Short Subject Lines Or Long Subject Lines? What The Data Says…
Email marketing is all about getting the attention of your audience. The first part of your message anyone will see is the subject line, and getting that right is paramount. Many articles give advice on the words you need to use in your subject line, but they often fail to mention the length.
Having all the power words within your content may do you no good if you have a subject line that is too long to read. So what is best: short or long subject lines?
Not All Data Suggests The Same
The biggest problem with determining the ideal subject line length, is that not all the data is the same. It is all dependent on what campaigns are measured and the audience who received those campaigns.
For instance, those sending messages to the B2B sector will find that messages with subject lines of between six and ten words will get more open rates, but click through rates aren’t great. When there are more than 130 characters, the open rates drop significantly but the click through rates increase substantially. Finally, anything over 16 words sees a significant return on both clicks and opens.
Madhu Gulati
The president of ShowMeLeads has claimed that she has found a definitive answer for the length of an email. Research that analysed 260 million emails from 540 campaigns has led her to believe that there is a very specific word count that businesses should aim for.
According to the research:
- Subject lines with between six and ten words generated a 21% open rate.
- Subject lines with fewer than five words were opened on average 16% of the time.
- More than half of emails had between 11 and 15 words in the subject line and generated a 14% open rate.
Marketing Sherpa
Marketing Sherpa conducted research to find out whether or not longer subject lines were better than shorter messages. They looked at 9,313,885 emails for their research. Their results were different than those of ShowMeLeads.
Their results were as follows:
- The most popular length for subject lines was between 41 and 50 characters, yet it performed the first worst for open rates.
- Only 6% of emails had a subject line of between 61 and 70 characters, but these had the best open rates (17%).
- Email messages with between 51 and 60, or 91 and 100 characters performed the second best achieving 15% open rates.
Return Path
Finally, Return Path studied over 2 million emails to evaluate the correlation between subject line length and open rate. Their research also looked at the Pearson’s Correlation value, which suggested that there was no correlation between the length of the subject line and open rate.
However, they still advise keeping an eye on your subject line length. Their research demonstrated that:
- 25% of subject lines were between 41 and 50 characters.
- Open rates were greater when subject lines were between 61 and 70 characters.
- Only when there were more than 100 characters in a subject line did the open rate drop (down to 9%).
Desktop Versus Mobile
One of the important considerations is the device that your email is being read on. Desktop inboxes display approximately 60 characters whereas mobile devices show between 25 or 30 characters. Therefore, if your audience is mainly on mobile devices, then you need to shorten your subject lines, so the call to action or important message is at the beginning.
Conclusion
Email subject length might be an important factor in the success of your campaigns, but there is little evidence to suggest that a longer or shorter one will have a major impact. It might be all too dependent on your primary audience. Therefore, you should consider A/B testing your emails when deciding what works best for your audience.
What subject line length do you use? Have you ever tested it?
Let us know in the comments below.
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How The Psychology Of Colour Affects Email Response
How can colours affect your readers?
Colour is critical when it comes to the success of your marketing and branding. Email can be particularly affected by colour and you can see the results in click-throughs and conversions. So why is colour so important and how can you improve your results by using it in your marketing?
What Impact Does Colour Have On The Reader?
Colour has long been associated with emotions. Different emotions and meanings are evoked depending on the primary colours used. Four main colours are used to illicit emotions from an audience: red, blue, yellow and green.
Each colour will have a different meaning for your audience and to make matters more complicated when choosing colours within your marketing, each colour has both positive and negative emotions, which can make it difficult to choose.
To understand how to use colour, you must first know what each colour means. So here is a quick guide:
Red
Red is seen as a physical colour and is often used for warning signs and danger. However, it can also be used for strength, warmth, energy, stimulation and excitement. Of the negative side of the colour, people can perceive aggression, strain and defiance.
Red can seem closer than it is, which is why it often grabs the attention of the audience earlier than other colours. At the same time, readers respond physically to the colour with a quickening pulse rate and the perception that time is passing faster than it is.
Because it evokes the fight or flight survival instinct within humans, it often doesn’t have the subtlety of other colours and sometimes can have an adverse impact on your marketing. It all depends on whether you want quick actions and to demonstrate power, or if you want to be more calm and relaxed.
