Email Marketing is a digital channel that remains as relevant now as it was at its inception. Still a staple of so many marketing plans and strategies, it continues to be a successful and cost-effective way for brands to communicate with their customers, their latest news and offerings.
The measure of a good marketing email is high levels of open-rates and click-through rates and then ultimately increased sales. A successful email marketing campaign has the same key similarities and deploys the same tactics. Let’s explore what those are, so you can ensure that your future mail outs increase your brand awareness and maximise revenue.
1) Send a welcome email.
Studies have shown that welcome emails are the best sorts of emails to build positive relationships with recipients. They yield average open rates of 80% – and click-through rates of around 22-25%. They help you connect with customers and let them know that their sign-ups were successful and that they will be receiving clear and friendly communications from you. They also keep your list clean, as hard bounces will occur if new sign-ups have entered the wrong addresses.
Refinery29 sends its subscribers a fabulous welcome email:
2) Timing and frequency.
These are both vital, but tricky ingredients to master. You need to send your emails at the right times and with the right frequency to maintain healthy engaged lists. Studies have shown that sending your emails during the following time slots 9 am- 11 am and 3pm-5pm work best.
The sent day is largely irrelevant, so long as you avoid weekends. In terms of how often you should send your emails, once a week seems to be the best approach. Remember, you are aiming for ROI not just increased click-through rates. Over-emailing leads to decreased engagements and opt-outs. On the flip side, under-mailing leads to messy lists, missed revenue opportunities, and your sender reputation becoming tarnished.
3) Ditch noreply@ email addresses.
You need to be seen to be encouraging dialogue between yourself and your customers. The last thing they will appreciate after signing up to your mailing list and getting sent your digital correspondence is a lack of opportunity to respond to you. Make sure the email address you send from appears to be the kind that is regularly checked and not just some email address that looks like it’s attached to an inbox that lies vacant. You need to appear accessible and personable.
4) The subject line is king.
Studies show that 50% of subscribers will open emails if they like the subject line. That means you need to place considerable importance on coming up with the goods. Exercise your copywriter’s muscles and really get creative. Personalisation is known to work well and by this, we mean the use of emojis, first names, and lines that allude to consumers purchase history and patterns in their shopping behaviour. These things illicit a strong rapport with consumers and make them feel worthy and essential.
5) Create engaging content.
There is no magic wand that you can wave to make the perfect content come to life. The stories and sentiments you weave together to promote your products will have to appeal to your customers, and only you know who your customers are and the language that resonates with them. There are some facts that stand out when it comes to content, for example, data suggests emails with video observe click-through rates of up to 8% and emails with images perform better. There’s over one percentage point difference in click-through rates (4.11% vs 2.87%), between picture filled emails and those that are just text.
6) Design for accessibility.
The odds are that some of your subscribers will have disabilities. Avoid alienating them and adapt your design to accommodate their needs. Includes ALT text to your images to let people using a screen reader to understand them. You should also add a period after the image text, ensuring the screen reader pauses, so it’s easier to understand your email. Another top tip is checking the image contrast ratio to improve readability.
7) Inspire action.
The key thing to sign off your emails with is a call to action (CTA). It is crucial that you include this in your campaigns. It is no use just informing your subscribers of your products and offers, you have to steer them towards the next stage and tell them what you need them to do. A call to action can include things like telling recipients to download an ebook or register for a webinar. CTA’s can be displayed in buttons on your page and keep in mind that the more sparingly you use them the more impactful they will be. The buttons must be visible and accompanied by legible text that includes clear instruction.
Below is a great example from the mattress company, Casper. The CTA is clear, concise and well placed.
Now you have a good understanding of email marketing best practice, you can begin to craft your own campaigns. Your campaigns will naturally link back to your website, so make sure you invest in a site that is as dynamic and exciting as your products. At Superb we are experts in eCommerce design and in particular the Magento platform. Get in touch to learn how these solutions could transform your business.
