Email isn’t dead! But the days of sending out blast campaigns to your full contact list are long gone. Nowadays, email remains an important part of any marketing strategy, as boosting open rates and click through rates still require some effort.
Effective email marketing campaigns still play an important part in nurturing the customer journey. Email newsletters are an opportunity to engage users and potential customers: offer newsworthy content that positions your business as an authoritative voice, or send out exclusive discount codes for e-commerce.
Following the enforcement of GDPR, email addresses have become increasingly valuable. It is important to connect with contacts who are likely to convert; do this by giving them what they want (and only what they want!).
Here are a few simple tips to improve the performance of your email campaigns:
1. It all starts with your subject line…
Think about the last time you opened an email from a brand. Remember why? Chances are, the subject line caught your attention. That’s why you should think carefully about what you put in your subject lines. Most email providers only show around 50 characters, so it’s important to keep it short and snappy. Try to give recipients a good reason to open the email for example, by specifying a benefit or creating a sense of urgency.
If you can’t decide between an informative subject line, and a snappy pun with added emojis, use A/B split testing to define what your target audience are most receptive to. (But ensure that you adjust your send time to account for Subject Line testing before the main send.)
2. Then, it’s time to get personal.
Personalisation can be as simple as just pulling through a contact’s first name to create a friendlier tone. But emails can be optimised with all manner of dynamic content. Integrating your email platform with your website can provide data insights into a contact’s browsing and purchasing history. Show customers products, services or news that you know they’re interested in seeing.
Exercise caution: too much dynamic content in a single email may result in sending errors or inconsistent results. And remember to input a default value or content block, so that contacts without a detailed history will still see an engaging email.
3. Optimise for mobile devices, too!
It is the new norm in web design and SEO to adopt a mobile-first approach. Stats say that 47% of email is now opened on a mobile device.
Create your emails with a responsive design. Some platforms will automatically scale images and stack horizontal content dependent on screen size. However, if there are some elements which you know will only suit a desktop, set them to be hidden from mobile deliveries.
When testing your emails before a big send, check the preview on mobile (or even send it to your own phone!). Some services offer previewer functions, to check exactly how your campaign will appear across a range of potential email servers.
4. Write purposeful, engaging content
If you’ve managed to capture your recipients’ attention, and they’ve opened your email, the last thing you want is for them to take one look at the content and click ‘delete’. Make sure that you give your email a purpose – and stick to it.
Decide on a clear call to action and drive all content towards that end. Too many decisions, or too much text to read, will a decline in click-through rates. Be sure to provide enough relevant information to capture your reader’s attention; but always leave them wanting more…
5. Segment your contact list
It might seem obvious, but sending emails to people who don’t want to receive them is a waste of time and resources. Open rates, click-through and conversions all benefit from an increase when a campaign is aimed towards a specific audience.
Building an email list is the first step. But segmenting that list even further, based on demographic, interests, engagement and behaviour, will enhance the relevance of your targeted emails.
Be sure to engage with your most recent contacts, and those who show a continued, active interest. From there, test the water with re-engaging neglected segments too.
Segmenting your email lists also makes it much easier to set up automated email campaigns. For example, transactional emails can be sent to user segments based on their purchase history and behaviour.
6. Optimise your send time
With emails, timing is important. There has been a lot of research into the correlation between send time and open rates. Some email systems even integrate an automatic send time optimisation tool.
Of course, success rates depend on who you’re emailing and what you’re emailing them about. Think about what the recipients are likely to be doing when they receive the email and consequently, is the content likely to appeal to them in that situation? No one wants a business email on a Friday night…
Bonus tip: be sure to segment your contact list by country or time zone, as the ideal send time for some may be far from ideal elsewhere!
Get in touch to find out more about our successful email marketing service.