Blue
Blue is the colour of intelligence. Often when viewed, the colour communicates intellect, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity duty, logic, coolness, reflection and calm. However, it is not always positive. Blue is often associated with a lack of emotion, unfriendliness, aloofness and cold.
Unlike red there is no physical reaction to the colour but rather a change in our mental state. Blue is often used in relaxing areas as it seems to calm the mind. However, it does depend on the shade of blue. Stronger blues will stimulate clear thoughts, while lighter, softer blues will calm the audience and help with their concentration.
Interestingly, despite being perceived across the world as being cold and unfriendly, blue is most often chosen as a favourite colour.
Yellow
If you want to be emotional, yellow is the colour to choose. It is often seen to reflect optimism, confidence, emotional strength and creativity. On the flipside, it can also evoke fear, irrationality, emotional fragility, depression and anxiety. So it has to be used very carefully.
Yellow is very stimulating, so it will have a greater effect on the audience’s mood compared to blue or red. But you have to ensure that you have the right shade as some shades will lift spirits, provide confidence and optimism while others will reduce the audience’s self-esteem and lead to fear and anxiety.
Green
Green is all about being balanced and nature. Those who display green in their marketing are not surprisingly connected to rest, restoration, the environment and peace. It can also be reassuring to the audience.
However, green also has negative aspects. It can be seen as bland, boring and stagnant – which makes it a poor choice for those who want to be seen as the next big thing.
When the eye sees green, it doesn’t react as it would with the other colours. Therefore, we often see this as a relaxing and restful colour. Being at the centre of the colour spectrum, we also see green as a balance.
Conclusion
When using the right colours within your marketing, you can evoke the emotions that you want to generate the right reaction. Whether you wish to develop a trusting relationship with your audience or get them to take quick action, you need to know what the right colour for your email is as well as the right text.
What colours do you use in your email copy? Does it get you the results you want?
Let us know in the comments below.
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Tips To Stop Your Emails Being Deleted In The Preview Pane
Get your email stuck up on a board and not deleted before being read.
Emails are a very effective way to get your brand message across to your prospects. Customers like to receive promotional content via their email address as it is a relatively un-intrusive form of communication. However, the scary thing is that unless you are great at designing emails, 80% of your messages will be viewed and actioned in a preview pane.
As the trend of opening emails on phones becomes more mainstream, the challenges of getting people to see the whole of your message will increase.
It is All About The Details
Research by Lyris found some useful information on how prospects read and action emails. According to their survey results:
- 60% believe that the sender’s name and email address is the key information.
- The subject line is the second most essential piece of information for 54.3%.
- The main headline is the next piece of vital information (53%).
- Teaser copy is not very important. Only 30.3% of respondents stated they examined the email in the preview pane before taking action.
This information can be very useful in deciding how to design and send your emails. So what tips can we provide to optimise your email campaign designs to get more opens?
1. The ‘From’ Field
Spam is the biggest challenge for email users. Our addresses are bought and sold to companies without our consent and sometimes we can receive dozens or hundreds of unwanted messages a day from companies offering us products we don’t want.
Therefore, being seen as not spam can be very challenging. One way to do this is to ensure your ‘from’ field is not that of an organisation but a recognisable individual to help beat spam filters and make your message look genuine to the subscriber.
2. The Subject Line
The subject line should be working hard on the message you want to provide. Forget the boring and generic subject lines like “RE: Your winter wardrobe needs” or “March Newsletter”. Instead, look for something that provides a benefit to the reader of your email. It could include the action you want them to take after reading your email.
Key action-inducing messages will increase the open and action rates of your emails, giving you a greater ROI.
Don’t be afraid to personalise your emails. Have their name within the subject line and perhaps in the copy of the email, which will make it appear as though the email was created just for them and therefore, more worthwhile for the subscriber to read.
3. Take advantage Of Your Space
Don’t waste the top of your email with text that is only stating the obvious. There is no value in ‘view this email in a browser’, place this at the bottom of the email instead. The top space should be for highly engaging and informative teaser text. Let the reader know what your email is about and what it will give them but keep some information back so they are intrigued about the rest of the content.
