Email Marketing: How to Avoid the Click and Ditch

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses electronic mail as a means of communicating directly with a predetermined target audience. Today, email marketing is more powerful than it’s ever been which may seem surprising when you factor in the explosion of new technologies of communication at the finger tips of both consumers and businesses. Still, despite the ever-growing number of options for marketing tools available to businesses, marketers keep coming back to email.

Why? Turns out, research shows that for ten years in a row, email is the channel generating the highest ROI for marketers. For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. Plus, email delivers better than any other channel and is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.

Email marketing provides businesses with a cost-effective way to reach their customers with personalized messages. Campaign results are easy to track, making it easier to measure the return on your marketing investment.

Benefits of Email Marketing

While the benefits of email marketing are easy to see, it’s important to note that you only enjoy these benefits if your audience is actually opening and reading your emails. So, what’s the key to getting your subscribers to read your emails and take action? Here are a few general tips to help you increase engagement on your email campaigns, regardless of your industry:

• The Right Audience. A high-quality email list can provide your email marketing campaigns with a solid foundation. Before you send your first email, you should first make sure that your email list is up to date and only contains people who have opted in to receive your emails. By maintaining the quality of your email database, you can increase the odds that your message will reach the right audience.

  • Tip: Try taking it a step further and segment your email list so you can reach out to specific audiences based on their interests or purchase behavior.

• An Appealing Subject Line. While the content of your email’s subject line may seem like a minor detail, it can often make or break your overall performance. Many of your recipients are likely to be receiving a large volume of emails, so you want to make sure yours stands out when they are checking their inbox. Your subject lines should be eye-catching and provide them with an incentive to click and read more.

  • Tip: Try including personalized messages to improve click-through and conversion rates.

• A Strong Call-to-Action. Once someone has opened your email, it’s crucial that your message encourages them to take action. Keep your copy as concise as possible, and make sure the copy leads the reader toward the call-to-action. The goal is to provide your readers with a clear path toward the next step.

  • Tip: Include a call-to-action button that makes it easier for readers to scan and click, and avoid including multiple calls-to-action within the same email campaign.

• Don’t Overdo It. While some methods might seem to be effective, they may become tiresome to your readers if they are overused. Adding a sense of urgency to your call-to-action (such as providing a limited-time offer) can prompt your audience to take action. However, urgent calls-to-action can become less effective over time if they are overused. A constant barrage of “urgent” or “time-sensitive” offers can gradually lessen their impact, and become tiresome for your customers.

  • Tip: Create and follow a schedule for your email campaigns so you can keep track of what campaigns you are sending on which days and spot any overlapping or repetitive messages.

• Be Creative. One of the best ways to improve your email marketing strategies is to simply try new things. Through experimentation and plenty of practice, you can learn a lot about what works (and sometimes what doesn’t) when it comes to finding a message that resonates with your customers.

  • Tip: If you’re making major changes to your emails, consider sending a test email to yourself or to a few colleagues to make sure everything is in proper working order before you send it to your subscribers.

• Measure Your Results. To better understand the impact your email marketing campaigns are having, it’s important to regularly measure your results. Here are a few of the key metrics you should monitor:

  • Open Rate: The percentage of people who open an email campaign, out of the total number who received it. A higher open rate may indicate that your subject line is resonating with your audience.

  • Clicks: The number of recipients who click on links within your email. If your goal is to drive traffic to your website through your email campaigns, you’ll want to pay close attention to your clicks.

  • Unsubscribe Rate: The number of people who click on the “unsubscribe” button in your emails. A sudden increase in unsubscribes can indicate a problem, such as lack of audience interest or emails being sent too frequently.

Email marketing provides businesses with the opportunity to maintain relationships with their current customers, and build relationships with new ones. Sending tailored, effective email campaigns takes time and dedication, but the results are well worth it. If you need help getting your email subscribers to engage with your content and take action, contact the team at Triton Commerce to learn more about our email marketing services.