Email marketing has become one of the most popular ways for companies to reach people quickly and inexpensively. With that said, it means email inboxes are becoming more and more cluttered with them, making it difficult for people to decide which emails are worth their time to read. Important and useful emails can be missed or even more simply, just overlooked.

It’s crucial that companies take the time to research their audience and create emails specifically geared towards them. What’s the point in creating an email that goes to some random person who probably has zero interest in your company?

With the importance of how emails are designed and sent, it’s vital that companies look to email marketing agencies for assistance.

A couple years ago, Trek Bikes realized just this. They were launching a highly anticipated new bike. They couldn’t afford (like any company) to risk making a bad impression with potential buyers. Instead of trying to design emails and compile lists on their own, they did the smart thing and hired a professional. The steps the email marketing agency did are as follows:

1) Build an extensive email list of customers that are interested in the bike industry. This was done at Tour De France races (very smart since Lance Armstrong’s 1274 Madone is made by Trek.) They also collected email addresses via online contests.

2) Design branded emails that are directly appealing to your audience. The message that you are wanting to get across, a new product or a promotion, will dictate how the email is designed. I feel this is what people often forget: the message you are trying to get across should dictate the design. The design should not dictate message.

3) Create a double opt-in email acceptance process. This ensures people really want to receive your email and helps avoid false sign ups, aka spam email addresses.

4) Lastly, Trek designed an overarching marketing campaign. They combined their email marketing with other marketing components, such as print and paid search. This allowed them to reach their target market in numerous different ways. Consistency in the look and feel helped build an overall brand.

How did this email marketing campaign work for Trek Bikes? Their new email design and list generated a 36% open rate and an 18% click through rate. That’s pretty fantastic considering the industry average for the e-commerce/retail sector is 13.9% open rate and 3.7% click-thru rate.

Impressive? I think so.