In this week’s video, we provide you with six quick tips for making your marketing emails more effective.
Tip #1: Is it worth someone’s valuable time to read your marketing emails?
When planning an email campaign, or a one-off email, you need to put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and ask yourself this: “What’s in it for me? Why should I care?”
Because let’s face it — consumers receive massive amounts of emails daily, and they have a limited amount of time to choose which to read and which ones to delete. Smart businesses send email communications that provide value to the consumer.
That means that as much as you want to tell them about how wonderful your product is, refrain from doing it. After all, you’re a little biased.
Consumers don’t want to receive one-sided advertisements in their inboxes. Instead, they want information that saves them money, provides entertainment, teaches them something, or makes their lives easier.
Tip #2: Pay attention to the length of your subject line
In general, marketing emails are now opened more on mobile devices than they are on desktop computers. That being said, it’s crucial that your email subject lines play nicely across all devices.
The best approach is to determine how your email subscribers are engaging with your messages by looking at the devices they use. As you can see in this example, less than 18% of the people that opened the email did so on a desktop computer. 63% opened it from a web browser, and 13% opened on a mobile device.
This is just one example, and the numbers will vary for your business and subscriber lists.
What does this example demonstrate? The best subject lines are ones that are an average 41 characters in length, and around seven words.
What is the maximum length for an email subject line? 70 characters. Any longer than that and the device or browser will cut it off.
Tip #3: Utilize the preview text in your marketing emails
Just as subject lines are critical to getting your email opened, preview text is also an element that should not be ignored.
And all of the newer devices and browsers support it.
Take a look at this example: This email from Shutterstock has a lengthy subject line that is being cut off on an iPhone. You can tell they’re offering something for free, but it’s unclear what that is. Now, look right below the subject line and you’ll see that the free things they’re offering are images, videos, and music packs. They’ve done a clever job of using the preview text as an extension of the subject line.
Without this preview text, the reader is much less likely to be enticed to open the email. In fact, 24% of people look at preview text first when deciding to open an email.
How long should your preview text be? Between 85 and 100 characters. Your best bet is to test how the email will look on different devices before scheduling it or hitting send.
Tip #4: Keep it brief
Once you’ve successfully gained the reader’s attention, you have a very limited amount of time to deliver your message. Get right to the point — the shorter the better. And make it very clear exactly what you want the reader to do.
- Keep text in the body of the email to 125 words or less.
- Use a clear call to action such as:
- Register Now
- Learn More
- Get Started
- Join Us
Tip #5: Use emotional triggers
Think about your audience and how you can help them. Are they frustrated? Are they experiencing anticipation or excitement? Do they have a fear of missing out (FOMO)? Are they worried or looking for hope?
Use emotional words and phrases to demonstrate an understanding and that you can help provide the solution. Here are a few examples from emails that I’ve received — and I really love:
- FOMO: Don’t get left offline when 83% of discretionary U.S. travelers are booking online.
- Excitement/anticipation: We’re so excited you’ve selected our resort to experience a luxury vacation. Soon you’ll enjoy the pleasures of a Caribbean vacation unlike any other.
- Frustration: From redundant landing pages to intrusive forms, many standard B2B tactics create unnecessary friction in already complex buying journeys.
- Dissatisfaction: Let’s start with the fact that this process took forever. The folks in the marketing department were crawling up the walls in frustration.
Tip #6: Personalize, personalize, personalize
Marketing emails that are personalized perform better. In fact, a study by Experian Marketing Services showed that personalization achieved 29% higher open rates, and 41% higher unique clicks.
Personalized subject lines delivered a 26% increase in unique open rates. And revenue per email on average was six times higher than non-personalized emails.
Email marketing expertise at your fingertips
To sum up, take time to think through your strategy for email marketing, and how you can use these six tips to increase its effectiveness. If you need more email marketing expertise, reach out. Lumen Marketing is here to help! Call our team at 720-722-2987 or click on the big blue button below to get started on your next email project.
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