Now that marketing automation is more accessible for businesses of all sizes, it’s time to start taking advantage of emails to captivate your audience with fresh content. Even with the prevalence of social media, email marketing remains a valuable source for providing your audience with updates. One of the biggest myths of marketing automation is this notion that the platform will do all the work for you. A big mistake companies make is leaving emails on the backburner after the initial creation, and coming back days or weeks later to view metrics and deliverability rates.
In reality, if you want to receive the best results, strategy will have to be implemented into your email marketing campaigns regularly. If you haven’t taken advantage of marketing automation in the past, it’s time to start doing so now! And if you haven’t had successful open rates, then these tips will give you more insight on how to improve your marketing techniques in order to produce the highest revenue for your business.
1: Send the Same Email Twice
After putting hours of creative effort into your email marketing campaign, the last thing you want is to have your email completely ignored! If particular emails are receiving low click-through rates, then consider sending the email again to subscribers who never opened the original message. As long as they didn’t open the first email, you won’t be sending repetitive content. It’s also important to notice when high click-through rates are more common. Maybe a certain day of the week, or a certain hour of the day, is more responsive to your audience. These are crucial analytics to note when syncing emails to your system. With that being said, there will always be a moment when your subscribers overlook an email. And in that case, sending the same message again is a worthwhile action!
2: Shorten Your Subject Lines
We see it time and time again; businesses cramming as much information as possible into the limited space of a subject line. This is common with stores who are trying to emphasize numerous deals and discounts, but realistically, audiences don’t want to see a content overload before they’ve even opened an email. Metrics have shown shorter subject lines have higher click-through rates. A lot of your users will be opening emails on a mobile device, where there is less space for a subject line than on a desktop browser. That’s why it’s important to keep your subject line short and to the point. Adding a bit of intrigue in a line also boosts click-through rates because your audience will want to know how the email content relates. Subject lines should be no more than 50 characters long (that includes spaces and emojis!). Remember you can always add more information into your preheader if you find 50 characters too constricting. And treat a subject line like a headline, rather than a complete sentence.
3: Start Using Forwards & Replies
As long as the email is a true forward (FWD) or reply (RE), then this is another increasingly popular way to engage your audience. Subscribers are more intrigued with subject lines including “FWD” or “RE” because it promotes a sense of importance and deeper information to the content. In addition, they might have missed the original email, so a FWD or RE triggers urgency to make sure they hadn’t missed something from a previous message. Make sure to initially add forwards and replies to your email marketing, especially drip campaigns, when new emails or piggybacking off of one another.
4: Increase Click-Rates with Specific Wording
Certain words may mean the exact thing, but can cause a completely different response to click-through rates. When you’re writing your subject lines make sure you’re aware of using successful opening rate words and ignoring the ones customers typically dislike. For example words like “money” can trigger a negative response. But “deal” or “discount” can enhance intrigue. Another instance is “quick” versus a more actionable word like “download.” The word “quick” tends to decrease opening rates, but a direct call to action like “download” can actually triple an open rate. When you’re reviewing the metrics of your campaigns, make sure to always consider every single word that was used in the subject line of a successful and unsuccessful email. Even though the messaging of two emails may have been the same, or may have had a very similar subject line, it might all come down to a few different words your audience prefers.
5: Take Advantage of All Marketing Opportunities
You should always see any chance to send an email as a new opportunity to engage your audience. For example, when a customer initially subscribes, you should send a “thank you” or “welcome” email afterward. This is your chance to provide them with fresh content, or perhaps a new offer or deal! On the flip side, even if a user unsubscribes to your email, you should send them a final message saying something like “we’ll miss you.” This is another moment to show your gratitude for their time, and even send another discount or enticing message. In marketing automation there should never be any loose or dead ends, even in the smallest situations. Make sure you always put your audience in the know of new events or information, and send follow-up emails after they subscribe, purchase a product, or show interest in a new campaign.
Remember to Always Strategize
As you can see, there’s a lot more to consider in the creative and analytical process of marketing automation. Whether it’s crafting the perfect subject lines, or devising a new email based off metric measurements, make sure you’re always thoroughly reviewing, revising, and enhancing your email campaigns with these tips and tricks.
Happy marketing!
