With so many emails filling up inboxes and spam boxes, it can feel impossible to become successful in the world of email marketing. It doesn’t have to be rocket science to develop a proper email marketing campaign that gets new leads and helps old clients or customers stay up to date with your business or company. Building a strong email list and developing new leads can help your company thrive. 

An ideal Click to Open Rate (CTOR) should be over 20% this is to gain new subscribers. Email marketing is essential to any business no matter the size because it allows for interaction between the company and new customers as well as loyal customers. Here are a few tips and tricks to properly develop and become successful with your next email marketing strategy. 

Mobile Optimization

Four out of 10 emails are opened via mobile phone, which means having your email marketing campaign be mobile-friendly is very important. Mobile eCommerce marketing is one of the most popular ways to attract new leads. A majority of people check their email on their mobile devices three times a day, so mapping out a proper format that is optimized for mobile will assure you’re not missing a beat. Having mobile friendly website design is important as well if you are trying to direct more traffic to your website via email marketing. With a higher percentage of mobile users, it is really important to assure that your website is mobile-friendly as well as your emails and other content you want your prospects to interact with.

Of course, people still traditionally check emails via a web browser, but it is very convenient for mobile users to instantly check their inboxes. Assuring that you have images or graphics that are not too large for mobile users is the main thing. People will assume an email is spam if the images look wonky or are not properly loading on their mobile devices. If your email marketing strategy contains gifs, graphics, or images, there are certain websites such as FastStone Photo Resizer that can reduce your file sizes without lowering the image quality. Be sure you’re catching your mobile reader’s attention with properly sized images that are quality enough to be seen. 

Another way to have your email fully optimized for mobile devices is to be sure that you have any CTA links or buttons to be sure they are large enough for people to tap on. No one wants to struggle with zooming in on an email to open a link, so having a large enough “Click Here” or hyperlink can help mobile users easily tap the button/link and go where you want the email to direct them. It can be frustrating if links or buttons are broken or even too small for users to access and that can cost you a proper CTOR rate. Don’t leave out the potential for mobile users and be sure to test what your email will look like on a mobile device before you mass send them out.

Attention Grabbers

Having an effective subject line is the perfect way to get users to actually open your email/newsletter. It can be difficult to have an email subject line that doesn’t feel too clickbait or forced, but setting up an established relationship via your email marketing can help users expect to receive your email. 

Try A/B testing different types of subject lines and attention grabbers to see which ones work best for grabbing users' attention. Additionally, it wouldn’t hurt to test different copy or graphics by using the A/B test either. You want to use the most effective style of copy properly for better results and generate more clients. When writing an attention grabber either via the subject line or via the actual copy within the email, remember you are offering a deal, service, or some form of benefit to your customer/client. Be sure to include within your copy how your service or deal or special is the most beneficial, so that way the reader feels more inclined to learn more or take advantage of a good offer. 

It is smart to also study what competitors are doing in their email marketing. See what kinds of subject lines they use in order to avoid being too similar to them. No one wants a cluttered email inbox full of the same email subject over and over, so get creative with it and be sure your subject lines and copy are effectively more appealing to customers than your competitors. You can also have success by sending two different emails with the same campaign, but different copy to ensure that your current marketing campaign gets proper attention. Space out the days so readers do not feel like you are spamming them, but rather reminding them of the current deals, offers, or campaigns your company has going on. Attention-grabbing emails are important to stand out, so be sure to test and try everything before starting your email campaign.

 Interactive and Personalized Emails

People read hundreds of emails daily, make your email stand out by being more interactive for users. Whether it is sending exclusive promotions/offers, or having proper interactive CTA’s and buttons for users to press, giving your potential customers something to do with an email makes it more memorable and stand out.
One way you can make an email more interactive is by including polls or surveys that directly ask your audience their opinion. This is a good strategy to not only have interactive user content but to get user feedback on other areas as well. Sometimes its better to get direct user feedback than to rely on past data. To make an incentive for users to engage with doing a poll or survey, make the links or buttons animated or stand out in a way that makes users want to click and interact with what you want them to. Of course, call to actions or CTAs are always important to give incentives for users to interact with the content you have provided them with. Putting a CTA at the end of your email is more effective in directing users to various different links, or one main link to your website. Emails with a simple and singular call to action received an increase of 371% in clicks and 1617% in sales. 

