Emails are far from being dead. Rather email marketing is growing by leaps and bounds in the current times.
Needless to say, missing out on email marketing campaigns could mean leaving money on the table.
Let’s consider, that you’re a marketer trying your best to improve sales for your products/services. You’re already aware of the benefits of email marketing.
- You know that email marketing has the potential to boost your ROI by 440%
- You also understand that email marketing is 40 times more likely to convert leads as compared to social media
With these in mind, you create an email list, build an email marketing campaign strategy and set-up an email sequence. Then you wait for the results.
But the results are way below your expectations.
In fact, you have tracked down that open rates are quite low than expected, CTR is almost zero and there’s no conversion at all.
Despite being an imaginary situation, it can still turn real! So, if you ever face even one of these issues, here’s what you should ask yourself.
“There are 270 billion emails being sent out every day. What makes my emails stand out?”
There can be a range of answers to the above questions. Asking yourself these questions can help you zero down on simple tricks to boost your email campaign results.
Using dynamic content like GIFs, polls and videos
In most cases, email marketers barely have the time to juggle all the balls successfully, let alone read large chunks of text. So, regardless of how creatively you write your emails, long paragraphs of text don’t work anymore.
Then why not experiment with dynamic content such as animated gifs, survey polls and videos that can easily grab a reader’s attention? You can also experiment with catalogs, holiday templates, embedded links with customized messages, looping video content and a lot more.
We were inspired by Uber’s dynamic emails. Check out this example:
Uber’s Dynamic Emails
You can see how Uber added a rotating animated GIF that gives an edge to the mail. Even though the image was not the main focus of Uber’s email marketing campaign, it added some freshness to the campaign.
We tried inserting an animated gif (thanks to Giphy – they have a great collection) in an email and ran a few campaigns. We also tried linking some videos with their thumbnail in email. At other times, a simple survey with three to four options worked wonders too.
The results were encouraging. Engagement and CTR were higher than ever. Readers liked what they saw and we had an excellent opportunity to collect useful feedback.
Overall, we realized that thoughtful use of rich media in emails can break the monotony and increase conversions. What do you think? What kind of media would your audience prefer?
Optimizing email subject lines and preview texts
What a headline does for copywriting is what an email subject line does to an email.
Some tips for successful email marketing include segmenting your audience, personalizing your emails and crafting compelling subject lines and calls to action.
During the holiday season, small businesses can utilize holiday email marketing tips such as offering exclusive discounts and promotions and creating festive and holiday-themed emails to engage their audience.
Many failed email marketing campaigns and a bunch of well-written emails might not even get opened. This highlights the importance of optimizing the email subject line. Here are some of our tried and tested methods to optimize your email subject line:
- Include the subscriber’s first name in the subject line.
- If your email software supports it, definitely include an appropriate merge tag for the subscriber’s first name in the subject.
- When we receive an email with my name in the subject, it instantly draws attention and creates both curiosity and urgency. In fact, by including the first name of the Icegram Express, you can improve email open rates by 26%. And that’s a lot for any email marketing campaign.
- This has been hard for us to get right, but whenever we shorten my email subject lines – for example, 3-5 words or 17 to 24 characters – we witness much higher open rates. I used to write elaborate subject lines, but I learned that we don’t need to disclose everything in the subject. A subject that raises curiosity will probably work better.
- Optimize your emails for diverse devices, as your audience might use them to read your emails on the go. Wondering why? 50% of emails of an email campaign are opened with smartphones. And a standard smartphone shows up to 38 characters in the subject line of its portrait mode.
So, if you’re writing a long subject line like “Hi, Sreyashi, we’re mailing you all the details of our latest organic food product”, chances are, people won’t even read the line till its end. Instead, rephrase it like this, “Sreyashi, organic food for you”. Now that has greater chances of getting opened.
Here are three examples of cool subject lines from some of the popular brands:
- Ikea – “Where do all these toys go?”
- HP – “Stop wasting money on ink”
- Sephora – “Your beauty issues, solved”
Now, we all know that Ikea, HP and Sephora operate in industries that are poles apart. But they all have drafted crisp subject lines, within 6 words, that either hit their subscribers’ pain points, speak about their challenges, or make them curious.
Another aspect that is closely related to the email subject line is the preview text. You must make the most of your email preview texts to grab customers’ attention. Writing a convincing subject line is not always enough; chances are, some recipients will read the preview texts before opening your emails.
Examples of Different Preview Texts
Source: Litmus
There is something more that we can learn from this screenshot. We will get to that in a minute.
Here are a few tested tricks to make the most of email preview texts:
- Avoid pasting email subject lines in place of the preview text.
We have also received email preview texts that say, “having trouble viewing this email?” They’re probably coming from their email marketing software – where it gives a link to view this email in the browser. But such preview texts sound deceiving to us. - What you should rather do is amplify curiosity in the reader. You’ll have to create witty phrases or Call To Action (CTAs) for that.
For example, if we see an email preview text that says, “Up to 50% Discount on all Products +Free Delivery for today”. Will we not open that email? Of course, we will.
Now back to the image above.
There are three emails with three different preview texts. Let’s analyze each preview text:
- Email 1: This email made the same mistake that I already explained. They played the “Is this email not displaying correctly?” card. That’s a thumbs-down from us!
