We believe that Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your business online, help build long lasting relationships with your customers, improve loyalty, and generate sales.
This post is part 2 of our Email Marketing tips...if you'd like to read more about writing a successful subject line, read the first post here.
Studies show 65% of all emails are first opened on mobile devices. With this being the case, we can assume that time will often be at a premium for accessing information. You need to ensure your emails load quickly and are just as easy to read on a mobile as on a laptop. You don’t want to risk your recipients deleting your message because it is too frustrating to read!
On average, people’s digital attention span holds for 8 seconds, so in order to grab and capture their minds, the email content needs to be short and snappy accompanied with strong imagery. Keep text brief, because let’s face it, your customers haven’t got time to read a mini essay when they receive an email from you!
Here are a few tips to get the most out of the ‘You’ve Got Mail’ ping, so let’s go through some of those we like to employ:
Capture their Interest
By using what is called an “information gap” you can invoke the reader’s sense of curiosity. In essence, you're teasing your reader with a hint of what's to come, without giving all the answers away compelling customers to click on a link in the email body.
‘See who is talking about our products!’ ‘Have you seen the new feature on our website?’
Another proven attention-grabbing tool is by popping a video on which will motivate them to click, this can see 66% more interaction, and can improve click through rates by up to 300%!
Appearance
Don’t overwhelm your customers with too much information. Having a link back to a page to strengthen your content is better than trying to cram everything you want to say in your email; this can be anything from your blog post, the company website or a dedicated landing page with more information about a particular product, sale, or announcement.
There’s no denying that images make your email more attractive, but do bear in mind that some of your customers disable images meaning your email still has to work even if people can’t see them; and talking of images, make sure that they are high quality.
“A Picture Paints a Thousand Words” so blurry, pixelated or poorly cropped images just won’t cut it. Be mindful of image file size too, if it takes too long to load up, the few seconds you have to grab your customers attention will be lost, and will increase the risk of your message going straight into their spam folder.
Choose the right colours and select a readable font that reflects your brand personality positively. Creating a strong contrast between the background and font colour will ensure that the text is readable, too mild of a colour contrast can make the message unreadable, especially on a mobile.
CTAs (Call to Actions)
...are an essential part in the email marketer’s arsenal.
Ensure buttons are visible by making them stand out, make the CTA button a colour that’s not used, or rarely used, in your email, so it stands out and remember to use space to your advantage. Leaving space around the call to action draws the eye and improves the likelihood of the email’s directive being followed.
Some emails are standalone pieces of content that do not require a link for your subscribers to click. In those instances, replacing a standard CTA with a “Forward to a friend” prompt can work very well. For example, emails containing event information with an open invite should include a “Forward to a friend” as the CTA to increase the number of attendees.
The bit behind the scenes
Segmenting your list.
Organise your subscribers into groups based on whatever features you find useful. You can then deliver content and offers that resonate with each group, rather than sending the same message to everyone.
Careful segmentation based on your audience demographic, habits, frequency of engagement, etc. is effective and important, and yet, still few companies bother. Only 5% of companies segment extensively.
It’s OK to work on a Trial and error basis – this is how we learn about our customers;
Send your emails on different days and times to test out your customer base and how it effects the click through rate.
Alter your CTAs and email subjects to see which one gets the most engagement. You’ll notice that some segments of your list respond more positively at different times, so take advantage and learn from your findings. Your business type, client location, client age and work status mean that no one rule fits all – so learn how your customers interact.
Try avoiding technical terms and ensure that you use a friendly tone in your email – the less formal, the better.
One last thing, don’t forget to test before you hit send – does it look just as good on the mobile version as it does on the desktop? Are your CTA’s all linked? And, finally, ensure you’re your emails comply with all applicable anti-spam laws.
If you would like Bee More Design to help you with your email marketing, please do contact us.