The key to writing a strong CTA within your email is to understand more of its psychology. Relying on a person’s sense of urgency entices people to act right away. Whether you want them to ‘Click now’ or ‘Buy now’ your CTA should reflect the fact that people want to act as quickly as possible on small decisions. A CTA needs to directly encourage or nudge a user in a specific direction. But be sure that you are writing a short and simple call to action that is obvious to the reader and encourages them that what it is you want them to do is of value. You can also take it a step further and add something more personalized within your email to entice readers. 

Being more personalized emails is also beneficial to make up for lost sales or gain a better CTOR. It is more authentic to use a small amount of information about a user to send helpful responses, special offers, or similar content within that realm. One major example is receiving an email about abandoned items in your shopping cart, this save-the-sale method helps remind users about items that they may have forgotten about but still want. Some businesses also offer a small discount to abandoned items within a user's cart to give them more urgency or incentive to follow through with their purchase. 

With strategic copywriting and data usage, you can make your emails more amplified in order to garner more attention from potential customers or existing loyal customers. Graphics are important as well to stand out visually, but copy is where you can inform and incite users to reply or follow through with visiting your website. 

Create a Proper Email Schedule With Research

Perfecting your timing is important to have a successful email campaign. According to studies, the best time to send an email is at 1 pm. But you may be wondering: Why do time and day matter? 

Data can showcase when people check their emails the most and a majority of people get hundreds of emails a day, so using this data to your advantage will help your email get better reply rates or click-to-open rates. If you plan on scheduling out an automated email system, you need to research when the optimal dates and times for sending out your emails. Typically Tuesday is considered the best day to send out your email campaigns, but depending on the month, it could actually be better to send an email out on Wednesday instead.

There is actually a ‘wrong time’ to send out your emails, this can be factored by holidays, vacations, or even if there is a spike in the flu season. Let’s face it, who wants to open an email when you're sick? 

Viewing your data for where your customers or prospective customers are is important to scheduling emails because then you can factor in time zones. People are less likely to open emails at night and especially during weekends, so it is important to note what regions you are trying to target and when is the best time to assure they are going to be checking their emails. Also, consider the factor of your marketing strategy, are you trying to send a Business to Business (B2B) or Business to Consumer (B2C) email? This could affect when you want to send an email because if you’re sending them out to a business factors such as morning meetings or lunch breaks could be a big factor. 

Research is highly important to properly target your audience’s age, gender, and region, all of these small details can play a part in why your emails are or aren’t being opened. Consumer habits need to be studied when you are planning your email marketing strategies. Depending on if you are aiming to improve your reply rate or your click-to-open rate, you need to research your consumer's habits as well as competitors. It's hard to predict when your competitors will send their emails, but with proper research, you can see what their typical send rate and time is, so you can take steps to avoid sending an email at the same exact time as one of your competitors.

It may seem like email campaigns are ineffective or not important, but there is data that proves and shows that they are successful and can boost your brand/business even more. Email marketing will still continue to be one of the most popular ways to reach your target audiences and boost brand awareness. 

Researching where you want your aim to reach and what the most effective strategy is can be a lot of work, but there are tools and agencies that can help your team reach your goals for successful email campaigns. If your team needs assistance with email marketing campaigns and strategies, then hiring a digital marketing agency like LSM can help take the stress out of the planning process. From social media to Google advertisements, to SEO strategies, LSM can help with a variety of marketing needs. If you're interested in utilizing our expertise in digital marketing strategies for your business, book a free consultation with LSM today!

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