10 Easy Tactics to Improve Email Marketing Results
Email marketing continues to be one of the most durable and consistent forms of outreach. However, increased competition demands that you create a precise and insightful campaign to keep your audience engaged. Here are 10 easy tactics that you can implement right now to improve email marketing and bolster your campaign results!
Make the best first impression
It may seem that email marketing is the most direct form of marketing, but the truth is that modern email marketing should follow some indirect marketing formats and standards. In order to make a great first impression, prioritize offering value toward the beginning of your message, in the form of helpful, relevant information, as in the example below. You can certainly link to your conversion pages, but this should not be a priority early in your email storylines.
Personalize templates
There is nothing wrong with using a template to shorten the design process. However, you never know if your competition is using the same template for a possibly overlapping customer database. What could be worse than sending an email that looks identical to another company’s? Templates are a starting point, but be smart and personalize them to your audience for best results.
Test best times of day to send to your specific markets
Many companies actually find that open rates increase based on the time of day that they send their emails. It is very important to remember this if you are engaging people across the world! Keep in mind that you’re having your cup of coffee at the same time that someone else is going to bed. Even if you have not expanded into the international space, you can still benefit by considering the schedule of your target market. Perhaps you are marketing to a business audience with more time to open emails in the afternoon or at happy hour. You will never know unless you experiment and track your data.
Build segmented lists to receive specialized messages
Building segmented lists is a great way to personalize communications while using modified templates running simultaneously. Send a thank-you message to people who have already purchased from you, and send your customer acquisition message to new, potential customers that you meet, for example, at a trade show. Your audience will certainly appreciate being addressed in a personalized way, and you can keep up with the customers who are actually converting all the way through your sales funnel.
Use shorter subject lines
Brevity is the soul of wit, and this is certainly true in the world of business. Keep your subject lines short if you want to engage a larger contingent of your audience. This does not mean that you have to reduce the amount of information in your subject line; rather, you must think of ways to get your message across using fewer words. This is an art form that you’ll improve upon with practice. Less than 40 characters in the subject line is optimal.
Provide useful links
Many business people think that linking to a source outside of a landing page pushes an audience away. This is actually not true. People enjoy being directed to useful resources, and they will remember you as the original source. Of course you should not link to competitors in the space. Rather, try to link to .gov and .edu sources that backup the points you are making in your emails. Connecting yourself to noncommercial sources strengthens your argument and makes you look great in the eyes of your customers.
Responsive email design
The trend towards mobile commerce is unstoppable as the millennial generation is moving into the workforce and bringing with it a preference for mobile communications. If your emails look great on a laptop but not on a smartphone, this is not good enough. As a matter of fact, depending on your audience, you may want to investigate incorporating mobile-first design strategies. Going mobile first means that your emails line up in a single column. There should be no need for a user to scroll horizontally at any time – only the vertical scroll should be used. You can also get away with larger text, bolder headlines and meatier pictures in the mobile space.
Social sharing
No matter the age or demographic of your audience, everyone wants to check your social media presence before they trust you enough to make a purchase. Make sure that all of your emails have social sharing links. You never know which platform your audience will prefer using, especially at the beginning of a campaign. This may also be important data to collect so that you know how to engage your audience after the initial email run is over.
Telling a story
If you are sending your email in a series, let those emails tell a story! Personal testimonials, the background story of your brand, or interesting, relevant case studies have been proven to work in a series. Most of the time, companies begin by offering information without many attempts at a direct sales conversion. As an audience becomes more engaged with the story, you can offer your product as a solution within it.
The return address
This may seem like a small detail that doesn’t matter, but it does. Sending an email from a “noreply” address leads to measurably worse open rate results. Always send your emails from an address that looks like a human sent the correspondence. People realize that emails may be templates, but you immediately lose immersion if you go with the “noreply” option. Basically, people lose interest because you are not giving them even the notion of a real connection. If you want even better results, actually have a human ready to answer all correspondence in a timely manner!
These tactics will start your new email campaign off on the right foot. Keep your eyes and ears open for new tools that will improve your process and engagement, but keep in mind that a higher open rate always corresponds directly with the attention and respect that you give to your audience. Need help setting up and managing your email marketing campaigns? We are experts in lead nurturing and growing conversion rates, so feel free to call for more helpful advice!