In the email marketing world, we spend a lot of time talking about the major segments within a target audience or contact list – and for good reason. These portions of your inbox following make up the bulk of your leads and potential conversions, so it makes sense to place a priority on these individuals.However, just because these consumers deserve quite a bit of your attention, that doesn’t give you a free pass to completely disregard the rest of your inbox contacts. With this in mind, let’s take a moment to talk about the “remote” or fringe portions of your contact list, as well as what it takes to make a lasting and powerful connection with these segments.
Defining This Segment of Your Contact List
When discussing your “remote” contact list membership, it’s best to think about these viewers as being the virtual equivalent of people that live in sparsely populated regions like the Yukon or Rankin Inlet. It’s not that these individuals aren’t worthy of your inbox operations, it’s just that you’re going to have to work a little harder if you want to reach out to these potential customers.In the digital world, being remote is less about geography and more about barriers to communication. While waterways and rugged terrain separate the aforementioned regions from bigger centers of population, traversing the barriers that separate you and these distant segments comes in a variety of different forms.
Learning to Reach These Consumers
So how does a brand like your own jump off the screen and grab the attention of these remote inbox contacts? The truth of the matter is that there’s several different methods or tactics that go into this process, all of which rely upon your unique take on inbox outreach and email marketing practices. To help you along this journey – and tailor a plan that fits your needs – here’s a few ideas to carry with you as start the digital trek toward these individuals.
Start with Name and Address Consistency
First up, Web Marketing Today’s Pam Neely suggests standardizing your sender name and email address as a way to bridge the gap with these distant contact list members. The reason here is that your sender name is on display in a more prominent manner than the subject line in certain clients, so it’s important to have a stable and verifiable presentation on this front. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when these wary or skeptical viewers take a pass on your latest email offering if it appears to originate from a less than trustworthy source.Neely also points out that sending from a consistent IP address can keep this trend of transparency moving forward. While this is more about boosting your sender score with service providers, it doesn’t hurt to enact this strategy and lessen your chances of ending up in the wasteland that is a user’s spam folder.
Check for Any “Bumps in the Road”
Outside of tightening up the particulars of your sender name and address, Graham Charlton of Econsultancy notes that it’s also a good idea to check for any bumps in the road between your emails and these distant viewers. Just like their real-world counterparts, a lot of the headache of reaching remote individuals comes from difficulties during transit.In the case of the outer reaches of your inbox audience, these issues often emerge via failures in deliverability. To ensure your messages aren’t getting lost on the way to the inbox, run a few trial emails through multiple firewalls, email clients, and third-party viewing applications. This way you can pinpoint any potential roadblocks that cause these members of your community to fall into the “remote” designation unintentionally.
Have a Strong Presence Outside of the Inbox
The final tip worth considering as you reach out to these secluded segments of your contact list comes from Marketing Profs’ Kevin Huxham. In his look at increasing your deliverability – especially with these portions of your audience – Huxham explains that it’s never a bad idea to have a strong digital presence that represents your brand across the web.From being active on social media, to regularly responding to your readers in the comment section of your branded blog, each little action you take on behalf of your organization increases the visibility of your operations among hesitant or unsure members of your audience. When combined with the rest of the tactics and methods covered here, there’s no reason why your brand can’t capture the attention of each segment of its contact list, regardless of how remote or distant these viewers might seem initially.
