How to Spy Your Competitor’s Email Marketing Strategy

We have entered into an era where new channels of marketing, like videos, social media platforms, and much more are now available. Marketers are now using these tools as well to connect to their audience. But does that mean traditional channels like email marketing have lost their relevance? Well, no not really. Even today, we have 4.48 billion users of email worldwide, according to Forbes. It also reveals that around 81% of companies still use emails for their campaigns. The data for small businesses is also much lower. Around 64% of small businesses see email marketing as an effective tool of communication.

Now that you read these email marketing metrics, you may wonder what makes email marketing this popular. The answer is simple: a lot of things, including its revenue, personalized communication, enhanced website traffic, and whatnot.

Now that you know the power of email marketing, imagine what if you could look into your competitor’s email marketing strategy. It can help you look into their best formulas, effective marketing techniques, and what of those can be useful to you. But how do you spy into your competitor’s marketing strategy? Well, let’s see.

How Spying on Your Competitor’s Marketing Strategy Can Help?

With careful analysis and competitor email monitoring, you enjoy several benefits. If you need professional support, our email marketing services are designed to provide just that. Here are a few of them:

You easily tap into the popular trends doing well in the industry.
You get to see new and innovative ideas that might be missing and can be introduced in your marketing campaigns.
You get to do a comparative analysis of your and your competitor’s performance.
Spying on your competitor’s strategy helps you recognise and avoid the common pitfalls.

How to Check Competitor’s Email Marketing Strategy Campaigns?

Now that you know the importance of email marketing and how spying on your competitors’ email marketing strategy can help, let’s quickly see how you can do it.

Subscribe to Your Competitor’s Newsletters

The easiest and most effective way to look into your competitor’s strategy is to sign up for their email newsletters. Consider using a separate email for this purpose to avoid any kind of issue. Here is how you can enter into their subscribers list:

Check their website to find a sign-up form.
Some companies use social media to promote their newsletters. So, don’t forget to look into that.
Use a separate email ID to keep things simple and organized.

Observe the Welcome Email

Post signing up, the first thing you get to see is a welcome mail. Now don’t ignore looking and observing the same. It is the very first thing your competitors use for their new audience. See if this mail is impressive enough.

Does it have a catchy subject line? Is it innovative enough to encourage you to open the mail?
What is the content being used in these emails? Do they have some kind of special offers or promotions?
Carefully look into the design of these emails. Do they stand out? And what adds to the visual appeal, is it the colour or layout of these emails?
What is their desired Call To Action?

Look into Their Regular Marketing Strategy

Checking your competitor’s welcome mail gives you an idea of their creativity. But that’s not enough to gauge their performance and overall marketing campaigns. Keep an eye on their regular campaigns to note some valuable insights. This may include:

Looking into their frequency of emails.
What is their favorite time to send these emails?
What types of content do they use in their emails? Is it informative, promotional, or an engaging read?
Do they add images or do they have a specific design that they constantly repeat?
Look into their CTAs. Is it always the same or do they use varied CTAs?

Understanding their Content Quality is Important

Content quality is one of the key factors in keeping your audience engaged and hooked to your brand. This means by tapping into the content quality of your competitors, you can see what’s working for them.

Understand their content relevance. See if it’s something that solves the audience’s problems, is it relatable?
Look into the content’s readability. Understanding the language and tone can help you analyze how easily one can follow their content.
Do they frequently add engaging tools like polls or comments to interact with their audience?

Compare Your Competitor’s Design

Email design plays a crucial part in determining the overall email impact. Thus, it becomes important for you to look at and compare your competitors’ email designs and what makes them stand out.

Look into their mobile optimization features. See if they easily load on the phone screen or not.
Take a look at the overall email layout. Observe the structure and see if it’s easily navigable or not.
Also, spy their visuals. Have a look at what videos, images, or content they are adding to their emails.
Does their design align with their brand tone and marketing campaigns?

Monitor Your Competitor’s Promotions

When talking about how to spy on your competitor’s email marketing strategy, you cannot forget to mention their promotions. Closely observe the offerings of your competitor.

What are their most commonly run offers? Is it discounts, free coupons, or something else?
What is the frequency of their promotional emails?
Do they have separate promotional emails for specific seasons? For example, do they customize promotional mail for Christmas or New Year?
What is the sense of urgency used in these emails? Do they use don’t miss phrases, or are limited-time deals or something else?

