In many ways, email marketing is like the redheaded stepchild of online marketing.
It just doesn’t come across as sexy as inbound, as flashy as SEO, and neither does it have the viral buzz of content marketing. But it is incredibly powerful.
In fact, email marketing is about 40x more effective than either Facebook or Twitter for acquiring new customers! What’s more, brands that market through email are 6x more likely to earn a click-through than brands using tweets.
How’s that for a success rate?
If you can master your email creation skills, you’ll become well equipped as a marketer to gain an edge on your competition and ensure a stable and long-lasting content strategy that serves you well for years to come.
Email Marketing Matters More Than Most Realize
To put it simply, email marketing has all of the things – it’s effective, inexpensive, and simple. What more could you want?
For brands looking to build a consumer base, launch new products, or drive conversions, there’s virtually no better platform than email.
Unfortunately, most companies don’t understand how to excel at email marketing, and that’s why so few people use it today.
While email marketing has a high potential to be incredibly effective, you need to learn to use it in a smart way to get the most reads…and that’s where my five tips come in.
5 Smart Tips to Start Using Today for More Email Opens and Reads
Now that you know why email is so useful and why you should be using it, let’s talk about how to master the craft so that email marketing works for you by earning you the reads you deserve.
These are five easy tips I’ve implemented for more results on my very next email campaign — and you can, too.
1. Personalize Your Emails as Much as Possible
According to HubSpot, companies with between 1-10 employees typically rake in open rates of about 35%.
Companies with about 26-200 employees, though, earn an open rate of 32%.
In email marketing, your success is defined first by your open rate, so it’s important to learn the tricks to boost it as much as possible.
One effective way to do this is to personalize the email. There are two ways to do that best.
First, start by using your personal or company name as the “From” address.
In addition to the fact that this looks better than an anonymous email coming from a batch company, it also increases recognition in a customer’s inbox.
Look at this thread of emails in my inbox in Gmail.
Something from “Jess at Contently” or “Kim Garst” sounds much more personal than “Grammarly Insights” or “DocuSign.”
Secondly, try to always use the first name field, and talk to your subscribers by name.
As in, “Hey, Jane!”
I’ve been using ConvertKit, and have noticed my open rates skyrocket a good 5-10% after starting to implement a “first name subscriber” code field every time. It’s in the first sentence they see, in the body.
Don’t ever do this… (an email from MarketingProfs – love you guys, but really, I’m just “Marketer?!”)
These are two simple fixes, but they can go a long way toward making an email more personal, and increasing a customer’s willingness to open it.
2. Make Your Subject Lines Irresistible
There is no magic formula here.
Because just when you think you’ve perfected a < 10-word title…
President Obama famously breaks the internet by sending out an email with the subject line that only contains one word:
“Hey”
The Obama campaign raised a whopping $690 million online, so that one word obviously worked.
And the brevity of that headline breaks every rule you’d think of in terms of solid email headlines.
Heck, I can’t even run it through a headline analyzer because it’s “too short!”
While there are dozens of ways to write a killer subject line, the most important tip is simply to keep it attention-grabbing and unique. In addition to helping your email stand out in a crowded inbox, making your headers as attention-grabbing as possible is also a great way to underscore how the contents of your email can help readers solve problems, find solutions, or learn new information.
To make your subject lines more impressive, consider using emotive power words like “amazing” or “incredible.” These immediately increase the value of your content and help your readers get excited about what’s inside.
3. Put Your Attention on the First Line
Okay – so your customer has opened your email, but now what? While getting that initial click is an enormous hurdle, the battle doesn’t stop there. To ensure the success of your emails, you need to go just a bit further and get them to read your actual content.
The best way to do this is to create a stellar opening line that demands they keep reading. For best results, call out the reader immediately and use emotive language that develops an instant connection.
In addition to piquing a reader’s curiosity, this is also an excellent way to hook the reader into reading the rest of the email.
4. Inspire Curiosity in Your Readers
Curiosity is a great way to get readers involved, and using it to your advantage can overhaul your email strategy for the better. This is essential in the subject line, where inspiring curiosity will help you earn a higher open and click-through rate.
For the best results, use a subject line or first line that inspires a reader’s curiosity by promising astounding results or asking a compelling question. This helps ensure that customers will open your emails and makes it easier for your brand to stand out in their inboxes.
5. Use Your Body Content to Optimize and Offer Value
If you are like most humans under the sun, you don’t hesitate to delete irrelevant, obnoxious, or sales-y emails in the blink of an eye.
Because of this, it’s essential to ensure your emails are different than the average digital letter.
The body content is your chance to do this. In a great email, the body material is the place for you to provide value, inspire your readers, and help people connect with your content.
In our weekly email to our blog subscribers at Express Writers, we have our social media specialist, Rachel (who everyone knows already from our Twitter chat), write a personal message before the email body content:
It’s a great way to address everyone by name and give them something uniquely for them, in their email, every week.
Optimize the body of your email by breaking your text up into small chunks and speaking in the personal “you.” These are small fixes, but they can overhaul your email for the better.
We usually feature 1-3 top pieces from our blog that week, and break all the copy up as well as insert images before each new topic (max, three per email), like so:
We end our emails with a roundup of new episodes from the Write Podcast, to break up the typical “here’s a new blog” email:
Email Marketing Made Simple
While email marketing is an incredibly effective form of online content, it’s not the most sought-after marketing technique by professionals. This is unfortunate because it’s so incredibly useful.
By offering outstanding email marketing to your customers, it’s easy to increase your conversions, make your brand more visible, and expand your overall precede online.
Keep in mind, though, that email marketing is only as effective as the marketer behind it, and these five tips will help you improve your skills and build a name for yourself starting today!
Image Credits
Featured Image: Image by Julia McCoy
In-post Photo: Gajus-Images/DepositPhotos.com
All screenshots by Julia McCoy. Taken September 2016.