Alternatively, you could use this space to offer reassurance that the email is not spam and worth a good read.
4. Don’t Be Obsessed With Images
If you are selling business services, forget the images. Many business email users have firewalls and email client settings that restrict the download of pictures. Therefore, when they see your email in the preview screen, it can look messy and unattractive. If they don’t like the look of your email in the preview screen, they aren’t going to download those images.
Conclusion
Your emails are the key to selling online. They have the greatest ROI of any online marketing channel and can support your business’ revenue continuously. Just ensure you have the right design so that when people preview your emails, they want to open them up and read more.
What are your open rates like? What is your click through rate?
Let us know in the comments below.
Read post Post a Comment. Tagged in: email content, email design, preview panel
5 Tips for Writing Emails that Get Opened, Read, and Clicked
Email marketing success is all about getting your emails opened, read and clicked. For a truly successful email campaign, all three of these things need to be done by the audience as different parts of your email contribute to the success of your email marketing campaigns and how your audience interacts with your emails.
Changing the design and the parameters of your email marketing campaigns can help you achieve better results. Knowing what to change can be difficult, especially if you don’t A/B test your email marketing campaigns.
Here are five of the best tips for writing emails that will get opened, read and clicked.
1. Personalisation
Personalisation comes in two forms: personalisation of the message and of the sender. By including the receivers name within the copy and subject line you are making the email more personal to the subscriber. Many reports have shown that doing this can increase the open rate of email marketing campaigns and by-pass spam filters.
At the same time, by having the sender of your email messages as you, instead of your company or you at your company, can also increase open rates. Likewise it helps to bypass spam filters.
2. Position Of The Call To Action
The common assertion is that the best location for the call to action is at the bottom of your email. However, very few people actually read the entire email – especially if you send long emails. Yet by having the call to action close to the top; either underneath the title or on the side of the email near the top, you will see more click throughs.
This is probably because people expect there to be more relevant information on your website and want to get there quickly. If they can’t see the call to action immediately, they are simply going to abandon the email.
3. Send Emails At Appropriate Times
There is a lot of research suggesting the best times for email marketing. However, this figure is really variable for different industries. Therefore, experiment with the timing of your marketing emails with A/B testing.
Remember it isn’t always about one element of the reader process (i.e. the click through rate) – consider the customer purchasing value and lifetime value in addition to the number of click throughs you get. You don’t want your emails to just be the excuse people use to skip some work.
Another good tip is to make sure that you are sending your emails at the right time for your audience. If you have an international audience, delay the sending of your emails until they are at the right time for the receiver’s location.
4. Less Words And Images
Even though you think that branding might look cool, sometimes the best emails are those that don’t use many images and are limited on the content. The idea is to get them to your website and sell from there. By using less wording on your page and having less for them to look at on your email, you are giving them less reason to abandon your email.
5. Send Relevant Information
If you have a wide range of services or products, it is unlikely that your subscribers are going to be interested in everything. Sending content and offers they’ve got no interest in is going to do you no good. Therefore, limit the emails you send to subscribers so that they are completely relevant to the receiver. Consider monitoring their behaviour on previous campaigns, website journeys and interactions with your sales teams and social media accounts. By focusing on understanding the audience better, you can send more targeted emails.
Conclusion
Your email campaigns rely on the interactions the emails have with your audience. By adjusting your email design to better suit the needs of your email’s recipients you can ensure that more of them will interact with emails by opening and reading them before clicking through to your website.
How do you improve open, read and click through rates? How are you going to improve these statistics in the future?
Let us know in the comments below.
Read post Post a Comment. Tagged in: email design, email marketing, email marketing campaigns
Great Email Marketing Campaigns
When it comes to creating your email marketing design and copy, there are many options for you to choose from. So how do you know which is best for your business, audience and objectives? The truth is that testing is the only option for you. However, you could shorten the length of that testing phase by learning what has worked before and implementing their lessons into your campaigns.
So which have been the best email marketing campaigns and why did they work so well?
1. PayPal
There is a lot about this email which is really appealing. It is clear, concise and provides a simple message that will jog the memories of many audience members. What is really impressive is that they have created an email campaign that is so simple; using many images to portray the main message. You could easily digest the main message in about 10 seconds – use PayPal to help split the bill when eating out.
