Email marketing is the closest any marketer can come to a perfect marketing strategy.
That’s because of the mouthwatering 4400% ROI it promises. That’s $44 for every $1 you invest in it.
However, you won’t get those results by simply writing an email and sending it out to your list. Email marketing is an art and science you need to master in order for you to see it working for you.
That’s why I want to share some of the email marketing tips that have been proven to drive opens and clicks.
21 Email Marketing Tips You Can Start Implementing Now
The average email open rate across all industries, according to research, is 18.1%. That means for every 100 emails sent, only 18 get opened. But an open is not the end goal of an email marketing strategy. You want your emails to read and subscribers to click on that money-making link. Yet research says the average click-through-rate is a low 1.9%.
With such figures, it is the goal of every email marketer to increase the stats. After all, increasing open rates and click-through-rates translates to an increase in profits.
So how do you increase your open and click rates?
Here are 21 tips for effective email marketing tips to increase sales, drive traffic, or any other email marketing goal you have set. These are email marketing best practices that have been proven to yield results.
1. Build Your Own List
Building an email list from scratch is a daunting task. Buying one, on the other hand, is quite tempting. Tempting as it is, it will do you more harm than good.
The reason you will want to invest in building your own list is simple – you will attract the right kind of audience. By targeting the people who are interested in your product or service, you will build a tribe of engaged subscribers who will look forward to receiving your emails.
The result is higher open and click rates than you would get with a borrowed list.
2. Send a Welcome Email ASAP
When a subscriber signs up for your list, make sure to send a welcome email within 24 hours of them signing up. Because their interest is still piqued, they will open it. It also gives you the opportunity to prove the value of what you have to offer, resulting in your subsequent emails being opened.
3. Send Your Emails from a Person
While your emails may be business-related and coming from a business, send them as if you are sending it from a person.
Emails from a person are more likely to be opened than emails from a company as people are more likely to trust a person than a company.
4. Personalization is Key
One key element that drives open and click rates is email personalization. According to a report by Campaign Monitor, personalized subject lines increase open rates by 26%.
Personalization, contrary to popular belief, goes beyond using the subscriber’s name. It also involves sending information relevant to the recipient.
5. Master the Subject Line
Speaking of subject lines, this is a critical element of your emails that you need to master. A subject line is the first part of your email that your recipient will see. And it is your one shot at convincing your subscriber to open your email.
As an email marketer, you need to invest time in crafting effective email subject lines that elicit your subscribers to open your email.
6. Optimize Your Preheader Text
After the subject line, the most important part of your email is the preheader text. This is a snippet of teaser text that you use to let your recipient know what benefits they will get from your email. Done well, this will improve open and click rates.
7. Avoid Spam Triggers
The worst thing that can happen to your email, apart from being trashed, is going straight to the spam box. Especially after laboring to craft the perfect emails.
There are a number of factors that can lead to you ending up in the spam folder, with the most common ones being:
- Using all caps in your subject line
- Spammy words like “Cash,” “100%,” and “offer”
- Using too many links in the email body
8. Use a Maximum of One CTA
Once your recipient has opened your email, make sure not to overwhelm them with many different CTAs. This will only confuse them and reduce your click-through-rates.
At most, only use one CTA per email.
And in order to increase the chances of the CTA being clicked, ensure that it is designed well and placed in a prominent part of the email.
9. Add Alt Text to Your CTA
Email clients, by default, block images, including CTA buttons. That means your well-designed CTA button runs a high risk of not being seen.
In order to enhance the chances of people knowing exactly where to click, add alt text to your CTA button. Editing the alt text will also improve your click-through-rates as the text will match your CTA.
10. Use a Simple but Attractive Email Template
Although the most important part of your email is the message it conveys, the container of that message is also important. Yes, I’m talking about the template.
The way your email looks has an effect on how your recipient will interact with it. Simple email templates allow for quickly understanding what the email is all about and therefore are great for improving click rates.
Email template design is a factor you may not attribute to open rates, but it does play a big role. So choose your email design templates wisely.
11. Use a Mobile Responsive Template
We are clearly in a mobile age. And that shows more in the area of email as it has been shown that 55% of email opens happen on a mobile device.
This means in order to increase your email open rates, you will have to use a mobile responsive email template.
