Running an email campaign can be intimidating – but it doesn't have to be. Here are 4 email marketing tips that will help get your emails opened.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies (it beats out both social media and SEO), so it's no surprise businesses want to take advantage of it.
Before we begin, let's get familiar with the lay of the email marketing land:
-
21% of emails are opened within one hour of delivery.
-
The ROI for email marketing is 4200%.
-
28% of subscribers want to see promotional offers twice or thrice a week.
-
Click-through and open rates are worst on the weekends.
-
Traffic tends to peak in autumn and winter, especially on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and 23rd December.)
-
The average open rates for newsletters, triggers, autoresponses are 18.76%, 38.03% and 26.4% respectively. Their click-through rates, however, stand at 2.14%, 6.76% and 3.60%.
-
The unsubscribe rate is highest for trigger emails and lowest for newsletters.
Now you're all warmed up. Let's dive in.
Email Marketing Tips
With over 300 billion emails being sent out every day, an essential step to succeeding in your email campaign is creating a buyer persona for your ideal customer.
What are their interests? What are their pain points? What topics will catch their attention? This is classic marketing fare – it's a matter of understanding how instrumental a role these questions play in your email marketing strategy.
Subscribers expect to be treated as individuals with complex needs, instead of just names on a list. Marketers have dubbed this transformative form of brand interaction "service mentality". It has been manifesting in increasing email personalization.
A study by Forrester/SAP Hybris revealed that 66% of marketers thought their personalization efforts were "very good" or "excellent", and that 48% are actively utilizing behaviour-based data.
Offering a fully personalized email subscription service is not a simple tip, nor one that we recommend to all organizations.
However, it does show you how important it is for email marketers to use the company's customer insights to their advantage.
If you do want to dig deeper into customer insights but do not have the resources, we recommend reaching out to your local online marketing agency.
Tip #2: Write an exceptional subject line
When it comes to online content, 80% of readers never make it past the headline. Upworthy even found that traffic can vary up to 500% from this aspect alone.
The subject line is your first tool in piquing your readers' curiosity.
A study by Conductor found that the more explicit a headline regarding the reader takeaway, the more the headline resonates.
The key is to strike a balance between being upfront about your content and leaving an information gap that can only be filled by reading it.
For example, you might suggest that your email will help the reader solve a problem, boost their productivity, or enlighten them on industry trends. But the secrets to these lie within the email.
This also ties back to our first tip, since customer insights will tell you what type of information will persuade your subscribers to open your email.
Recommended Reading:
HubSpot found that medium to large companies receive a median open rate of 32.3%. That leaves about two thirds of email subscriptions untapped.
To help you surpass these results, let's talk about two critical aspects of emails that are often overlooked:
-
The "from" line
-
The opening line
It's crucial that the "from" line of your emails is consistent, clear and personalized.
When a subscriber is going through their emails, they'll be looking for those from senders that they recognize and trust to give them authentic content.
For example, think about how much stronger a "from" line reading "BluEnt" is in comparison to "sales@bluent.net". They may both be from the same sender, but the former is guaranteed to earn a higher open rate.
Your opening line is another way of achieving higher email open rates, since most email browsers and mobile apps now display a portion of the message next to the subject line in the user's inbox before they open the email.
This is your chance to persuade the subscriber to hear what your email has to say by giving them a taste of what the content will deliver, so place the most attention on crafting these lines in the body of email.
These two tips may be quick and easy to complete, but email marketing tips like these go a long way in impressing customers and earning their loyalty.
Recommended Reading:
Remember not to overwhelm and irritate your subscribers with emails every day.
Coming on too strong may get your emails marked as spam, and turn a lead into a stranger once again.
So how many emails is too many? HubSpot revealed that companies that send over 30 email campaigns per month get lower open and click rates, whereas companies that send 16-30 campaigns monthly receive click rates over 200% higher than those sending 2 or fewer campaigns a month.
However, this doesn't mean that sending 16–30 emails will guarantee you the optimal ROI. Every customer base has different preferences, so it takes constant testing to find the best schedule for your company.
A more tailored approach is to assess your sales cycle and plan your email marketing solutions accordingly.
For example, a weekly email schedule is ideal for a sales cycle of 1–2 months, but excessive for a sales cycle closer to 10–12 months.
Recommended Reading:
Conclusion
We hope these email marketing tips helped you!
If you'd like to start an email campaign but don't know where to begin, well, you're in luck. BluEnt offers digital marketing services to Fortune companies, SMEs and funded startups.
Our email marketing services include schedule optimization, email tracking, reporting and more. These will create a powerful campaign to increase your conversions.
Want to see how we've helped our past clients? Check out our portfolio.
Contact us now for email marketing services tailored to your business needs!
Maximum Value. Achieved.