2. Tory Burch
This email is one of the best on the market because it uses something that few others use – animation. There is a lot of research that shows movement entices the attention of the audience and Tory Burch use movement in this email campaign about a private sale to its maximum potential. What is even more impressive about this email is that it makes you feel as if you’ve been chosen specifically for this offer, a sure winner with their target audience.
3. Zipcar
Have a few people abandoned your site? Then why not take a lesson from Zipcar and re-engage them. This email was sent to non-respondents as a way to encourage them back to the site, while this isn’t uncommon, it is a campaign that deserves special mention. Not only is the copy light-hearted but it carries an important message about the value of the service: it is economical and environmentally friendly.
4. Litmus
Animation again makes our list with Litmus this time. Their use of animation turns what could have been a boring email into something that is fun and entertaining. It should also be noted that the heading of this email is perfect. It informs the audience what they are going to be told. The subheading is also special as it asks a question, engaging the audience.
5. UncommonGoods
There’s lots of advice online about how to create a compelling call to action and nearly every article will tell you that it should have some urgency to it. Well, UncommonGoods certainly listened to that advice when they created this call to action and made sure the audience knew what the value was of taking action immediately.
At the same time, instead of telling the audience what to do, it implies it in a question – making the audience come up with its own conclusion. At the same time it puts pressure on the receiver because it makes them think that they might be in trouble if they don’t get their mother’s gift on-time.
6. JetBlue
JetBlue always delivers. They have a cheeky campaign that is so personable to the audience and really engages them. If you look at their campaigns, everything from their header to the call to action conveys wit and intelligence. What more does the audience want?
Conclusion
There are lots of examples of email marketing campaigns that can help you develop your campaigns to achieve better results. By looking at other campaigns you can redesign your own efforts you can achieve more from your campaigns.
What has been the best campaign you’ve seen in 2015? What campaign style has worked for you?
Let us know in the comments below.
Take action:
- Sign up to large brands to see their campaigns.
- Study the examples above and redesign your own emails to meet the best practices.
Read post Post a Comment. Tagged in: email campaigns, email case studies, email design, email engagement
How To Make Your Emails “Faster”
Email marketing is only effective when the person receiving the message can download it to their mail reading program quickly. In an age where mobile is becoming the trending device to check emails on, the race is on to make emails faster.
There are numerous ways to increase the speed of your email messages; many of them don’t require any code and also allow messages to be read more easily on mobile devices. In an age when more emails are being read first on a mobile device compared to a desktop, this is very important.
So what are these techniques for faster emails?
1. Minimise HTML
When you are creating an email marketing message you are likely using HTML to create a stunning look. While this may create an attractive email, there are also problems with it. Every line of HTML is another line of code and chunk of memory that the receiver has to download to read your message. The more complex your code or the longer the HTML gets, the greater the memory the message will consume.
Minimising your HTML code is not difficult and there are plenty of programs out there that can help you minimise it. Alternatively, use an email marketing software system to reduce your HTML as they always have the best templates on their systems.
2. Images
Images are a major factor when it comes down to download speed. There are several aspects with images on emails that can be addressed to decrease the speed it takes to download your message.
a) Number Of Images
The more images you have on an email message the greater the memory usage. If the images are close to the top of the email copy, then these will be downloaded before the message and your audience may get bored and click off.
Also a high number of images can indicate spam and this can mean your email message is blocked from the server in the first place.
b) Size Of Images
The size of your image is of vital importance. Larger images take up loads of memory and hence longer to download and some mail clients can’t read email messages if the image is too big. The best practice is to have an image that is no bigger than 600 pixels wide, however, sometimes it is best to minimise that to just 300.
Check with your mail client whether they can do it in the program, otherwise you might have to reduce it using Paint.net or Microsoft paint.
c) Quality Of Images
Shutterstock and other stock image sites like to provide pictures and artwork of high resolution which generally take up a lot of memory. The problem is that most of your potential clients won’t have the patience to download your high quality image just to see what you’ve written at the bottom of your email.
