Published on July 7th, 2020 | by Shivani Srivastava

Email Marketing Tips to Boost Revenue During the COVID-19 Pandemic

It’s scary what I am witnessing right now. It’s like a domino effect that is taking all countries one by one. But we have not given up. We are still fighting each day to put our lives back on track.

Businesses around the world are facing immense challenges in retaining their customers and employees. But there are some that have definitely turned around this crisis into an opportunity. Considering both sides of the coin, one thing is still common, and that is email communication.

When I opened my social media handles, I saw a huge wave of overwhelming posts, stories, memes, and messages related to COVID-19. I shut it down. While I can’t control social media, I was in awe with the emails that I got during this pandemic. The fact that I gave them my permission to send me emails says a lot.

And from what I gathered from looking at my inbox and industry trends, email marketing is one such domain that has proved to be the most effective marketing channel. You must be on a lookout for the ways to maintain a positive revenue amidst this crisis, but you have to take a different route to achieve the desired results. So here are some tips to boost revenue during COVID-19.

Do Not Break the Communication Cycle

It’s not just the travel industry who took the hit, but many industries are affected in the wake of this pandemic. COVID-19 is turning out to be a major roadblock for the businesses.

Amidst this havoc, do not commit another mistake of forgetting your customers. It is right to stop your automated messages that ran in the earlier scenario, but stopping the communication altogether is not a wise thing to do.

I have received tons of emails in the past three months or so and I observed a decline in the emails from some of the brands I subscribed to. On the other hand, some of the businesses have picked up so well even though they were affected by the ongoing crisis.

What hit me the most was their use of subject lines. Although they did pitch me with their sales offer, their emails also reflected concern about my well being.

And I think, this concerned move actually hits somewhere in the mind of your subscribers as well. You might ask, “what will I gain by this constant communication?” You will have a loyal subscriber, a potential customer, and a lot of brand value.

Offer Them Value and Not a Price

Picking up from the above-mentioned tip, you should not just put a price tag in your emails. Amidst this ongoing pandemic, most organizations have directed their employees to work from home.

While remote work is another trending topic in the industry, marketers are aware of the opportunity that can be leveraged from it. Meaning, businesses know that their audience must be working from home, and they are spending most of their time on laptops. Even if they are taking a break, they might prefer Netflix and chill.

Personally, I keep a tab on my emails, be it in my primary, social or promotional inbox. And I keenly read all my emails. So, while your audience is at their home desk, why not offer them valuable resources to increase your engagement. Anyone in the email marketing industry understands the value of open rates and engagement. So here’s your chance.

Your audience will probably fall for you if you keep on engaging them with interesting content. Again, you are in business and you might be curious to know about the gaining part. Well, if you are successful in convincing your audience that you can provide value to them even in these tough times, you are building yourself a line of potential customers.

And in my experience of working from home, I have quite some time at my hand to chat or talk with my friends. And we do share your content by forwarding it. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about your product at all.

While virtual applications and remote tools have definitely gamed up their businesses, you can also subtly talk about your product. Many of them have slashed their prices and are offering heavy discounts because unemployment is real and is happening. So if you are offering a price slash, feel free to mention it in your emails in a generous tone.

Reframe your Content Strategy

As I mentioned beforehand, businesses have stopped their general automated emails, and they are redefining the way they send out their content. The situation is getting worse out there and you can’t afford to lose out your potential customers anymore.

Salary cuts and recession are already knocking on the doors and imagine how your subscriber will feel when they see your unchanged sales pitch. To strike a balance, you must offer them free resources and let them know how you are feeling amidst this crisis. This is time to build a relationship with your audience by sending out personalized emails.

Earlier you might have followed a set process of sending out an automation sequence when a website visitor signed up and became your lead. You might want to tweak it a bit. You don’t have to come up with an entirely new strategy and that is why I mentioned “reframing”.

You may include special resources, case studies, white papers, ebooks, or even conduct your own webinar to provide value to your audience. Also, edit all your emails and automation sequences in an empathetic and concerned tone so that the audience wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by your emails.

Do Not Overwhelm your Audience

One thing that I observed during these three months is an overflow of COVID-19 emails. While I enjoy reading and sharing valuable content and resources, I keep my social distance from emails that are overdoing it in this critical situation.

It is a good practice to shower your concern over your audience but it doesn’t mean that you should end up spamming your email base. It is already very overwhelming to see my inbox full of COVID-19 emails. So, send email blasts without spamming your audience.

Additionally, if you are sending out COVID-19 resources, make sure you send only one email in a week on this topic. You do not want to hit the saturation point of your audience, right? So, keep it minimal and include only valuable resources.

Be Heedful Towards your Audience’s Timezones

One thing that most businesses must take care of is your receiver’s time zone. Especially, if you are sending out bulk emails. You must consider the fact that most of your audience could be distributed around the world.

You can segment your email base into another target group based on their geographical location. Each country is undergoing different situations. Some are still in the lockdown phase, others are slowly opening up, and a few have even gotten rid of the virus.

And the fact that most of the people are working from home, their normal 9 to 5 routine has been disrupted. So, keep all the touchpoints in mind while sending your emails.

Do Not Lose the Track of Your Email Metrics

You have changed your strategy and the way you used to operate. You must keep a tab on all of your open rates and click-through rates. You may go for an email service provider because most of them offer a heatmap analysis of your emails so that you can have a better idea about the engagement of your emails.

Analyzing what worked best for you and what did not, can actually provide you a deep insight to make better decisions. So, track, observe, and analyze.

Final Words

I do not know how long it will take for this pandemic to vanish from our lives for good. But you must shift your focus to see the opportunities that this situation can bring and try to scale on the same grounds.

Email marketing is a very strong marketing channel and businesses are utilizing it wisely in their strategy. And as the pandemic is nowhere seeming to end in 2020, follow the above-mentioned tips to gain a positive revenue for your business.

Tags: boost revenue, COVID-19, email marketing, pandemic, tips

About the Author

Shivani Srivastava A content marketer by heart, Shivani is passionate about writing anything in the field of the technological landscape. She’s written this guest blog for SendX: Email Marketing Software.