Far from being “dead”, email marketing actually remains one of the best marketing strategies to date, with its promise of high engagement rates and return on investment.
In fact, it’s a virtual cash machine. For every dollar spent on it, businesses generate $44 sales — outperforming search engine marketing ($22), display advertising ($20), social media ($13), and mobile marketing ($11).
But to ensure your email is actually being distributed AND read, you need to focus on improving your open rates.
Importance of Open Rates
Which would you prefer, 1,000 subscribers with an open rate of 10%, or 500 subscribers with a 50% open rate? While it’s easy to choose the monster subscriber list, if you really analyze the numbers, you should choose the latter.
More opens lead to more clicks, and more clicks lead to more traffic, and more traffic lead to more sales. That’s how important paying attention to your open rates is.
Boosting Your Numbers
Crafting a good subject line is the first step to ensuring your message gets across. A good subject line is one that’s relevant, compelling, casual, and personal. To make your subject lines so, use CPUQ—Controversy, Power Words, Urgency, and Questions.
For the content, avoid ambiguity. Make sure that the email has a purpose and stick to it. Develop one clear, short message, with a clear call-to-action, because let’s face it—users don’t have much time to really delve into your content.
Make sure the email reads well on mobile, too. Nearly everyone today uses mobile phones and tablets; mobile users are also an unpredictable audience, and you need to ensure your emails are easy to read and can load quickly. Otherwise, you risk recipients archiving it to read later (but forget about it), or worse, deleting it because it’s just too frustrating to read.
As with any other marketing channel, email requires persistent optimization to boost your customer engagement. Using the techniques outlined above and hiring email marketing experts, like Musselwhite Marketing and Consulting, you can finally get your email messages across.