Instead, look at lowering the quality of your image. This can be done significantly without any determinable loss to the appearance of the image.
3. Limit Content
Email marketing messages that are too long will take up a significant amount of memory. They will also be read less. Try to aim for a maximum length of between 150 and 250 words. Your main aim is to get them to your website, so have your email as an introduction rather than the entire page.
Conclusion
The speed at which your email downloads in the receiver’s mail box is vitally important. If your messages aren’t downloaded quickly, it is likely that your messages will be deleted without being read. By using the above options, you can reduce the memory taken up in the delivery of your messages to your audience’s inbox.
How fast are your emails? How big are your email messages?
Let us know in the comments.
Take Action:
- Reduce the image size on your emails.
- Minimise the HTML in your emails.
Read post Post a Comment. Tagged in: download speed, email design, mobile emails, mobile optimisation
3 New Ways To Get Attention For Your Regular Emails
Your emails are an important sales platform. The starting point of 13% of all online sales comes from email marketing. Only organic searching and direct visits are better sellers online. However, the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns depends on how much attention your emails can generate.
One of the biggest problems is that emails aren’t getting enough attention. The average open rate for emails varies between 15 – 25%. The click through rate after this can be anything between 1 and 5%. And then your landing page has to be convincing enough for them to take a desired action. This action could be making a purchase or downloading a new guide.
The open rate is dependent on the email grabbing the attention of your audience. If you are sending regular emails, this is really important. The longer a contact is on a mailing list but doesn’t take action, the higher the chance that the lead is lost and you won’t make a sale. If, however, you can increase their interaction with the mail earlier – the greater the chance that you can:
- Increase the open rate.
- Improve the click through rate.
- Make more sales.
- Grow the ROI of your email marketing campaign.
It should also be noted that you only have 15-20 seconds to grab a reader’s attention. This is the average length of time that a person spends reading an email.
Email marketing best practices are continuously changing, which is why it is important to consider your current campaigns and how you can change them to gain more interest. Here are three of the latest techniques for your regular emails that will grow the success of your campaigns.
1. Change Your Subject Lines
Long gone are the days where you could just use a simple promotional email or one liner like “Your Weekly Summary” and expect your contact’s list to open your emails. A good example about how your subject lines can make a difference is with People Per Hour. The site used to send a message every day about the latest offers available on their site.
Then in early 2015, they changed tactics and created different, unique and more personal subject lines. Almost immediately there was an increase in the number of jobs posted through the site. Before the change they averaged about 200 per day. After the change they averaged about 350. This is a 75% increase and was highly valuable for the online business.
So what should your subject line look like? It needs to have several elements to it:
- Promise to benefit the contact.
- Offer new information.
- Personal.
- Relevant to what is currently going on.
- Fun.
If you can insert these into your subject line, it will perform better.
2. Add Video
Video marketing is becoming a huge success. The combination of audio, visual and text on the screen is more memorable and engages audiences a lot better than just simple text and photos.
Inserting a video into your emails isn’t a tough task – it just requires you to be a little more technical than you might be used to. Speak to your email marketing provider and ask them how to insert video into an email using their software.
Once a video has been uploaded to your messages you can also use them on YouTube and your website to improve upon their ROI and ensure that they aren’t just used once and forgotten about.
3. Be Mobile Friendly
The way consumers are accessing emails is constantly changing. Previously, the only way to have a good experience and open your emails was on a desktop or laptop. Now the world has gone mobile and more emails are opened on a SmartPhone or other mobile device than on a desktop.
Email campaigns must consider this and change the way they display on mobile devices and the landing pages they direct to must also be mobile friendly.
Conclusion
You have 15-20 seconds to grab the attention of your audience. Ensure you do it with the email marketing best practices and you will see a higher number of sales and business growth.
Take Action:
- Optimise your messages for mobile.
- Add video to your next campaign.
- Experiment with your subject lines.
Read post 1 Comment. Tagged in: email design, email marketing, Email Strategy, Email Testing, Small Business
7 Email Marketing Strategies You Need To Implement Immediately
There are approximately 2.5 billion email users in the world and 74% of them prefer to receive promotional material via their email accounts. This makes email marketing one of the most effective and critical marketing activities your business should be undertaking right now.
