Have you ever opened your ESP or CRM and wondered where on earth all these subscribers came from and how they found you in the first place? This is what happens when you don’t use email marketing tags to keep track of your subscribers and customers.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to let your email list become a bit of a mess if you don’t have a way to identify which subscribers came from what opt-in or who has or hasn’t made a purchase.
Tagging subscribers and customers when they join your email list, and throughout their buyer’s journey makes it easier to track their progress and send the right message at the right time.
What Is an Email Marketing Tag?
An email marketing tag is essentially a label you can apply to any contact in your ESP or CRM. The majority of platforms support tags and let you assign the value.
Once a contact is tagged, you can identify them easily and sort them into segments or groups. You can also track where you’re getting more subscribers from or which of your lead magnets is performing best.
Many ESPs and CRMs include tags like:
- Subscriber
- Prospect
- Lead
- Customer
You can also create your own email marketing tags within your chosen platform, like:
- The name of your lead magnet
- The source of the lead
- Blog post or podcast
- A conference or event
- Engaged Subscriber
- Unengaged Subscriber
- Subscriber Interest
Or whatever makes sense to you.
Why Should You Use Email Marketing Tags?
Tags are universal. Pretty much every ESP or CRM uses them in some form.
If you decide you want to migrate your email list from one platform to another, you can export your tags along with your contacts and import them into your new platform. This lets you reapply your segments without a lot of fuss. It also helps you keep your systems consistent when you’re rebuilding your automations.
As mentioned earlier, email marketing tags make it a lot easier to keep track of where your subscribers came from and how they found you.
They also give you and your team a common language. That way, if more than one person is managing your email list, you can refer to each group by their tag.
What Do Email Marketing Tags Do?
Email marketing tags have two main functions.
Segmenting a List
You can separate out specific contacts from your main list, based on their tags.
For example, if you only want to email customers about an upcoming offer, you can create a segment in your ESP or CRM that is based on the “customer” tag. Then you can send an email introducing that offer to your customer segment.
The same goes for contacts who are not yet customers. Perhaps you offer a free trial of your product or service. You don’t want your current customers to get this offer, so you segment out the subscribers who have been most engaged with your emails and who downloaded the lead magnet for that product or service and send them an email with the free trial information.
Triggering an Automation
When a tag is added to a contact, you can put that person into an automated workflow, so they get specific emails, or their contact information is treated in a certain way.
When a current subscriber clicks on a link in an email or visits a web page, that action can add a tag to that subscriber’s contact record. Then you know where that person is in their buyer’s journey, which means you can send them the appropriate emails to convince them to buy your product or service.
How Email Marketing Tags Matter to Your Bottom Line
The goal of email marketing is to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.
This is a lot easier to do when you know where your subscribers are in their buyer’s journey, as well as within your own system.
For example, someone who just signed up for your lead magnet is probably looking for more information on your product or service. They may not be ready to buy yet, so that coupon code would go to waste. But an email that delivers a blog post with more information, or a link to a buyer’s guide would get opened and read.
A week later, that person may be ready to buy. An automated email offering a flash sale on the product or service they’re interested in would result in a sale.
Tagging your new subscribers based on the lead magnet they downloaded and the source they came from can help you determine how ready they may be to buy. Then, you can send that “right message” at the “right time” to get the sale.
If your product or service has a component that needs to be refilled, or if you offer complementary products or services, adding an email marketing tag indicating the product or service lets you segment your new customers. That way you can send reminders to purchase refills around the time your new customer is running low, or offer those complementary products or services.
Email Marketing Tags Make Your Life Easier While Delivering Awesome Customer Service
When your subscribers receive emails that are relevant to them and that show you understand where they are and what they’re looking for, magic happens.
Not just the magic of making the sale. You’re also building trust, authority, and appreciation with your subscribers. Having that means you’re more likely to end up with loyal customers who buy over and over, and who recommend you to their friends and family.
Using email marketing tags is a simple, universal way to make that happen within any ESP or CRM, and to ensure you can keep that functionality if you move to a different platform.
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