By: Rebecca Duncan

The goal of email marketing is using emails to turn customers into prospects, but getting someone to click on your email — let alone read it — can be tricky. 

While different markets require different email marketing strategies, we’ve pulled together six universal tips 

The most effective email marketing strategies vary across audiences and markets, but we’ve pulled together six tips that will help boost your email marketing and produce more consistent results.

CREATING A MOBILE-FRIENDLY EMAIL TEMPLATE

Let’s face it: We use our smartphones for everything — including personal and work email — and we’ve all opened an email on our phones and had to scroll, scroll, and scroll to get past the awkward spacing and glitchy content to find what we’re looking for.

But what do most people do when they can’t find what they’re looking for easily? 

They lose interest. They delete the email. And they move on with their lives, never giving it a second thought. 

That’s especially true for promotional emails.

So what can marketers do to make people pay attention and — more importantly — take action on their emails? Pay attention to your email’s mobile design. 

Why? Because screen size matters. It’s one of the most important aspects of your email marketing campaign, regardless of what you’re selling. 

When you open an email on your computer, you have a huge screen to view it on. But on your phone — while they’re almost as big as iPads now — the screen is considerably smaller, and you’re probably holding it in portrait orientation.

Customers appreciate emails that are just as aesthetically pleasing as they are functional. So build your emails to be mobile-first, or consider using an email marketing service that has pre-built mobile-friendly email templates.

Not only will it improve your response rates, but your customer will appreciate it, too. 

EXPERIMENTING WITH EMAIL DEPLOYMENT TIMES

You put major thought into the content of your marketing email, but what about the timing? 

Most companies don’t give too much thought to when they’re sending their emails, but experimenting with deployment times can significantly increase your open rates.

Think about it. Your target customer is checking their inbox at very specific times throughout the day. So all you need to do is figure out when your audience is most likely to check their emails. Is it the first thing they do when they wake up? Are they checking in once they get to the office? How about during lunch? Maybe it’s not until they get home in the afternoon.

Think about your customer personas, make some educated guesses, then start testing.

Start by separating your email list in half. Send your email to half in the morning, and send your email to the other half of the list  in the evening. After recording what times get the most responses, you can then determine when to send your future emails. 

Seems simple, right? That’s because it is, but it can go a long way toward increasing your open and response rates.

Some companies coordinate their email sends with high website traffic. When does your traffic peak? When are most of your customers using your website? 

If you have customers in different time zones, you could have several spikes throughout the day. Check your Google Analytics reports to get an idea of what times might be best for your email sends.

Keep in mind, though, the best deployment times for your customers might change over time, so keep testing.

UPDATING EMAIL VERIFICATION

Deployment times are influential for response rates, but they don’t mean anything if your email list is out of date. 

When adding people to an email list, slipups happen. People misspell their email addresses, create fake addresses to get discounts, sign up with an old email address they’re never going to check, or they just forget to unsubscribe from your email list when they create a new email address.

It all hurts your open rates. And if you continue to send emails to invalid email addresses, you could be labeled as a spammer and lose your ability to send emails all together. Make it a habit to manually clean your list or consider running your email list through a verification service to save some time.

CRAFTING HOOKING SUBJECT LINES

Your subject line is arguably the most important part of your email. 

It’s the first thing your customer sees. It’s the first thing that generates interest… or not. And it’s your first and only chance to get them to click or tap and read the rest of your message.

You want to be somewhat cryptic to build interest, but you also want your subject line to be clear enough that your customer knows what to expect in the email.

In other words, highlight the imperativeness of your email without a bossy tone. People don’t want you to tell them to open the email. They want to be persuaded to open your email; they want a reason to open it. And it’s your job to give them that reason.

Keep in mind, when you send an email, you’re battling for attention in your customer’s already-crowded inbox. Make it stand out.

For some companies, for example, emojis fit their brand and make their emails stand out.

CLEAR CALL-TO-ACTION

Thanks to your creative subject line, you’ve got their attention. Now you just have to reel them in. This is where your clear call-to-action — or (CTA) comes into play. 

Just as your subject line convinces your customer to open the email, the CTA convinces them to do something about it, to take action on it. But most importantly, your CTA tells your customer how you want them to take action. 

Do you want them to respond to your email? Click a button? Use a promo code? Something else?

FEEDBACK OPPORTUNITIES FOR CUSTOMERS

Your customer’s satisfaction is at the heart of your business, and giving them feedback opportunities makes them feel important and heard. Email marketing can help!

When you send an email that asks your customers to review a product or give feedback on their experiences with your company, you’re letting them know that you value their input, and you’re creating a sense of commitment and partnership when you use their advice to improve your products or services.

Think about setting up an automated email a few days to a week after your customer bought something from you or interacted in some way with your business. Even if only 10% of your customers respond, you’ll still have a better understanding of what your customers are experiencing and what they’re thinking about your business.

When creating email marketing campaigns, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity. The entire point of your email is to get customers to open it, read it, and take action. Using these six tips will help you zero-in on your how you’re interacting with your customers and where you can do more.

If you’re having trouble with your email marketing, our team can help. Contact us today to get started.