Boost Your Clicks: 4 Email Marketing Do’s and Don’ts
Email marketing may still be one of the best ways to reach your audience, but that doesn’t make it any easier to actually get your contacts to engage with the content you send in your company emails.
4 Ways to Boost Your Email Engagement Rate:
1. Start with a Juicy Subject Line
Your email subject line is like a store’s window dressing. Will it entice people inside, or will they keep walking? You’ve got a lot of competition to get people’s attention in their inboxes, so spend the time to ensure that your subject line gets the job done.
That subject line should be one or more of the following:
- Curiosity inducing: “Save $103 on your car insurance with this super simple secret.”
- Shocking: “Did you realize that 86% of women are missing a crucial supplement in their diet?”
- Personal: “Psst. Rachel. This offer was designed especially for you.”
- Funny: “Knock knock. Who’s there? Yoollbe. Yooollbe who? Yooollbe glad you opened this.”
- Beneficial (and urgent): “Get 2 for 1 shoes before midnight tonight.”
Browse your inbox and see which emails you’re likely to open based on the subject lines alone. This will give you insight into what to aim for with your own.
2. Provide Content Your Audience Cares About
The great thing about your email subscribers is that you already know what your customers want. You can look at your blog analytics to understand the topics they are clicking to read, and you can write about similar subjects in your emails.
One trick is to include half of an article published on your blog in an email, then link to the rest on your blog. This drives traffic from your emails to your blog – just one click away from your website and a purchase.
3. Make Your Content Shareable
If someone reading the content in your email wants to share it with their social network or a friend, how easy is it to do that? Including a link labeled “forward to a friend” solves one problem, as does including social sharing icons under the content. With a little extra effort, a single email can reach even more people as your subscribers do your marketing for you.
4. Vary Up the Content
Written articles are neat, but don’t be shy about mixing it up. Every few newsletters, replace an article with a video or include a stunning graphic. Then track metrics to see which gets more clicks and shares. This can guide your email marketing efforts in the future.
[Tweet “Do’s and don’ts of #email #marketing for every type of #business.”]What NOT to Do with Email Marketing
While the above are tips that should help you get better engagement with your emails, there are a few mistakes you should avoid.
Don’t Make the Emails All About Your Brand
Yes, you think your product is great, but how many emails do you think people want to open hearing that message? Remember: your emails should center on what your audience wants.
Don’t Send Too Many
The frequency of emails sent will depend on the company, the audience, and the content of those emails, but metrics will tell you what you need to know. If you see a lot of unsubscribes, it’s time to slow down the frequency.
Don’t Send the Same Content Over and Over
If you send multiple emails each month, vary them. One can be your monthly newsletter, another a promotion, and still another an announcement.
Don’t Ignore the Data
Continuing to make mistakes in your email marketing and not observing the consequences in your analytics is a death wish. You can easily turn people off, and they’ll drop like flies from your list. Your analytics might tell you that a particular offer isn’t getting many signups. That’s evidence that you need to change your course. You may need better targeting, or maybe a better offer.
Email marketing can be a great sales tool, but only if you pay attention to the content you’re producing and the frequency you send them. Give a little effort to your email strategy, and you’ll see an improvement in results!