Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Adela Belin, Head of Digital Marketing at Writers Per Hour
In a world where over 281 billion consumer and business emails are sent daily, and people are always getting bombarded with brand communication, you need to go to extra lengths to ensure your emails get their due visibility and not get lost in the clutter.
Sit back and think – do your email marketing efforts fetch positive results or are they just reaching a dead end? You might be sending out emails to an extensive database, but it all boils down to how effective your email campaigns really are. If your campaign does not compel recipients to open emails and take action, then it is a waste of effort. So, if you have seen no change in website conversions, it may be time to reassess your email marketing strategy. Here are top 6 email marketing tips to help you boost conversions.
Did you know that 47% of email recipients open emails based on the subject line and 69% of them report emails as spam solely because of the same reason? Yes, the subject line plays a huge role in fueling your email marketing campaigns.
The best subject lines are those that are concise, direct and manage to grab the reader’s attention in a jiffy. Your reader needs to get a sense of what lies in the email in just a few words. Play on human psychology and use this space to create a sense of urgency, evoke curiosity, highlight a pain point or set a personalized tone.
Ensure you stick to less than 50 characters because you don’t want to have the reader read the entire line than have it trail off. You can also consider adding emojis – they manage to stand out while enhancing the message.
Not confident about your writing abilities? Take help from writing experts to help you master email marketing copy because the words you choose can make all the difference.
The body of your email needs to be easy on the eyes. Avoid cluttering it with multiple messages because you will just end up confusing the customer and attain nothing out of it.
Whether it’s creating awareness about your new campaign or announcing the annual sale – stick to one objective and center your message around it. Use enticing imagery, break the text down into shorter paragraphs, highlight call-to-actions properly and use bullet points to improve readability.
Most importantly, as most people access emails on their phone, ensure your email template is optimized for mobile. Nothing is more frustrating than having customers struggle to make sense of your email on their phones.
Imagine being met with an email that is loaded with lengthy paragraphs and the other that opens to a video or animation – which one are you more likely to pay heed to? In all probability, the latter one.
Interactive elements always win over static ones because they promise to be more engaging, entertaining and eye-catching. So, whether it is an experiential video, a fun quiz or even a simple GIF – use interactive elements in your email campaigns, and you are sure to get a better response.
The importance of personalizing emails cannot be emphasized enough. In spite of that, there are so many brands that follow the blanket email communication approach which is indeed not recommended in today’s day and age when customers want to feel valued and heard.
Personalizing emails does not end with just referring to them by their name. There are a lot of other ways to personalize your email marketing approach such as sending them personalized offers and product recommendations basis their purchase history, sending birthday offers and even shooting them abandoned cart reminder emails.
Yes, you have got the recipient to open the email but what next? Every email you send needs to induce action – whether it is downloading your latest e-book, buying tickets to an event or making a purchase.
Use strong call-to-action words such as ‘Download Now’, ‘Buy Now’, ‘Available Offer’ and more to create a sense of urgency. If it is a limited period time offer, be sure to highlight that by displaying it in bold or you can also include interactive elements like a ticking clock.
Your call-to-action button needs to be bold enough for people to take note and upon clicking, needs to seamlessly bring the customer to the desired landing page.
If you overlooked the importance of timing when sending out emails, you have been making a grave mistake. While several studies done by MailChimp, WordStream, HubSpot, and others suggest that Tuesday and Thursday are the best days to send emails, the question you need to answer is – when is your audience most active?
Go out there and experiment. Conduct an A/B test with the same subject line and body but sent at different times and figure out when you get the best response – that should answer your question!