- Email 2: This email is so-so. It has some promises in the preview text. But clearly, we can’t figure out enough from the preview text. We may or may not open it. Depends completely upon our mood and how much time we have in hand. And it feels like it’s just showing the first few characters of the actual email body. The sender probably didn’t care enough to define a proper preview text.
- Email 3: This email pasted its subject line in place of preview text. But it adds some value by including the discount code. It assures us that we can get some discount on my purchase if we open this email.
So, out of these three emails, we will probably open the 3rd one. What about you?
If you’re planning to improve the overall performance of a marketing campaign, your brand strategy should include both email and social media. We normally think of each channel in isolation, but using one channel to promote the other can have surprising results.
Here’s what we did to improve my overall marketing performance:
First, we started posting on social platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). What we would do is offer a little sneak peek of our products and services there and invite the audience to join our email list for further updates. Here’s an example:
Icegram is proud to introduce all of you to our latest WordPress plugIn Icegram Collect. With this plugin, you can do the following:
- Collect and manage your leads with our opt-ins.
- Stop worrying about spambots. Icegram Collect has got your back.
- Enjoy integration with 1500+ apps.
So, email marketers, what are you thinking? Join our email list now to learn more about this product.
We posted this social post on all our social media accounts. We could see the difference right away. We had 50+ new Icegram Express within 2 days.
Now, it was our turn to flip the coin. We started inviting our Icegram Express to follow us on our social accounts. We started including the social icons in the footer of every email in our email marketing campaign strategy. We kept the email campaign content pretty much the same, with just a few tweaks here and there. And it looked something like this:
Subject Line: Painless lead generation with Icegram Collect
Hi John,
Greetings from Icegram.
We are super happy to introduce our latest WordPress plugin Icegram Collect. With this plugin, you can do the following: Collect and manage your leads with our opt-ins.
Stop worrying about spambots. Icegram Collect will stop them in their tracks.
Enjoy integration with 1500+ appsTo know more, download it for free, click here.
Best,
Team Icegram
Follow us on Twitter – Instagram – LinkedIn – Join our Facebook Community
After a week of following this email strategy, we could observe steady growth in our social media followers. Since then, we have continued to cross-promote.
Transactional emails don’t have to be boring
We have received countless boring “order confirmation” emails. We knew how monotonous they get. So, when we got a chance, we tried jazzing up my transnational emails with cool design templates and some good content – while still maintaining their sanity!
We took inspiration from Amazon. Take a look:
Amazon transactional emails
Source: Campaign Monitor
You can see how Amazon designed this transactional email. The main purpose of sending this email was to send the order details and bill amount to the buyer, right? But Amazon has so much more to offer.
Amazon uses a clean design template to send the invoice. They also include product recommendations and some help text. We tried this with our transactional emails too – made them a little less serious – and more in tune with the brand personality. Used some colors and helpful text here and there.
Working on transactional email has worked well for us. It has become another opportunity to engage with customers, bring them back to the site to explore more, or create value with educational content. Transactional email strategies are often overlooked, so go ahead and revise yours. You will create a big impact there.
Always asking for feedback
Asking for feedback and suggestions from your Icegram Express can never become outdated. Asking for their suggestions always results in greater engagement. We have already discussed that dynamic content works well in any email marketing process. So nudges for reviews, requesting one-sentence feedback, clicking a link to say yes or no… these are all great (and simple) ways to gather feedback and make people feel part of your business.
Have a look at one of “Sun of a Beach”’s feedback request emails:
Sun of a Beach Feedback Email
This is an interesting (and email-friendly) way to collect feedback. Instead of a lengthy form, there are five “squares” to click on. They are links, designed to look nice. The buyers don’t have to open a different page/website to give their feedback. They simply click on one of the boxes. Such instant feedback forms are great micro-engagements.
Also, see how “Sun of a Beach” entices the buyers with a 10% coupon. We are sure they get a lot of feedback due to the coupon. But the coupon also increases sales because people then want to use the coupon and get a discount. It’s a smart strategy. Implementing these tips for increasing email marketing sales can help small businesses drive more conversions and maximize the return on their email marketing efforts.
Conclusion
Want to run successful email marketing campaigns? Make sure that you’re investing in the right tools and keep learning. If you’re on WordPress, try our free plugins:
Run any email marketing campaign smoothly – Icegram Express
By the way, do you think the tactics that worked for me would work for you? Any particular strategy you found more interesting? Any other suggestions? Please share in the comments!
FAQ
- How can I write more effective subject lines?
- Effective subject lines are clear, concise, and create curiosity or urgency.
- Use personalization, such as including the recipient’s name and focusing on the reader’s benefit.
- A/B test different subject lines to find out what resonates best with your audience.
- How often should I analyze and adjust my email campaigns?
- Regularly analyze your email campaign performance using metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
- Adjust your strategies based on the data to improve future campaigns.
- Monitoring your results after every campaign helps refine your approach over time.
- How can I improve email deliverability?
- Clean your email list regularly by removing inactive or invalid contacts.
- Avoid spammy language, use a reliable email service provider, and ensure proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM).
- Sending relevant content and keeping your list engaged will help avoid spam filters.