9 Ways to Make Your Email Campaigns Effective

I woke up this morning and instinctively reached for my phone. And it wasn’t just to turn off the alarm. I wanted to check my emails, and I wasn’t the only one. Whoever declared email marketing dead, well, they’re just wrong. The global market for email marketing is predicted to reach 15.7 billion dollars by 2017. The audience is there; it’s a matter of method.

Back to my bedside. I admit most of the emails get deleted without an open, but the sender did have my attention, even if only for a second. If you want to market with emails you have to do it right or risk the delete button, or worse, the ever-dreaded spam file.  Email marketing is simple and cost-effective. Plus, done correctly, email marketing can boost revenue for the local winery to the Fortune 500 company.  In a six week case study done by ContentMarketinginstitute.com, they were able to generate $100,000 ROI through an email campaign. And that was in six weeks!

1. Obsess over subject lines.

So where do you start? Let’s go back to my morning ritual. Why did most of my emails get deleted without a second look: Subject line. It’s where a successful email campaign begins. A good subject line is direct and tells what is in the email. A bad subject line attempts to sell and will most likely get caught by the spam filter.

2. You don’t get much time, important stuff first.

Now you are on to the content of the email. Put your most important content, the stuff you want a potential customer to know most, first. People’s online reading patterns most often resemble a capital F. Meaning, you get one line, two at the most, before the reader is off to the scanning races.

3. Be polite; use people’s names.

Use the name of the recipient in the email. This will greatly affect how much of your content is read. Addressing readers by their names makes the email feel personal and makes the reader feel less like a number.

4. Don’t be boring, use HTML.

Use HTML over text. Statistics show 88% of people prefer an HTML email over plain ol’ text. To put it bluntly, text is boring, and email marketing is about reaching your audience quickly.

5. Leave the money at the door.

Avoid $ signs in your content and especially in your subject line. People associate $ signs with spam and so do spam filters. Moral of the story, leave them out.

6. Be a call to action hero.

All the good content in the world is useless without a clear call to action. You may have the reader aching to spend his money, but if you haven’t included how to do that, you have lost the sale. Make sure your call to action is clear and easy to understand. Hint: “Click Here” gets the highest percentage of clicks.

7. No one wants to read emails for Christmas.

Don’t schedule your email campaigns around holidays. People don’t want to read emails while they’re home spending time with their families.

8. Let people know who you are.

Reflect your corporate design in your emails. This serves to raise brand awareness and gives your emails credibility.

9. Don’t be satisfied.

Even if you follow every one these suggestions, there is still room for improvement. Monitor your click through rates. You may find ways to make adjustments that hone in on your audience better and increase your ROI.

So I’m through checking my emails and it seems only one sender grabbed my attention by following some of these tips. It was the local winery and this thursday I’ll be attending their wine tasting and more than likely spending too much money on a nice cabernet. Behold the power of email marketing.

 
 

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