According to 99firms, the total number of worldwide email accounts was 3.9billion and is projected to hit the 4billion mark in 2020 with over 293billion emails sent each day throughout the world. To put this into perspective, there are 3x more email accounts than there are facebook and twitter accounts combined.
These numbers are overwhelming and they represent the obvious advantage in terms of return on investment email campaigns have over social media. Email marketing produces $44 for every $1 spent.
However, not every marketer gets to enjoy this huge benefit of email marketing which boils down to the approach and execution of email campaigns. In order to see a good return on investment with your email campaign, you need to create an inbound email experience and set goals.
Always set goals for your overall email marketing campaign. While you might set a goal for each email send such as getting a contact to download a template, visit your website or engage with your business, your overall goal can be to lead your prospects through the buyer’s journey or to convert prospects into paying customers.
In order to achieve this, your marketing emails need to tick some or all of the boxes below.
- Use professional business email:
In the business of email marketing first impressions matters a lot. One of several ways of improving your emails click-through rate is to use a professional email address that shows the name of your brand. For example: info@5thweb.ng. This will help create trust and credibility of your brand.
A/B Testing conducted for brands operating professional emails shows higher click-through rates and ultimately led to more conversions than those using free email services.
- Keep your subject line simple and short:
To improve the open rates of your emails, your subject line should be long enough to pass across substantial meaning under ten words and short enough not to reveal the content of your email. Only the first 30 characters of a subject line are visible on the iPhone email app; meaning that your core message should fall within this limit for a chance to capture your recipient’s attention.
Localizing or personalizing your email subject line will also increase your email open rate. This fact is supported by Super Office who found out that including a recipient’s name in your email subject line increases open rates by up to 18.30%. For example:
- “Smith, do you need a good subject line?”
- “Kunle, is your dog the fastest in Lagos?”
Personalization is much more than adding the first name of your recipients to your emails. It’s about creating a contextualized and individual experience. In another research carried out by Campaign Monitor, it revealed that emails with personalised subject lines get 26% boost in open rates.
Steer your audience’s curiosity but don’t give out too many details!
- Avoid spam-trigger words:
When last did you open emails from your spam folder? According to Spam Law, 14.5 billion spam emails are sent on a daily basis. The big question is this, are your marketing emails among those numbers?
However great the content of your marketing emails, failure to edit for spam-trigger words can mar the credibility of your brand and greatly reduce its open rate, click-through rate as well as the conversion rate.
- Keep your content concise:
Using one marketing email to pass across several brand communication isn’t a good practice. Creating an inbound email experience and conversation means focusing just as much on the context of your message as the content you deliver. Bringing context and content together helps you write the greatest emails and make sure they connect with your audience.
Your emails should focus on a singular idea that clearly typifies your brand tone, engages your audience and encourages them to take further actions.
To make your content more readable, do the following:
- add headings
- bold important word or phrases
- use clear structure
- use bullet points
- reduce the length of your copy
- Include call-to-actions:
Marketing emails without call-to-actions are like guns without bullets. A strong subject line can guarantee good open rates, but only a persuasive call-to-action can lead to more click-through rates.
CTA’s should be concise, properly highlighted, styled differently from other buttons and must contain links to a well-crafted landing page where possible conversion will take place.
- Segment your contacts:
Great content for the wrong set of contacts won’t add value, just like the right contacts receiving poor content won’t either. Segmentation is the act of dividing your contacts or audience into smaller groups based on similarities. Segmenting your contacts helps you tailor your communication to be more relevant and engaging to your recipients.
What value does your reader receive in this email? How does it fit with other communication you are having with them?
Segmentation at its core brings together two key inbound concepts:
- buyer persona
- buyer’s journey
The first few segments that all businesses should have includes segments for:
- subscribers
- leads
- customers
According to Mailchimp, segmented email campaigns also earn around 100.95% higher click-through rates as compared to non-segmented email campaigns.
- Include easy unsubscribe options:
Letting your audience know that they have the power to subscribe, unsubscribe or simply dictate the frequency at which they’d like to receive emails can boost trust and consequently lead to increased engagements with your brand.
The top three reasons why people unsubscribe from an email includes:
- sending too many emails
- info no longer relevant
- they don’t recognize your brand or remember signing up
The key to success in email marketing is setting SMART goals and then segmenting your contacts so that each recipient will be getting tailored and relevant content that helps solve their needs. Track your data and use your findings to make more informed decisions as you proceed.
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