An Email Marketing Refresher for the New Year

As email marketers, we’re used to dealing with all the moving parts of getting the perfect email sent out. Email content, calls-to-action, landing pages, etc. We’re constantly submerged in the sea of nitty-gritty details that go into creating emails people want to open.
This can prevent us from seeing the other side of the email marketing world — the world of the email recipient. The closest we get to that world — and many believe it’s close enough — are the results.
How many people opened the email? Who did or didn’t click on the email links? etc.
Results are, of course, crucial to measuring the success of your campaign. But what do you do when the effort put into creating the email is far greater than the unimpressive results? It may be time to take a closer look into the world of the email recipient, and ask yourself…what would make me read that email if I were them?
So, let’s paint a vivid picture. Let’s take a look at one of your email recipients — a person who’s found a moment to skim through the couple hundred emails accumulated over the course of a few days. If you had the opportunity to peep into that person’s office or their living room at home while they’re checking their emails, what are some questions you need to ask yourself?
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What’s the First Thing They See?

 
Ever heard the saying, “you only get one chance to make a first impression”? Making sure the first thing an email recipient sees is convincing enough to get them to open the email is, need I say, very important.
Something that helps draw people in is a personalized email. Personalized emails have 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher click rates than emails without any personalization.
Spam has become an email marketer’s arch nemesis; people are wary of unfamiliar senders and hesitant to open emails.
A good place to start when it comes to personalization is the sender name.

Sender name

Getting an email from a real person instead of a company creates a sense of trust and piques curiosity. A sender name like “John Doe” and an email address like “jdoe@variouscompany.com” are more likely to grab attention than “MarketingDepartment@variouscompany.com.”

Subject lines

35% of email recipients open emails based on subject line alone. With that in mind, you need to put a good amount of thought into your subject lines. Here are a few things to remember when creating a good subject line:

    • The fewer the characters the better. No cut-off sentences
    • Use words familiar to the industry of the people you’re emailing
    • Use words that create a sense of urgency
    • Keep it simple

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How Much Time Are They Willing to Invest?

 
Studies show that email marketers have 3 seconds or less to capture the attention of readers. That’s a tiny window of attention to squeeze your email content into. But don’t lose hope.
Just remember, you don’t have to lay out every single detail in the body of the email, especially when your email has links. Let people click through to your landing page, your website, etc. Give them the choice to chase after more info about you. That way, you know they’re really interested.
In the likelihood that they bypass the copy altogether, create strong, noticeable calls-to-action. So that if they scan and scroll to the bottom, there’s something waiting to catch their attention. This is a good opportunity to have a call-to-action link to downloadable content related to the email copy.
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What Are They Using to Check Email?

 
Back in the golden age when desktops ruled the world, and the mobile phone was a giant device that took two hands to hold up to your ear, mobile-friendly campaigns were unheard of. But in the present day, 55% of email opens occur on mobile devices.
Making your emails mobile-friendly is no longer something trivial to consider; it’s a necessity. In the very possible likelihood that many of your email recipients are checking their email on their phones, a mobile-friendly campaign could be the key to success.
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So, what are your takeaways?

 

  • Personalize your sender name and subject line
  • Keep your email short
  • Make your call-to-action stand out
  • Create mobile-friendly emails

Keep these tips in mind for email marketing success in 2017!
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