The reason mobile is taking over the world of email is simple. Mobile affords people to check their mail on the move. Failure to capitalize on this means your emails will either be immediately deleted or forgotten.
12. Write Concise Email Copy
We’re living in a busy world. No one has the time to read a long-winded email. That’s unless your niche (usually in B2B) calls for it. Otherwise, keep your email copy short, concise, and engaging.
This makes it easy to scan and digest.
When people scan your email (as they usually do) they should be able to get what you are driving at easily. A long-winded copy is not only difficult to scan, but it just puts off the reader and leads to them clicking out of your email.
13. Hyperlink Your Images
Images are a great way of improving your email’s visual appeal. But done right, they can do more than that. One way to put your images to good use is by hyperlinking them. When clicked, they will take your reader straight your offer, web page, landing page, or wherever your email marketing efforts seek to drive traffic.
You can easily do this in your email editor by clicking the image, selecting the “Insert Link” option and paste your link there.
14. Use Links in Your Text – Wisely of Course
Although you can only have one CTA in your email, you can also take advantage of your email text to get your subscriber to click through to your offer.
To improve your click rates, include links to your offer in relevant places in your email body. This is a great way to increase engagement.
15. Clean Up Your Plain Text Email
Because some email clients don’t support HTML, you will have to take special care to ensure that the plain text version of your emails looks nice and tidy.
Failure to clean up your plain text emails will lead to untidy URLs messing up what would have been a beautiful message. Plain text emails do have their advantages, one of them being that they have better chances of passing through spam filters than their HTML counterparts. Besides, some of your recipients also prefer plain text emails as they are easier to download.
Litmus offers an excellent guide on plain text email best practices that you should definitely check out.
16. Carefully Segment Your List
One of the best ways to drive engagement in your email marketing strategy is by making your emails relevant. The best way to do this is to segment your list carefully.
In order to properly segment your list, you will have to collect as much information about each subscriber as you can. Using this data and understanding of where your customer is on their email journey, you can group them together with customers with a similar profile.
Segmenting your list not only makes it possible for you to send relevant information, but it also makes it easier to personalize your emails.
17. Improve Your Sender Reputation
Sender reputation is a metric for your IP address’ trustworthiness. A low sender score will drastically reduce your email deliverability, meaning it might not even reach your recipient’s inbox.
One factor that impacts the sender score is engagement. This means that if you send emails to defunct mailboxes or uninterested subscribers, your IP’s reputation will decrease due to hard bounces and a low open rate.
Improving your sender reputation is actually not rocket science. All it takes is for you to make a few adjustments in the way you “do mail.”
18. Cull Your List
While a huge email list may give you bragging rights, it may not be helping your email marketing strategy if a number of your subscribers are not engaged. That’s why it’s very important that you regularly audit your list and remove disengaged subscribers.
By so doing, you will have a highly engaged audience, improve your reputation, and ultimately improve your email marketing strategies by crafting content that your audience loves.
19. Don’t Be Afraid to Resend a Campaign
If a campaign has not performed as well as you hoped it would, don’t be afraid to resend it. This will give your subscribers a second chance to see your offer. Sometimes your subscriber overlooks a promotion they need due to various reasons, like a hectic workday, for example.
Sending a campaign again improves the chances of you catching them at an opportune time and thus increasing your open and click rates. This practice is exceptionally helpful when sending shopping cart abandonment emails.
20. A/B Testing leads to A+ Open Rates
A/B testing is a practice of testing crucial elements of your emails. This can be headlines, the copy itself, or even email template designs.
By testing these various elements, you get to know what works better and what doesn’t. Incorporating those elements that work in your campaigns increases the open and click rates of your emails.
21. Monitor Your Metrics
After sending out your campaign, make sure to keep track of important metrics and KPIs. While this may not increase your open rates and click-through-rates for your current campaign, it will help you improve and optimize your next email campaign.
Email Marketing Tips – The Money’s Really In the List
It has been well said that the money is in the list. That’s true, but in order to succeed in making a sale through your list, you will have to ensure that your emails get opened, read, and the links clicked on.
Use these tips for effective email marketing to maximize email engagement with your customers and the money will definitely roll in.
Do you have more email marketing tips or tricks to effectively engage your target audience?
Share with us in the comments below!
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