While creating campaigns for your customers might yield some success. To make the most from your campaigns you should be optimising them. There are several strategies which allow you to do this. Here are seven strategies for you to implement in your next campaign:
1. Specific Audience
Not every email you create is going to be relevant to all those on your list. For instance, a message about setting up a new account with you is pointless to already existing customers. Therefore you want to limit who you are sending your messages to only those who should read the content.
Careful segregation will limit unsubscribers, lower costs and improve your marketing results very quickly. This can be achieved by ensuring there is a label in your database that refers to what sub-list they should be listed on. Then when you are sending a campaign, use the label to determine who should receive the message.
2. Specific Time
Email marketing is effective because it can be picked up at any time. However, research has shown that emails are generally opened at certain times. You’ll want your emails to be sent at the best times and not at other, less effective, times.
There are numerous studies claiming they know when you should send emails. Many of them disagree with the best time to send mail. The best practice is to experiment and discover when it is best to send your audience emails.
3. A/B Testing
To ensure you are sending your email messages at the best time, and that the design of your message is right, you should A/B test your emails. Start with testing when to send your emails and then move onto the email design.
There are various elements you can test, including image position, subject lines or the call to action copy. By testing these one at time, you can ensure your campaigns become more effective.
4. Have Value
Always answer the question: “What is in it for me” question. If your contacts can take an important message away from your communication: whether it is how to do something or where to get something – then you’ll gain their trust and it will make it easier to sell to them.
5. Mobile Friendly
More emails are being read on SmartPhones and other mobile devices, than on desktops. Emails need to be formatted right if they are to be read correctly on your contacts’ mobile devices. Otherwise your messages will not look professional and this will limit impact.
To help with mobile friendliness, you need to limit images and the complexity of your design. At the same time, ensure your website is also optimised for mobile devices.
6. Social Media
Social media is a highly effective way for you to spread word of your brand to new audiences and potential customers. Don’t undervalue the opportunity. Embed social media share buttons on all your emails. Then the emails can be directly shared on various platforms and this can encourage others to view a web version.
7. Follow Up
After you have sent your email marketing message, you need to examine the results. You should use this to determine who is interested in your content and products. If you notice someone is opening your mail and clicking through to your website but then not doing anything, you should follow up with a phone call. They might be experiencing a barrier that is preventing them from buying. By calling them you might be able to help them to complete the intended action.
Conclusion
Improve the results of your email marketing by using some powerful email marketing strategies above. Then you can generate more revenue from your emails and have a better return on investment.
What strategies do you use to ensure effectiveness?
Let us know in the comments below.
Read post Post a Comment. Tagged in: email design, email marketing, Email Strategy, Email Testing, Subscribers
How To Get Your Emails Opened
Email marketing is one of the best options for communicating with your target audience. Many consumers prefer to accept promotional material via their email inboxes and it is known to be one of the best online sellers.
Yet the problem for many businesses is to ensure that their emails get opened by their audience. Open rates vary from industry to industry. Online coupon and discount services often have very poor open rates, averaging below 5%. Other industries do better with some reaching 20-30% on average, though many only achieve half of this.
To increase the open rates of your business’ emails there are several key elements to your campaigns that you can adjust for better results. Here are some of those elements for you to experiment with and gain better email marketing traction.
Subject Line
The first thing that most people look at is the subject of the email. It has been proven that a good email subject line will increase the open rate of your emails. Some of the best email subject lines are quirky and grab the attention and imagination of the receiver. For instance:
“Are you sitting comfortably?” is a good line for selling chairs.
“We’re sorry” if you haven’t sent an email for a while.
Take Action:
- Consider what subject lines you could use in your email marketing campaigns.
The Sender
While many people may recognise your brand name, they are less likely to open the mail if it is sent from your company email address. It is better to send it from a named individual; this is more personable and makes it look less spammy.
Consider sending it the name of a senior person in your organisation, instead of just the administrator who creates the content and sends it off. A senior person in the organisation is more recognisable and makes your audience feel more valued.
Take Action:
- Send emails from a senior member of your management team.
The Right Time And Day
23% of your emails will be opened within 60 minutes of you sending out your email. Therefore, you will want to be sending your content on the right day and time to ensure that you maximise the open rate.
