Email marketing campaigns are highly effective business tools when used properly. Unfortunately, many businesses use email ineffectively and send messages that go straight to the recipient’s spam folder without so much as a casual glance. Here are five tips to help you get your emails read.
- Use a Splashy Subject Line
See our first post on boosting your open rates. Getting people to even open your email is a critical first step in your campaign. Use an enticing subject line that is still accurate and concise. Avoid click baiting. Creating misleading headlines to trick people in opening your messages doesn’t represent you or your brand well, and is an excellent way to convince your email recipients to flag your message as spam. It’s equally important to send emails only when you have something meaningful to say or offer. A few emails of substance will be much better received than a bombardment of meaningless, hollow messages.
- Offer Benefits
Include a coupon or provide a free item to customers who click-through to your site. Perhaps the emails themselves could be the benefit, promoting new items before others can get them. People are much more likely to open and read your email marketing materials if you give them a compelling reason to do so.
- Dial in Your Target
It’s a simple fact that not all of your customers will be interested in the same things. Make sure your email list is broken down in a way that makes targeting your leads easy. Send emails only to those who would be interested in a specific product or service. A handful of emails sent to targeted groups are much more effective than mass emails that take a one size fits all approach. There are countless email software programs available that streamline this process for you.
- Timing is Everything
Monday morning inboxes are usually full, and people are busy trying to plan the week ahead. Friday afternoons aren’t ideal either, since people start focusing more on their weekend plans and how early they can leave work for happy hour. According to Insight180 , the best time to send a marketing email is mid-morning or mid-afternoon on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Any good email marketing software will enable you to schedule your emails to send at a specified time, so take advantage.
- Track Your Results
Don’t just send emails out into the void and wonder about their fate. You can’t tweak or refine future ad campaigns if you don’t know what works and what doesn’t. Invest in software, like Mailgun, to monitor how many of the emails you sent are actually opened and how many people clicked through to visit your site. You can also track campaign results by offering customers who mention that they read your email a discount or giveaway item. If you’re not measuring your results, time spent preparing and sending out email campaigns could be time spent just spinning your wheels.
