Get Them To Read Your Emails With These Five Tips

Imagine having the best content for your email – the right tone is used and it’s informative enough to increase interaction with your audience.  But as you track how many people actually opened your email, you realized that your marketing campaign isn’t that effective.

If your content is relevant, then why isn’t it working? What seems to be the problem?

Is it because no one really opens their email nowadays? Maybe, they are all on social media platforms?

Sadly, that’s not the case – data from 2017 shows that most people are on email, and what we mean by “most” is 85% of adult internet users in the US! In 2019, global email users amounted to 3.9 billion, and in 2023, this figure is set to grow to 4.3 billion! Now, that’s a lot – and the main reason why email marketing is probably the best strategy for your business.

Your emails were all sent – yet why is your email open rate not improving?

Depending on the sector of your business, an approach to increase your open rate percentage may vary. But there are common characteristics that make up a successful campaign. Here are 5 tips to help you get started:

Tip # 1. Impress your New Subscribers

If you’re just an email marketing newbie, it’s important to create a good first impression for your brand – this is where a well written welcome email is useful!

Research suggested that the average open rate for a welcome message is over 82% – that’s 8 out of 10 people! When you create content for this type of email, remember to make it both entertaining and useful. We don’t want to lose new subscribers just because they get bombarded with sales pitches and advertisements from a brand’s first email. 

Tip # 2. Choose the Best Subject Line and Preview Text

In 2019 alone, a whopping 293.6 billion emails were sent and received each day! With so many emails getting delivered, how can we ensure that our emails aren’t deleted or reported as spam?

It’s by perfecting the subject line and the preview text – the first phrases or words that they are going to see. This part can be a little tricky because you want it to trigger curiosity but not misleading, short but relevant, and only the right words should be used.

There are different approaches you can use – some prefer to include humorous phrases, others like to be informal, while there are also those who take advantage of the trend. Whatever “theme” you prefer, it’s important that it’s not only for clickbait and there’s useful content in the message body. If your subject lines aren’t aligned with the actual content, it can decrease trust and may lead to your audience disengaging from your brand.

Tip # 3. Get Personal

With nearly 9 out of 10 marketers using email marketing to distribute content organically, your brand should have its own edge over its competitors.

One way to do this is to send personalized emails that are said to generate 50% higher open rates. While personalization is often only identified with addressing subscribers by their names, it can also mean anticipating their needs, sending timely emails, including a specific topic of interest – all of which can make a person feel that your email content is tailor-made for them.

Tip # 4. Create Engaging Visual Content

With hundreds and thousands of texts we encounter daily on the Internet, it’s no doubt that visual content plays a huge part in attracting the attention of our prospects.

Visual content isn’t only images, it can also be GIFs, videos, collapsible menus, or a refreshing color scheme. In fact, a 300% increase in click rates were recorded when emails are sent with videos! It’s better if you can stick with your usual fonts and reorder contents to make them more engaging.

As we strive to make our emails visually appealing, it’s important to remember that not all people view your content on their desktop. Most of them, especially those aged 18 to 24, view their emails on phones – a factor you need to consider when creating interactive content, so make sure they are also optimized for mobile devices!

Tip # 5. Automate the Process

It can be overwhelming to consider several factors before sending your emails, very time-consuming to be honest. While you can make an effort to personally respond to a customer’s inquiries, everything will be hectic as you start gaining more subscribers. 

No one wants to spend several hours a day just on email marketing alone, and that’s why you can always automate this process! 

Personalized content and recommendations, improving customer retention rate, staying in touch with your clients – these are all what email automation is capable of doing, and the best part is it doesn’t require much time and effort than a traditional “manual” method.

Other features of email automation are sending action triggered emails to your customers and tracking their responses to collect more information. It can increase productivity and brand awareness without sacrificing content quality and relevance.

Whether your brand is just starting out or not, email marketing can help you establish a relationship with your prospects that’s likely to convert them into customers. This is a direct channel of communication between your brand and its audience, so you must do it right – always keep track of metrics, reevaluate your strategy if necessary, and learn to adapt according to your client’s needs.

If you would like to discuss your company’s current email marketing strategy for 2021 please schedule a good time to connect here.