An effective email marketing strategy is crucial to the success of your business. Anybody can fire off mass marketing emails, but how do you encourage clicks and boost sales?
Sending boring, uninspired emails will do little to motivate your customers. But when used correctly, email marketing is an incredibly powerful tool for your business.
Why emails? They have a wide reach. 99% of email users in the U.S. check their emails daily, and some even check it multiple times per day. Emails are a fast way to reach customers as well: 21% of emails get opened within the first hour of being sent.
Not only are emails a great way to quickly connect with customers, but email marketing also boasts a high ROI, or return on investment. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect up to $44 in return, making it one of the most economical digital marketing methods.
The value of emails is clear. Let’s go into more detail about how carefully crafted emails can benefit your business.
10 Email Marketing Tips For Effective Campaigns
- Don’t Skip The Subject Line
- Perfect Your Preview Text
- Aim For The Correct Quantity
- Create A Captivating CTA
- Limit The Length
- Optimize For Mobile Devices
- Personalize Your Emails
- Monitor Your Metrics
- Execute A/B Tests
- Test Even More!
1. Don’t Skip The Subject Line
Having a perfectly constructed email won’t matter if people aren’t even compelled to open it. Your subject line is the first thing people will see, so it’s imperative to use it to capture their attention.
First, consider the optimal length. 6-10 word subject lines have the highest open rate with 21%. That number drops when the word count is decreased and plummets when the subject is too lengthy.
Once you’ve got the length down, it’s time to make it catchy. This can be done any number of creative ways, including discount offers, alliteration, humor, and even emojis.
2. Perfect Your Preview Text
After viewing the subject, your customers’ eyes will likely wander to the preview text, which is that snippet of text visible before opening the email. If you don’t set the preview text, it will automatically be pulled from the body of the email, which is a prime example of a preview text tragedy.
Preview text is another chance to entice the customer to open your email, so not utilizing it is a wasted opportunity. The text should offer a snapshot of what your email contains without just repeating the subject line over again.
Instead, preview text should work as a team with your subject line to summarize the content of your email.
For example, your subject line could announce a BOGO sale with accompanying preview text “Last day for our flash sale!” These messages work together cohesively to prompt the customer to act quickly.
3. Aim For The Correct Quantity
With the knowledge that email marketing can increase sales, it may be tempting to bombard your customers with as many emails as possible. Don’t do that. 69% of U.S. email users unsubscribe from a business due to receiving too many emails.
On the other hand, popping out an email once every few months isn’t likely to have much of an impact. So what is the correct number? To achieve the best open and click-through rates, the sweet spot is between four and eight emails per month.
Achieving the ideal email frequency is a balancing act. You don’t want to annoy your customers by flooding their inboxes, but you also want to reach out often enough to hold their attention.
4. Create A Captivating CTA
A CTA, or call to action, is what inspires readers to spring into action. It leads them away from your email and links them directly to your business. How do you compel people to click?
First, make sure your CTA is visible. The best sale ever is useless if it’s hidden beneath a CTA button that blends in. Make your CTA pop with color that contrasts the background and ample space around it.
You should also be intentional with your wording. “Buy Now” is used frequently, but it could make the customer feel pressured to whip out their wallet. Instead, you could opt for something less intimidating such as “Shop The New Collection.”
5. Limit The Length
People are busy. Remember that you’re composing a marketing email, not writing a dissertation. A huge wall of text is sure to bore your readers.
Shoot for fewer than 200 words. This goal is easily attainable if you focus on being concise with your message.
6. Optimize For Mobile Devices
46% of emails are opened on a mobile device, so it’s essential to make sure your emails function properly from iPhones to desktops and everywhere in between.
On mobile, your email has to squeeze onto a smaller screen. Too long titles could get cut off and what was a picture-perfect email on the desktop could have lopsided spacing or images floating around where you don’t want them.
To prevent this, make sure to be deliberate and limit your wording not just in the subject line, but throughout. Avoid crowding your email with too many bulky image files since they might take much longer to load on a mobile device.
7. Personalize Your Emails
Personalization has been shown to increase email open rates. Personalization doesn’t solely entail including the recipient’s name in the subject line, although that strategy has been proven to work as well.
The content of your emails can be customized based on the customer’s purchase history, birthday, or even location. These targeted emails generate more clicks and opens than non-personalized emails since they’re relevant to the recipient and therefore more interesting.
You can even consider seemingly small details such as the address the email is coming from. We’ve all received countless emails from donotreply@companyname.com.
To avoid this, some companies elect to send their emails to make them look like they’re coming from a specific person at the company. An email from Bob Smith feels a lot more personal than generic donotreply emails that are pumped out thoughtlessly.
8. Monitor Your Metrics
If you’re using an email marketing tool, you should be able to view detailed analytics for your campaigns. Don’t let that data go to waste!
Take note of open and click rates. You may even be able to track mobile open rates or view a heat map to show which links received the most clicks.
You have access to real numbers to see what’s working. This can help you attain a better understanding of your audience, which can help you plan future campaigns.
9. Execute A/B Tests
A/B testing, otherwise known as split testing, is the process of sending two different versions of a single email to a small sample of your subscribers to see which version is more successful. The variations can be as simple as tweaking the subject line, or as complex as changing the content, pictures, or even discount offers.
Once the test has been conducted, observe the results to see which email was the most successful. Success can be measured in open rate, click-through rate, or whichever metric you consider the most valuable for your campaign.
When the winning email has been determined, that version can be sent to the remainder of your subscribers.
A/B testing not only gives you valuable data for your specific campaign, but also a better understanding of what your audience might be drawn to. This insight can only benefit you.
10. Test Even More!
Speaking of testing, why not send yourself or your colleagues a test email? This enables you to ensure all components are displaying correctly, which could prevent you from shooting off a faulty email to hundreds or thousands of subscribers.
When the email arrives in your inbox, simply check to ensure everything is in working order. Are your images displaying properly? Are your buttons linking correctly? You might even spot a spelling mistake at the last minute.
Testing is a quick and easy way to discover problems. It’s well worth it.
Conclusion
It’s easy to overlook email marketing with all the flashy modern marketing strategies available, but emails are proven to be reliable and effective. Email marketing is a powerful digital marketing strategy with a high ROI and the ability to quickly travel far and wide.
Consider the tips above when crafting your next campaign. If you need assistance, we’d love to help. Contact us if you’re interested in our email marketing services!