Email marketing remains one of the most powerful channels available, with a 42:1 return on investment (Source: Litmus).
Nowadays, however, inboxes are clogged with marketing messages and junk mail. This makes it difficult for your target audience to see you.
Despite the enormous potential for email marketing campaigns, if you aren’t optimizing your emails, you risk having your marketing messages buried under a pile of unread emails, and your project manager will suffer as a result.
With that in mind, incorporate these tips and tricks into your email campaign optimization for increased opens, click-throughs, and conversions.
1. Define the Email’s Value in Your Subject Line
None of your email copy, images, or anything else matters if you can’t get your customer to open it, and 33 percent of email recipients open an email based on the subject line. As a result, when optimizing email campaigns, your subject line deserves careful consideration.
This is especially important in today’s world of clogged email inboxes. You must stand out among thousands of other promotional emails to avoid being ignored, routed to the spam folder, or discarded.
Your email campaigns are an important part of the value chain for your products and services. It is critical to inform customers about the value your emails will provide.
To accomplish this, clearly state the importance of the email in the subject line. Make it clear what the customer will gain from opening the email.
The following phrases have some of the highest email open and click-through rates:
- Video
- eBook
- Newsletter
- Free
This demonstrates that emails that include useful resources receive a higher level of engagement. Not only should you optimize your emails by including valuable resources, but you should also include a link to these in the subject line.
2. Segment Sender Names
The subject line isn’t the only “first thing” the recipient sees. 45 percent of email recipients say they are more likely to read an email because of who sent it.
Experimenting with the sender’s name can influence whether a reader opens your email.
Experiment with segmenting the sender name so that you can use different names depending on the type of content you’re sending out.
Consider the discount website Wowcher.
Wowcher modifies the sender name based on the email’s content.
Wowcher Travel emails contain travel deals, whereas Wowcher London emails are geographically specific to London.
Readers will be able to quickly pick out emails that are relevant to them, rather than feeling obligated to click on everything.
3. Add Quality Clickable Images
The more information a customer has about a product, the easier it is for them to make a purchasing decision. That’s what images are for.
Images assist customers in visualising the product they are considering purchasing. It provides them with additional information about the product’s dimensions and how it appears in action.
Consider how Somnifix, a company that sells mouth strips for better sleep, incorporates clickable images to showcase its brand identity and direct users to its social media pages.
The infographic promotes the brand’s products and corresponds to the clear call-to-action (CTA) at the bottom of the email.
Clicking on the images not only gives customers more information about the products, but it also increases click-through rates.
4. Stick to One Clear CTA
Adding CTAs to each product listed in your email may seem like a good idea, but it can actually distract your audience from taking the action you want them to take.
Instead, sticking to a single clear CTA can help you increase your conversion rates.
Take a look at how Ultimate Meal Plans accomplishes this.
Using whitespace and a clear call-to-action link, the meal plan company invites readers to view a personalized sample meal plan by clicking the green button.
There is no ambiguity about what readers should do next, and there is nothing to distract the eye.
5. Switch to Plain Text Emails
In an age when flashy advertising is everywhere, simplicity appears to win when it comes to emails.
Instead of sending packed email designs with colorful graphics, try sending plain text emails that appear to come from a real person within your organization.
The issue isn’t just that highly promotional emails appear salesy. They also tend to go to the ‘Promotions’ tab on Gmail.
By switching to plain text emails, your messages will be routed to the ‘Primary’ tab instead. Consider this example from Realthread, a custom t-shirt printing company:
The content clearly promotes one of their services and includes a link to their website, which was sent by their product specialist. As a result, the mail was delivered directly to the receivers’ “Primary” tab.
Furthermore, this is how customer onboarding software Forged doubled its open rates and more than tripled its click-through rates.
6. Send Your Emails at the Right Time
Timing is everything.
The days and times when you send emails have a significant impact on their success rates.
When it comes to days of the week, Thursday is the best day to send emails. If you’re sending a second email, schedule it to go out on a Tuesday.
Source: Omnisend
However, not all Thursdays are created equal.
According to the data, email campaigns that are sent out at the beginning of the month perform better than those sent out at the end. Emails sent in the first ten days of the month have a click-through rate of 18.5 percent, while emails sent in the last ten days of the month have a click-through rate of 17 percent.
It’s also a good idea to consider the time of day.
While the best open rates are around 8 a.m., the best click-through rates are around 5 p.m. Surprisingly, most orders come in around 4 p.m. via email.
7. Clean Up Your Email List
Finding the right emails is critical to achieving high conversion rates.
Unfortunately, when you build your email list organically, people may provide a false email address.
Furthermore, some customers may be added to your list with no intention of purchasing (or taking whatever action you desire). Others may no longer have the problems that your products and services solve.
Emailing these people who are unlikely to respond can harm your deliverability because your email opens and click-throughs will be lower.
You want email subscribers who are eager to interact with your messages.
In this regard, it’s a good idea to use an email verifier to clean up your mailing list on a regular basis to filter out bad email addresses and non-responders.
Furthermore, if your email service provider charges you per user, cleaning up your list can save you money. You’ll reduce your user count (and therefore your subscription payment) while increasing your conversions.
8. Track campaign performance
Tracking campaign performance allows you to see which emails perform well and which do not.
You’ll be able to compare the various components of your emails to identify patterns that work and others that turn readers off.
For example, you may discover that your emails perform best when sent at a specific time or with an emoji in the subject line.
Source: Email Octopus
Alternatively, you may notice that certain segments perform better than others, allowing you to concentrate your efforts on higher-converting audiences.
You’ll be able to measure performance in real-time with the right email tool, gaining actionable insights to help you improve future campaigns. After that, you can combine the data and enter it into your sales tracking software to work on improving your campaigns.
Conclusion
Email is a digital marketing channel that has been around for a while, but it is still an excellent way for marketers to connect with customers.
Successful email campaign optimization efforts will help you build trust, increase brand engagement, and, of course, increase sales. If you’re stuck for ideas, take a look at those email templates.
Keep in mind that bigger isn’t always better. A clear call to action, effective use of whitespace, and a strategic plain text email can all go a long way.
Most importantly, use real-time data to gain insights into what works and what doesn’t in order to improve your email performance.
