialist works and how happy you will likely be with their service.
How the Consultant Will Test Campaigns and Measure Results
The only way to drive the best ROI from email campaigns is to optimize them as you go. This means you must test the campaigns to determine what works and what must be changed accordingly.
You need an email marketing agency with a clear idea of testing and optimizing your campaigns on time. Having the consultant highlight their approach to testing and optimization can help you find the most skilled consultant.
Look for an expert well-versed in A/B testing methodologies; who can experiment with different elements of your email campaigns to identify what resonates best with your audience and drives higher engagement.
Avoid anyone who is solely absorbed in hypothetical scenarios and strategies instead of actual, measurable results.
For instance, an option that drives higher click-through rates for one business may or may not yield more conversions for your business.
The consultant must vary the message and test each variation to determine the most effective one in terms of conversions. This is only possible after understanding your business and locking down its personalization strategy.
Conversion rates
Cost per acquisition, or CPA
Return on Investment, or ROI
Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV
Whether the Email Marketing Agency Outsources Work
While most email consulting firms have teams of experts specialized in different areas, some with smaller teams tend to outsource some of their work.
Consultants who outsource their work entrust your business to other people’s hands even though you entrusted them with it. This scenario can work well in some cases but can be unideal in many cases.
You do not have control over outsourced output in terms of timelines and quality, which can hurt your business.
Additionally, outsourcing can put your business information at risk since it introduces people outside the agency (that you hired) into the mix.
It is always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to your investments, so ask a prospective email consultant about outsourcing. If they do outsource their services, you may be better off looking elsewhere.
The Projected Timeline for Results
Email marketing delivers success over a specific timeline, like any business growth strategy. Understanding this timeline can help you plan better and allocate your budget more accurately.
While someone new to email marketing may not know when to expect the results, an experienced consultant will have a general idea of when to expect some results.
Such knowledge can be invaluable as it determines how and when to track and optimize email campaigns for better results.
So, while discussing the project with a prospective email marketing agency, ask for an estimate of the timeline for results.
Results will vary from one case to another, but working with timelines can significantly improve your outcomes.
Your Budget and the Cost of the Email Marketing Service
Email marketing consultants typically charge based on the scope of work involved, their experience level, and the service duration.
When hiring an agency to handle your email campaigns, you will usually want someone within your budget. While that is the general way to go, it is best to find someone who will provide the best value.
An experienced email marketing consultant may charge relatively higher fees for their services, but the results and ROI they deliver will justify the rates.
So while looking for a consultant within your budget, do not go for the cheapest as such may not provide the most value. Instead, consider the experience, expertise, and level of service you are getting from the email marketing agency while deciding what to pay.
The Consultant’s Strategy for Personalizing Email Campaigns
Marketers create deeper connections with customers through personalized emails, with a whopping 90% of marketers believing that personalization directly contributes to profitability, according to research.
By offering personalized experiences, up to 80% of consumers will likely do business with you. Here are additional stats showing just how crucial personalized emails can be for your business:
Personalization increases email marketing success for 96% of businesses.
It brings down the cost of acquiring customers by up to 50%.
It improves the efficiency of marketing spending by 10-30% while boosting revenues by 5-15%.
Businesses that use personalization earn up to 40% more revenue than their competitors.
By personalizing your emails, you can easily onboard new customers, push potential clients to new calls to action, increase your e-commerce sales, and retain your existing customers with more satisfactory experiences.
With these benefits in mind, you should easily see why you need an email marketing partner with experience in delivering personalized campaigns.
The consultant should be able to segment your email lists based on demographic characteristics such as gender, location, and age. They should also identify buyer interests, purchase habits, and preferences and craft compelling messages aligned with your brand based on these datasets.
Benefits of Having Personalized Email Marketing for Agency
We have presented data that show just how important personalized email marketing is to any business. Still, here is a point summary of the key benefits of having a personalized email campaign.
a) Improved Customer Experience
When you personalize your emails, you demonstrate that you understand and value your subscribers. As a result, the receiver gets a more positive experience with content that is tailored to their needs and interests.
b) Increased Engagement
Personalized emails allow the email content to be tailored to individual recipients based on their preferences, behaviors, and demographic information.
Such targeted messages tend to be more relevant, with a higher chance of capturing recipients’ attention, leading to increased engagement in terms of open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
c) Higher Conversion Rates
Personalization involves sending tailored offers, product recommendations, or personalized promotions based on customer preferences or purchase history. This tailored approach significantly increases the likelihood of driving conversions and sales.
d) Enhanced Customer Retention
By understanding customer preferences and delivering relevant content, you can nurture customer loyalty and keep them engaged with your brand over the long term. Happier customers are more likely to stick with your brand, thanks to personalized emails leading to stronger relationships with customers.
e) Increased Revenue and ROI
The combination of higher engagement, improved conversion rates, and enhanced customer retention translates into increased revenue and return on investment (ROI).
The Strategy for Nurturing Prospects
Successful email campaigns require a good strategy. So when considering an email marketing partner, look for someone capable of creating effective triggered messages, welcome messages, post-purchase text, and more.
They must think strategically and develop comprehensive strategies tailored to your business objectives.
They should understand how to segment your audience effectively, craft engaging content, optimize email deliverability, and drive conversions.
Email Marketing For Agency: Summary of Considerations and Next Steps
In this write-up, we have clarified that anyone who owns a business should consider hiring an email marketing consultant.
We have also identified situations where the help of an email marketing agency is crucial. We have gone further to provide the seven (7) main things to consider before hiring an email marketing consultant, one of which is to ensure the agency does not outsource your work.
Beware of agencies that make promises and fail to deliver on them. Instead, work with an established email marketing agency with a rich history of delivering satisfactory results on time.
Want to grow your ROI and help your business grow through effective email marketing? Discuss your options with our team of in-house email marketing experts today.