Email marketing remains one of the strongest tools in the marketing box. However, it’s not nearly as basic as it was a decade ago. Now, if you want to succeed, you must use a sophisticated email marketing approach with strategies that deliver maximum ROI.
Some people think that public and private sector email marketing campaigns are the same. While they are similar, there are key differences. For example, B2G email marketing strategies have stricter regulations regarding data collection and security. This is because the data in B2G marketing is typically more sensitive.
(This isn’t necessarily true. Financial data in the private sector is very sensitive, indeed.)
Procurement approval is also more difficult to obtain because there are several compliance requirements that must be met, like data security and quality standards.
We’re going to look at some government email marketing best practices you can implement to improve your chances of winning public sector contracts.
How To Email Public Sector Officials
As with all marketing campaigns, there are certain key processes to follow.
Establish Your Goals
Without goals, your email marketing campaign is adrift. You must choose conversions that meet your goals.
Do you want subscriptions to your catalogue or click-throughs to an event landing page?
Be clear about what you want so you can be clear in your email marketing content. Take special care with calls to action to guide buyers towards your goals.
Goals will largely dictate your audience and desired behaviour. They will also affect tone, email content, and level of engagement.
Research Your Audience
You must know your target audience, their needs, and how they behave. Behaviour often identifies pain points that must be addressed. In this instance, it looks something like this:
- Target audience: Decision makers in local government departments.
- Needs: Ongoing cleaning services.
- Behaviour/pain point: High open rates, but low click-through rates.
Here, many decision makers open your marketing emails, but don’t follow through to visit your website or promotion page. You must figure out why.
Go deeper into their pain points to ensure you really are providing relevant solutions. Adjust your email marketing strategy accordingly and take another look at the click-through rate. If it’s improved, you’re on the right track. If not, you’ve got to go back to your research.
Start from the beginning with a fresh buyer persona and develop a new email marketing campaign that works.
Email list segmentation for the public sector
Segmentation separates your target audience into categories so you can easily tailor each message to each category. This uber-relevance is exactly what you need to boost open rates, click-through rates, and goal conversions.
Segmentation examples include:
- Location
- Local government department (Region)
- Localised departments in towns or cities
- Job title
- Website activity
- Bounce rate
- Entry points
Personalise Email Communication
Personalisation is critical in the private sector, but that doesn’t mean tailored email campaigns for public sector procurement are a waste of time.
Contracting authorities aren’t cold and emotionless. They appreciate a bit of recognition; acknowledgement of their hard work and assurance you’re going to make their lives easier.
But, this is not a chat with a chum. You must strike a balance between friendly and professional communication, using the right tone and appropriate language.
“Hey bud, how’s it hanging?” is not the way to go.
“Dear Mr. Decision Maker, it has come to our attention that you suffer from an ongoing dearth of hygiene products,” is not right either.
“Hi Reginald, it was great meeting you at the conference last week. You were right, shocking pink is not my colour. I just want to follow up on the [matter] we were discussing by sending a brochure of our products. Some of them are nearly sold out, though. I’ve circled those in red.”
Better, right?
Engage Your Audience
Engagement and personalisation go hand-in-hand. Personalised content should be engaging and by that we don’t mean just words.
Anything that keeps buyers’ attention is engaging. Think bullet points. Think hyperlinked images or videos.
Don’t think flashing stars and exclamation marks. Don’t think hyperlinks on every second word.
You want to build and maintain relationships, not to scupper the campaign in the first round.
Sweet And Short
If there’s one thing there’s never enough of, it’s time. There’s undoubtedly no time to waste on emails that use excessive verbiage or elaborate words when elementary ones will suffice. It doesn’t facilitate eschewing obfuscation.
You want clear and concise. Get to the point and ensure the point is clear. Don’t leave room for misunderstandings and confusion.
Government contracts can be lucrative and successfully delivering one project can lead to many others. But if you can’t be clear in an email, how can you expect contracting authorities to trust you with public projects?
Use words wisely to make a good impression upfront and lay the foundations for long-term business relationships.
Note: Concise doesn’t mean truncated. Email isn’t like a telegram, you don’t pay per word. That’s why it’s best to hire email content specialists to craft the right message.
