If you have already tested the waters through email marketing, you must have heard about the term tags. So what are tags and what is all this hype surrounding them?
This is what this article is all about. Here, we will talk about tags. What tags are, how tags can empower your email marketing campaign and take it to an all-new level. We will also talk about various ways in which tags can be used, and lastly, we will discuss how Mailpro can help.
So let’s get started.
What are Tags?
Tags are a kind of tool that can help you identify your contacts within your user base.
Have you ever wondered if you could target a specific segment of your contacts differently? If you could manage a part of your contact list in a more organized way?
That’s when tags help you.
They help you in defining the unique characteristics of your contacts so that you can target them more effectively and properly.
If you are a Mailpro user, you can set up tags in a range of ways. You can add a tag directly to an email, such that when a customer clicks on the tag, they will be directly added to that tag.
So, What is the Difference Between a Tag and List?
While email lists contain information about your target customer base, a tag helps you in segmenting your email lists further to facilitate pinpoint accuracy while targeting.
Let’s consider this with the help of an example.
Supposedly, you manage an eCommerce store that sells home décor products.
You likely manage a list of consumers who have subscribed to your newsletter. But how would you differentiate one contact from the other? While some of them might be looking for wallpapers, there could be others who want to focus on paintings.
While one might only be interesting in boho décor, the other individual might be looking for some western outlook. Or there could be few who are looking for décor for their kids’ room.
This is when lists help you out. They help you in categorizing the contacts.
But what if you want to segment your contact even further? For instance, if you want to see who visited the wallpaper section on your store plus who also visited paintings. Or the ones who opened your email X and the ones who clicked on a link in email Y.
This is when tags come to your rescue.
As is evident, the right combination of lists and tags can help you in targeting precisely.
Why Use Tags in Your Email Marketing Campaign?
User Segmentation
You create your email list from various sources like through a website, through a Facebook ad campaign, Twitter campaign, or even in-store. But not all of them are equal.
If you go by the purchase funnel, then all subscribers can be segmented into four categories: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. By tagging your emails, you’ll have a better idea of which category a user might belong to. This will help you determine which users you should spend your maximum budget and time.
Laser-Focused Targeting
After you have segmented your subscribers, you can target each of them differently. So, if someone is in the awareness stage, instead of sending out product emails, you can send them useful content which will take then to the desire section.
Similarly, if someone is in the action stage, you can send them a coupon code so they can make a purchase and become a customer. This is a better way than sending the same email to everyone.
Personalization
Personalized emails are a key ingredient to email marketing success. Nobody wants to receive emails from a company or marketing team. People love to receive emails from someone they know, someone they understand and trust.
By tagging correctly, you’ll be able to learn more about your customers like where they came from, what triggered them to subscribe, what their expectations are, and what they are looking for. You can then use this information to send out personalized emails instead of a boring, generic email. This will improve both trust and credibility.
Remove Duplicates
With marketing automation, one of the main challenges marketers face is the issue of duplication. When users receive the same message but through different mediums, they might fill out the form multiple times. This might get you into thinking that you have acquired two users when there’s only one. With the implementation of tags, you can create a filtering layer to help you remove duplicate subscribers.
Another use case is related to categorization. For example, if a user has a “first-time-buyer” tag attached to him and completes another order, then you can change the tag to “Repeat-customer” and put him in a separate marketing list. This will help you ensure that he is not present on the same marketing list.
Less Complication
Tagging can streamline user acquisition. In the fast-paced world of social media where the average attention span in 8 seconds, you cannot bombard potential customers with tons of questions. But at the same time, you want to have as much data as possible.
With tagging, you can have both at once. Marketing software lets you create tags based on user interaction. For example, if they have visited five pages, this gets tagged when they sign up. So you can predict that they are somehow familiar with your brand, and you can take this question out of your sign up form.
Detailed Reporting
Every marketing activity is stored in the form of reports which is a summary of how the marketing campaign performed. Labeling users with tags make it easy for the software to create reports at a more granular level.
This, in turn, makes the report easy to consume across the board. For example, someone sitting at the sales department can analyze how the post-purchase campaign worked without getting into the technicalities.
Manage Affiliates
Affiliates are important to any e-commerce business. With affiliates, you can tap into their subscriber base and pay them a commission for every sale generated. If you have affiliates who sell your products, then it’s important to tag each one of them.
Without this, you’ll be left wondering which affiliate generated what amount of sale. This will also create confusion among both affiliate members and customer which may lead them to abandon your product for once and all.
Lead Scoring
Every lead you generate needs to be scored based on engagement and various data points. They are usually scored from a scale of 1 to 10, but you can score them from 1 to 100. Every brand needs to have loyal customers to sustain itself.
Most marketing stacks are limited by only a handful of data points like actions and triggers. You can create “Contact Tags” to include your own data points and score every lead that comes through.
Tags and Mailpro
Mailpro features a very intuitive interface for you to explore. You can easily add tags to your contacts on the go. All you need to do is visit your contacts. From there, you can add the corresponding tags next to them, and you are done.
Didn’t we say that this is extremely easy?
Best Practices to Keep in Mind While Tagging Contacts
Now that you know the basics of tagging, let’s have a look at a few best practices to keep in mind:
- Plan your tags effectively
When it comes to tagging, planning is essential. Do not kick off your email marketing campaign and think of tagging later. This will only make the entire process messy, and moreover, it will not make any sense as well.
Thus, the best practice here is to start right and plan your tags before triggering your email marketing campaign.
- Name them properly
What is in the name? A lot! Do not name your tags randomly, instead keep in simple and to the point. For instance, sale customers 2019 sound may more clear and crisp when compared to GH sale 2019.
What’s more, this will also keep your team on the same page.
The Next Steps
So, get started with tagging now. Take the right steps and make your email marketing campaign even more effective with Mailpro.