Email marketing is one of the best ways to market your product or services online. While some may argue about the importance of email marketing in today’s fast changing world where a large audience is on social media, the truth is that email marketing is still big.
According to reports, there are over 900 billion email accounts today, and over 80% users check their emails almost daily. These stats are enough to highlight the importance of email marketing and the fact that it’s growing.
Experts believe that one of the major reasons why email marketing is still very relevant is the fact that mobile apps have made it easier to check and respond to emails. Users can get push notifications when they receive an email, and can read it on the go, thanks to email clients and email apps.
The CTR (click-through rate) in most industries is growing and is as high as 4.62% in some industries. However, not everyone sending emails get the same results. At times, your email is not even read by the recipient. So how can you ensure that your CTR improves? Given below are some tips:
1. Optimize Your Email for Mobile
According to Litmus, 48% of all emails are opened on mobile devices. That is 1 out of 2 people. However, only 11% emails are fully optimized for mobiles devices. Due to this mistake by marketers, around 69% emails are deleted without being read, causing click through rates to fall. The solution is to optimize your emails for mobile devices just like you optimize your websites.
So how does one optimize emails for mobiles? Here are some tips:
- Reduce image size.
- Resize images while keeping screen size in mind.
- Come up with your own responsive email template.
2. The Subject Line Has To Nail It
You only have three seconds to grab your reader’s attention, and once these three seconds are lost you pretty much lose the chance to have your email read. But what can you do in these three seconds? The fact is that your reader is going to judge your email based on the subject line and the name you use to send it. It is recommended that you get some coaching on how to retain your visitor’s interest as it’s going to help you in everything from marketing emails to writing blogs.
If you are ABC company, your name in the email should appear as your company and not ‘ABC Help’ or ‘ABC tips.’ Such names look unprofessional, and most users will not open them. Plus, the subject line should be well thought out. A very good example is Freelancer.com, which comes up with some of the most amazing subject lines.
Here are some tips:
- Keep the subject line short and relevant
- Tell your users the benefit of opening the email
- Talk to them directly with the subject line
Example:
Bad: Know more about our new promotions
Good: Find your 10% discount coupon inside
The first email might not evoke the right emotions, even if it contains a 10% coupon inside. Most users would find the email to be spammy and only meant to promote your business since it does not highlight the benefit the user will receive by opening the email. However, the second example is directly speaking to your clients and telling them what they will get inside. Hence, it will result in a higher CTR.
3. Format Your Emails Neatly
Your emails should be properly formatted if you want them to look professional. Most experts believe that single-column emails are the most beneficial since they are easy to read and can include CTA (call to action) in a clear manner. However, the right format largely depends on your target audience and the industry you’re in since both single and multi-column emails have their own benefits.
While most people would not pay much attention to the formatting when creating an email, the truth is that the right formatting can drastically increase your CTA as seen in the case of Campaign Monitor. The company saw an increase of 127% in its email CTR just by changing the format of its emails.
Here are some tips:
- Use A/B Testing to see what works best for you.
- Use professional tools to format emails.
- Create a format keeping the end user in mind and test it on all devices.
Other than these, make sure to send emails to an audience that is interested in reading your emails. The quality of your email list will hugely impact your CTR. Imagine selling toys and targeting single men? You will get poor results. In addition to this, the frequency of emails should be properly set, which largely depends on the size of your business.
To stay in the recipient’s good books, always personalize your emails and give them a chance to subscribe. Lastly, make sure the CTA is very clearly defined without the email looking verbose. You can use images to make it look more impressive since emails with graphics tend to get more clicks.
