If you’re conducting business online today, you should actively maintain an email marketing list. Email marketing is an excellent way to keep in touch with your customers and let them know you’re latest developments.
Though many new platforms and opportunities have arisen for small businesses, email marketing remains one of the most trusted and effective methods of marketing. How effective? Studies have shown that email marketing generates as much as $42 for every $1 spent!.
But with more than 306 billion emails being sent and received every single day, customers have no shortage of companies, friends, and others trying to send them mail. Your customers already have full inboxes. Every new product or service they discover will also have a potential email list vying for their limited time and attention.
Even if they really like your product or service, your customers have to weigh what they’ll stay invested in daily. People are pickier than ever when it comes to what they subscribe to and consume, so maintaining your subscription rates takes effort.
Thankfully, a few proven tips and tricks can help you keep your customers subscribed to your company emails.
Tip 1: Find the Sweet Spot for Number of Emails to Send
How often are you currently emailing your subscribers? Most businesses fall into two camps with emails. Either they are blasting out entirely too many emails, or they are only sending infrequent updates when there’s a new product, or they remember to send an email.
Both of these approaches are wrong for different reasons. There is actually a sweet spot for most people that allows you to stay top of mind with your customers without aggravating them.
Unfortunately, this sweet spot varies based on several factors like the age group you’re targeting, the industry you’re in, etc. For many businesses, once a week is more than enough. If you have a large warehouse of goods and people could be purchasing multiple items from you, your emails could go out as often as 3-5 times per week.
It’s vital that whatever number you arrive at, you keep it consistent.
Tip 2: Craft Catchy Subject Lines
Your social media posts will be judged and weighed based on factors like the images and the number of interactions. Your emails sit in your customer’s inbox, and only your subject line can coax an open. It’s your first and sometimes only impression. If it’s too dull or uninteresting, your customers will not open the email. Too many unwanted emails in a row, and they’ll probably be heading for the unsubscribe button.
The key is to craft catchy, snappy, and exciting subject lines that pique their interest. Again, this will depend on your customers, industry, and other factors. This is an excellent place to start implementing some A/B testing. Send out two variations of your subject line and measure which gets opened more. Do this a few times, and you’ll start to get a clear picture of what motivates your subscribers to open an email.
Tip 3: Make Your Emails Interesting and to the Point
If your subject line was catchy enough, your customers have opened the email. Now it’s up to your content to keep them reading. Write in the wrong tone, use too many words, or self-aggrandize too much, and your customers will skip to the bottom to find the unsubscribe button.
You want to be direct and to the point. Your customers are busy and often reading emails on the go on a mobile device. So, this isn’t the time to write your long-form content.
Also, don’t be afraid to let your personality come through in your emails. Yes, you need to stay on topic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have humor or fun. You want your customers to look forward to your emails. Sharing your personality can be a fantastic way to ensure that happens.
Tip 4: Format Your Emails So They Are Easy to Read
As previously mentioned, your customers will often be reading while on the go. The format of your emails plays a massive part in how likely they are to read to the end, find your links, etc. You don’t want your customers scrolling through vast walls of text or struggling to find your CTA.
Be sure to follow these 3 tips to keep your emails readable:
- Ensure there’s lots of white space. Keep paragraphs short so their eyes get a break.
- Break up text with images or graphics (optimized, of course, so they load quickly)
- Test your emails on mobile devices to ensure everything is working well, and buttons are clickable without anyone needing to zoom in.
Tip 5: Use a Double Opt-In
It might sound counterintuitive to make it more difficult for people to subscribe to your email list. But you want to ensure the people subscribed to your email marketing campaign really want to be there. Using a double opt-in helps weed out those who are just window shopping, ensuring those who do sign up really want to be there.
You’ve no doubt run across these in the past. A double opt-in asks people to reconfirm their subscription by clicking on a link in an email. This serves a dual purpose by validating that the emails are landing in their email inbox and not being sent to the spam folder.
Tip 6: Test Everything
These days, marketers no longer have to guess at what’s working or not. Digital marketing provides instant data on every campaign. You’ll know how many people opened what, where they clicked, and so much more.
If you’re not sure your subject lines are catchy enough or which day of the week you should be sending your emails on for the highest open rate – run an A/B test. A/B testing pits two similar but slightly different things against each other so you can measure which one works best. The results can often surprise you and run counter to best practices.
By testing every aspect of your emails – when you send, your subject line, amount of content, where CTA’s are placed, and more – you can dial in the sweet spot for your email newsletters.
Don’t Lose Hope
Unsubscriptions happen, but there is hope. With a little bit of work and attention, you can better understand your customers and keep more of them subscribed and active with your email marketing efforts.
Try out each of these tips and pay particular attention to your A/B testing. Pour over your results, and you’ll improve your email marketing efforts and learn more about your customers. These lessons will help your SEO efforts as well.
If any of this sounds too complicated or you need additional assistance, we’re here to help. Please contact us today to discuss your SEO, email marketing, or other digital marketing needs.
