Email marketing has always been a powerful medium. Automation makes the entire process a lot smarter, faster and effectiveOpens a new window .
To keep garnering a positive ROI, it must be done right. If you have seen a dip in the performance of your email marketingOpens a new window campaigns, maybe its these mistakes to blame!
1. Have a Plan
Start by putting an email marketing planOpens a new window in place.
Create a content strategy with topics that are relevant to your target audience, based on their interests. Maintain a content calendar outlining release dates for each email campaign.
Helpful tips:
- If you are not sure how frequently you should be sending emails, once a month is a good start.
- If an important event happens in your industry, you can capitalize on it with an email campaign send; it’s okay to deviate from the plan a bit
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Here’s a secret: Your subscribers like to hear from you. Send them content that will help them solve their biggest problems.
2. Choose Best Performing Subject Lines
Subject lines influence open ratesOpens a new window .
Avoid generic, confusing, misleading or over-the-top subject lines. Keep them short, informative and to the point. It should set the expectation for the reader and explain the jist of the mail.
Refrain from using all caps, too many punctuation and spammy keywords such as “free,†“gift,†“bonus†etc.
Understanding the goal of the email will make it easier to write a subject line that creates a sense of urgency.
3. Personalization
Do you start an email with “Dear sir/ma’am,†“Hey,†or “Hi,â€? Well, dear sir/ma’am, I would like to inform you that you’re missing out on of the easiest way to stand out in the inbox of your subscribers.
Personalized emails build trustOpens a new window in the minds of your readers. A simple personalization tactic like addressing people by their first name can prove to be effective. In fact, according to StatistiaOpens a new window , personalized emails received 18.8% open rate whereas the same for non-personalized emails was only 13.3%.
Personalizing from the name, subject line, salutation, email copy, product offers, etc. have proven to help increase CTR leading to significant revenue improvement.
4. Database Segmentation
We all know that one size does not fit all in marketing.
Email marketing is a focused activity and requires the marketers to have a thorough understanding of their recipients. Who are your subscribers? How actively do they use your product? Are they your consumers in the first place? What type of content do they consume? What are their interests? What are some identifiable purchase patterns? Knowing answers to these questions will help you create segmentsOpens a new window to which you can send tailored content ensuring a better engagement.
5. Mobile Optimization
A non-responsive email will appear shabby on mobile and tablet devices. We’re in 2018, and it’s surprising to see so many emails that are (still!) not optimized for mobile devices. In the email game, you are not just competing for the reader’s attention; you are also competing against the same pursuit of your competitors as well. With more people opening emails on smartphones, mobile optimization should be a natural part of the process. Make sure you start optimizing emails for mobiles and tabletsOpens a new window early in the game.
6. Don’t Ignore Message Preview Text
You’ve successfully crafted an amazing subject line, but did you just miss another opportunity to explain more about your email? I’m talking about the message preview text. Also known as preheaders, message previews are usually displayed next to the subject line, and they are usually 100 characters long.
If you don’t write anything for preheaders, the preview will automatically fetch the first few lines from the email body which would usually be a salutation and the first line of the email or something worse like, “To view this email in the browser, click here.â€
Helpful Tips:
- Most email marketing tools allow you to write the message preview line in their editing tool. –Take advantage of it because now you’re giving two reasons to your subscribers to open the email instead of one.
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7. Make Data-driven Decisions
Email marketing is strategic and needs to be driven by goals. To know if you’re able to attain the goals, you need to measure the results of your email marketing activitiesOpens a new window . Start tracking the open rate, clicks on links, conversions, unsubscribes, spam reports, forwards, etc. to know how well your email campaigns are performing.
Helpful Tips:
- Most email marketing tools and Google Analytics help you track these metrics.
- Having data at hand will greatly enhance the overall email marketing performance.
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8. Test Your Emails
If you are not testing, you’re not improving. Keep trying out new ideas in your emails. If you have a significant subscriber base, you can run an A/B testOpens a new window to see what works for you. You can test almost everything- Â subject lines, content, images, call to actions, colors, layout, design, and tone. At the end of the campaign, collect and analyze the results to see what worked.
Many email marketing tools allow you to monitor campaign results and run various tests.
Also Read:Â
5 B2B Email Marketing Best Practices You Can’t Afford to MissOpens a new window
9. Call to Action
CTAs are the ABC of email marketing. Your emails should entice your recipients to take some action through CTAsOpens a new window . If you are not sure what should that be, go back to your goals and reverse engineer them to find out the CTA. Not keeping a call to action in an email campaign is a wasted opportunity.
Here are some typical questions to ask:
- Do you want them to buy your new product?
- Read your new book?
- Sign up for a new course?
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Make the most out of your email marketing efforts with these nine useful tips! Which of the above resonated with you the most? Let us know!
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