Embrace Technology
Technology in email marketing simplifies the whole process, saves time and money, and reduces errors. Reputable email service providers provide email marketing tools that enhance marketing strategies and improve campaign performance.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
CRM systems are centralised platforms that manage customer data. They can be quite sophisticated, linking all your marketing channels to give you a comprehensive view of your marketing efforts, including the impact email marketing has on your overall success.
Automation
Automation is the new black. Everyone is using it, but not everyone is using it effectively. It’s best to set up automation that streamlines email marketing strategies. For example, a welcome email to all new subscribers or personalised emails with relevant product promotions.
Artificial Intelligence
If automation is the new black, AI is the new LBD.
It can be used in a variety of ways, for example, AI creates personalised emails using predictive recommendations.
ChatGPT is still controversial, but it can be a great email marketing tool to inspire content creation. For example, providing prompts to suit specific industries or organisations, like healthcare and the NHS.
Email Marketing Regulations for the Public Sector
All industries and sectors are governed by rules and regulations to ensure ethical transactions and behaviour. Often, public sector regulations are stricter than the private sector and the penalties for non-compliance are severe.
Fall foul of the rules and you could find yourself excluded from certain contracts or even debarred.
Many email service providers advise against buying email lists, highlighting risks associated with spam filters and legal consequences, particularly regarding data security regulations like GDPR.
It’s your business to know the regulations governing email marketing. Things like data collection, privacy, and security are taken very seriously, so your systems must meet set standards if you want to continue in public sector procurement.
For example, you must have opt-in systems and you must provide a clear Unsubscribe option for email subscribers who want to opt-out.
Single Sender Or Point Of Contact
Way back when, many businesses sent emails with business signatures because it looked more professional. In the age of personalisation, best practice is to send emails from one person.
The name and face provide a human touch and the single point of contact maintains consistency and avoids confusion, like when one email string contains many people.
A good example is customer care. Some companies use marketing automation to send queries to the next available person, so you might not deal with the same person each time. Randal could reply to your initial query, so you reply to Randal, but Emily is now on your case, so you reply to Emily, only to have Beatrice follow-up.
Measuring Email Marketing Success In The Public Sector
Measure the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign by implementing analytics. Track metrics and assess KPIs to identify your strengths (which you leverage) and your weaknesses (which you improve).
Metrics to determine a successful email marketing strategy
- Open rates: How many emails were opened (interest)?
- Click-through rates: How often were email links clicked (curiosity?
- Conversion rates: How often the outcome was achieved (goals)
- In-house response rate: Staff response time.
- Email response rate: Recipients response time.
To craft a successful email marketing campaign, it is crucial to monitor these key performance metrics.
Real Life Examples Of Successful Email Marketing Campaigns
There are several examples of email campaigns that embrace email personalisation and engagement.
Amazon
Amazon is a great example because it delivers highly personalised emails based on browsing history, purchase history, and preferences.
Spotify
Spotify uses in-app personalisation based on listening habits and preferences to deliver tailored playlists and recommendations to subscribers.
Airbnb
Airbnb uses search history and preferences to deliver personalised emails with accommodation suggestions or promotions. Also, automatic emails invite guests to provide reviews and feedback.
Quick Checklist Before You Hit Send
We’ve covered quite a lot of information on email marketing campaigns. We’re going to wrap up with a checklist of other best practices to help you reach contracting authorities.
- Optimise for mobile devices
- Best time to send email marketing messages (hours/days)
- Optimise the email subject line for government audiences
- A/B testing to find the best approach for government-approved email marketing
- Check your links for click-through rates
- Verify email compliance for government marketing
- Craft engaging subject lines to increase open rates
As you can see, developing successful email marketing campaigns that meet government requirements is tricky. Public sector email marketing strategies are becoming ever more sophisticated, turning the process into a specialised form of marketing that requires a specialist approach.
Over decades of experience, Cadence Marketing has developed unique services that take email marketing campaigns to the next level. We’re always on top of trends, so you know that your strategy uses the latest and most effective best practices for your email campaign.
Contact us for a free consultation and see what we can do to boost your presence in the public sector and help you secure lucrative government contracts in your area of expertise.