Observe the Landing Page

Mostly, promotional mail or newsletters are designed to take their customers to a brand’s specific landing page. Now, you might not be aware but observing these landing pages can help you greatly spy on your competitors’ marketing game. Let’s see how.

See if their landing page is designed for the seamless mobile experience. Is it mobile-optimized or not?
What are the navigation elements on the landing page? Can you easily go back to the main page?
Is their landing page consistent with their email’s tonality and content?
What are the conversion essentials added to their landing page? For example, are they using testimonials, forms, or anything else?

Email Tracking Tools for Better Analysis

Using a few tracking tools can help you better understand and professionally dive into their email campaign tracking.

Tracking tools can help read a mail’s intelligence.
These tools are also effective in collecting your competitor’s emails and their hidden successful strategies.
Some tools like SendView also help track the email activity of the competitor brands.

What is Their Social Media Integration

Given the era we are living in, companies are following a common yet relevant strategy of integrating their social media with email campaigns. Now, you may look into your competitor’s social media and analyze a thing or two.

Do your competitors use social media to promote their email sign-ups?
Is there any common campaign being run on both: newsletters and social media? If yes, what is content quality and type of content? For example, is it promotional or informative?
What is their way of engaging with their social media audience? How is it different from their email audience engagement?

Email Marketing Metrics for Further Help

If you meticulously and carefully follow the above steps, you’ll have a fair idea of the email marketing campaigns of your competitors. But to understand their real-time performance, analyzing their email marketing metrics can help. Now, you must understand this is not something you get to do directly; however, with certain tactics, you can gather some quite helpful information.

The structuring and positioning of their CTA can tell a lot about their click-through rates.
To analyze their open rates, consider looking into their social media follow-ups and interactive sessions.
You can review their conversion rates based on their landing page design and its effectiveness regarding conversion tools like forms, and sign-up forms.
You can look into their engagement rates via the frequency of their shared emails and online discussions.

Take a Look at Your Competitor’s Customer Reviews & Feedback

Customer reviews and feedback are important tools to understand how the audience sees your competitor as a brand. Plus, this helps you access a bunch of information. Let’s see how:

Review customer feedback, questions, and testimonials to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitor.
See customers’ comments and responses to understand your competitor’s engagement levels with their audience.
Customer testimonials can be a great way to understand what’s trending or what’s a flop among the general public.

Observe & Create

Now that you have closely followed your competitor’s email strategy, you have access to quite some relevant information and marketing tactics. Here is how to make the most out of your competitive email marketing analytics:

Carefully monitor what has worked best for your competitors. Now, try replicating similar strategies in your marketing campaign.
Your competitors’ mail campaigns are also one of the best ways to understand their mistakes and learn from them. Make sure you don’t repeat them yourself.
Look into the different elements used in their emails. Their subject lines, content type, and images used can be the best and most effective ways to gauge what’s trending and working great among customers. However, you need to test email marketing essentials for yourself, instead of following them blindly.
Spying on your competitor’s strategy can be helpful to gain new and innovative ideas. However, don’t forget to make them your own by personalizing whatever you learn. Make sure that everything you replicate matches your brand’s tone and individuality.

Spying and observing your competitor’s marketing strategy can help you a lot. Not only does it give you some relevant information and effective tactics, but it helps you be ahead in your marketing game. With simple steps like subscribing to their newsletters, looking into their customer feedback, and using some tracking tools, you get to plan better than your competitors. However, it is equally important to analyze their performance and use it for your benefit without losing your authenticity. Your email campaigns should be a clear reflection of your brand’s reputation and message.

Final Word

Considering the importance of email campaigns, it may look like a big responsibility. One that you could not afford to mess up. You may use a few email marketing software that eases your email campaigns. Some of them are designed to automate emails, while others can help create sign-up forms for A/B testing and whatnot. Even with these tools, sometimes it might feel overwhelming and you may need professional support. Here comes Small Biz marketing. We are dedicated to empowering small businesses and here is how we do it:

We start with understanding your marketing strategy and building your foundation accordingly.
We put content on top.
We use personalized communication to nurture your relationships with your audience.
We craft an effective content strategy with SEO, keywords, and more.
We believe in being consistent and relevant.
Continuous tracking to analyze your performance and work on lacking areas.

Plus, you also get a Free E-book that helps you craft emails that speak to your audience.

Get in touch with us at info@smallbizmarketing.com