There are some typical statistics that you should know:
1. Monday’s are the worst day because most people are often trying to catch up from the weekend and are too busy to open their emails.
2. Weekends are when people are out doing chores. Emails are not opened regularly on these dates.
3. While emails are regularly opened quickly, you still need to email contacts within plenty of time if you want contacts to participate in an event.
4. Tuesday and Thursday are favourite days for businesses to send their email campaigns. These days often generate the most interest and the best results.
5. Early mornings are also the best time to send emails and they get the best response.
Take Action:
- Adjust the timing of your email marketing campaigns so they are sent at the most appropriate times.
Send To Those Who Have Opted In
If you have collected addresses from people who have not opted in you are going to get poor results – and it is illegal.
Take Action:
- Only send emails to those who have opted in to receiving content.
- Remove the contact details from those who have not signed up from your database.
Conclusion
Email marketing is one of the most effective means for generating sales online. To get better results you need to optimise your emails so that they are more attractive to your audience. Use the above ideas to perfect your email marketing campaigns and have more opened.
How have you improved the open rate of your emails? What do you recommend?
Let us know in the comments below.
Read post Post a Comment. Tagged in: email design, email marketing, Email Newsletters, Email Strategy, open rates
Effective Email Campaigns: What You Can Learn From The Experts
Email marketing can be one of the most effective marketing platforms for your business. Consumers prefer receiving advertising via their email inboxes and more online sales are made via email marketing content than by social media or other digital marketing efforts. Additionally, you can create content that is only relevant to your audience.
Unfortunately, spamming has tarnished the reputation of email marketing and as spamming is easier than more complex campaigns, its lure is often too much to avoid. However, spamming your audience will never generate long lasting, financially viable relationships. More effective best practices and tactics must be found.
There are many organisations and individuals who are using email marketing content to generate the majority of their sales. Their tactics are an important lesson for all small businesses. So what lessons can be learnt and how can you implement them in your campaigns?
1. Effective Database Maintenance
If you want a successful and cost effective email marketing campaign, you have to ensure that the contact database you are using is maintained. You should remove contacts that aren’t going to spend any money and update those on your list so it is properly segregated.
Maintenance of your list needs to happen after every email has been sent out. The first step is to remove any contacts that have opted out, then any contacts which have bounced back before finally removing contacts that haven’t opened an email for the last 10 reports.
Then you need to move contacts depending on what actions they have taken. If for instance they have made a purchase, move them to a current customer list.
2. Target Your Campaigns
With a segregated contacts list you can create content that is highly targeted towards different types of contacts. This has several advantages, firstly it means that content can be better received and have a higher chance of being acted upon by the receiver. In addition, it allows you to reduce costs of your email marketing campaigns by only sending content to those who are likely to respond to it.
How do you target your campaigns? Each segregation must have a unique but unifying marketable quality about it. For instance, you could have marketing material for those who are only close to certain geographical areas or those who have bought other products that you offer.
Segregation doesn’t have to be based on just one element. It can have two cross referenced elements, for instance, those close to a geographical area who are also a past customer.
3. Keeping It Simple
One of the best tips for email marketing campaigns is to keep your emails simple. The idea of the message is to display your one key message: whether that is to buy a specific product or to get the contact to perform an action. Therefore, that message must take precedence in the email, not its design or a pretty picture.
Keeping it simple can also help you increase the deliverability of your messages to inboxes and not promotional or spam boxes. Many large email providers (Gmail, Yahoo!, etc) have filters that lock out messages that have lots of images, links or fancy designs. Also, too much design can be very distracting to your audience.
Consider using simple designs with at most one picture. If you need to include more information, use one link to send the reader to a page on your site to convey it.
Conclusion
Email marketing is an effective marketing platform for your small business. To get the best results you should take some of the key tactics from the best email marketers out there. The above three tips are some of the best to help you refine your campaigns and achieve financially rewarding results.
What tips do you have for running a successful email marketing campaign? What have been your best results?
Let us know in the comments below.
Take action:
- Start maintaining your email contacts list.
- Segregate your contacts.
- Re-design your emails so they are simpler.
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