Wazzup Pilipinas!
There’s a reason why email marketing campaigns are still effective, despite social media giving marketers other opportunities to reach customers. That reason is simple: The vast majority of internet users check their inboxes every day.
By getting your message in a customer’s inbox, you can be sure they’ll at least see the subject line.
However, email marketing won’t do your business much good if no one actually bothers to click on your messages. An email is only valuable if a customer opens it.
Luckily, it’s not that hard to boost your email open rates. Just apply these tips:
Verify Your Emails
In order for people to open and take action on your emails, they have to first land in inboxes. Using a service that will check emails and eliminates those that are false ensures higher deliverability rates. The higher the inbox rate, the higher the likelihood that people will open the emails.
Removing invalid email addresses from your email list not only benefits inbox rates and decreases bounce rates, but also helps preserve your sender reputation. If your emails are continuously going to spam folders, you risk being flagged by your email service provider and even blocked from sending emails from your domain.
Avoid the risks of missing inboxes both for your own bottom line, and for the damage it can cause your email marketing strategy. Check and verify the email addresses on your lists.
Focus on Strong Subject Lines
The subject line can make or break an email’s success. Your subscribers have a lot of messages waiting to be read – they don’t have time for all of them. You need to make sure you grab their attention with a compelling subject line that piques their interest.
Depending on the content of your email, there are a few potential strategies you might consider. Asking a question is a great way to create a subject line that teases the content while also making a personal connection with your audience. A direct command can also be effective, if you think you have the type of readers who’ll respond to that kind of tone.
Teasers are very useful, too. They consist of vaguely hinting at what your emails are about. Give readers an idea of how they’ll benefit from reading your email, but don’t be so direct that they lose interest off the bat.
On the other hand, it also helps to let customers know exactly what they can expect from your email, as long as you’re confident the information you’re sharing is valuable to them. That’s why subject lines formatted like “listicle” headlines (“5 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing Campaign”) work; they tell a reader why your content is valuable. Again, this type of subject line works best when you’re sure that readers would be interested in that content. Otherwise, a teaser may be the better option.
If you’re simply announcing a new event or a product, format your subject line as an announcement. Let readers know what they can learn about if they read your email. This will attract the customers most likely to actually buy the product or attend the event. There’s not much value to a customer reading about a new service they have no intention of paying for.
Get the Timing Right
Don’t just trust your gut when trying to determine the best time to send an email. There are certain times of day when your customers will be much more likely to open your messages. You can find out what they are by splitting your mailing list into three separate groups.
For at least two weeks, send out the same emails to each group at different times. After two weeks or more have elapsed, review your analytics and find out which group was most likely to click on your emails.
You might want to try several different times before you can confidently declare that one particular time is ideal. Just because one group out of the initial three opened your emails substantially more often than others, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the perfect hour to send an email. Continue this process until you identify the “sweet spot” where you’re most likely to get email opens.
Once you know what that time is, be consistent. Schedule your emails so they arrive in a customer’s inbox at the same time every single day.
Adjust Your From Name
It’s easy to overlook the “from” name readers see when they receive one of your emails.
Internet users in general are much less likely to open up a message if they don’t recognize the sender. If your personal email address domain is listed, they’re probably going to skip over your email.
Instead, make sure your emails are sent from a branded account with a name that’s clearly associated with your business. This will be familiar to your customers and help you get more clicks as a result.
Optimize the Sign-Up Process
An ideal sign-up form will attract the kind of customers who are most likely to open your emails. Make sure your sign-up form clearly explains what type of value you can offer them.
Let them know what they’ll learn from your emails, and why they should add their name to the mailing list. Also, make sure your customers are constantly provided with opportunities to remove their names from your mailing list if they so choose. You don’t want to come across as spammy.
Remember, your website isn’t the only place to reach potential customers. You should also give them the chance to sign up for your emails via your social media presence.
Most importantly, don’t collect emails for your mailing list without the permission of your customers. For instance, if someone inputs their email on your website to purchase an item or start a membership, don’t automatically add their name to the mailing list. Doing so will guarantee you’re banished to the spam folder as you flood their inbox with unwanted messages.
Learn About Your Audience
The best way to get your customers to read your emails involves knowing what types of messages they are most interested in. There are several ways to gather this information.
You could send your readers a poll or questionnaire asking them to clarify which topics they’d like you to cover more often. This is a very direct way of reaching them, but you do have to be aware of the fact that not all readers are going to respond to such a poll. In fact, most probably won’t. Thus, you may get skewed results, since they’ll only reflect the opinions of readers who are already likely to engage with your emails anyway.
For some marketers, it’s smarter to look at which emails have received the most clicks. Try to identify common traits. Do they contain similar content? Are the subject lines formatted in similar ways? By clearly identifying what your most successful emails have in common, you can get a better sense of what types of emails your customers want to receive.
That said, you shouldn’t dismiss the importance of in-person interactions either. Whenever you have the chance to speak with a potential customer ask them questions about the kinds of emails they’d be most inclined to open. Whether they’re currently a member of your audience or simply the type of person who might be, this conversation can help enhance your email marketing efforts. Take notes, and review them on a monthly basis to refine your overall strategy.
Boosting the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign isn’t rocket science. You simply need to follow a few best practices and test out variations to see what your audience responds to best. Once you make the necessary changes, you’ll begin to enjoy more success. Best of all, you don’t need to invest a lot of time or money into your research efforts – You can start improving your email
marketing strategy today.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
