7 tips from the pros on how to improve email marketing performance

Throughout the years, we’ve seen email marketing do amazing things. Even now, it is still one of the most efficient ways to convert prospects into paying customers. When you spend time building an email list, you get the chance to create engagement at any hour and time of the day. And since everyone keeps their mobile devices close by 24/7, it goes without saying that email marketing can be extremely powerful.

Email marketing is powerful. It packs fundamental data that marketers can use to improve their campaign and evaluate performance, including spam complaints, click through rates, open rates, unsubscribe rates, and more. How exactly do you improve email marketing performance to benefit from one of the most useful forms of marketing in the online environment? Here are 7 amazing tips to help you out.

1. List segmentation

When people add their email addresses to your list, the move can be a mistake. Or they might even provide you with an incorrect email address; or even change their address and no longer use the one they already have. This can have a detrimental effect on email delivery performance, since emails bounce and often end up in the spam folder. What you can do to avoid this from happening is use an email verification service or scrubber. Do it on a daily basis to ensure that your list is accurate.

2. Optimization for abandoned-cart emails

It might be a good idea to test the timing and frequency between emails. Steer clear of bombarding your customers and prospects with way too many abandoned-cart emails. A series of 3 emails is enough to preserve the engagement and prevent a prospect from marking your email as spam. In terms of timing, you should send one email a day following the cart abandonment, and then a second email the next day. A third email should only be left for day 3. Throughout this time it’s best to perform optimization tests on emails used to abandon carts as this will help you determine the cadence and optimum frequency for your company’s specified target audience.

3. Personalized emails

Just stop and think of the amount of promotional emails you get every day. A lot, right? The people who have subscribed to your list are no different. It’s very important that you understand something: even if there’s someone interested in opening your email, there are high chances that they’ll delete it before scrolling to see what you have to offer. If you customize the beginning with something like “Hi John …” you might have a chance to engage the reader, and at the very least instill a curiosity.

4. Emoji’s in the subject line

We see emoji’s everywhere these days. They’re fun and efficient because many people use them to communicate. Just check your last conversation on Messenger, Skype or phone and look at how many emoticon you’ve used to chat with a buddy. Your email will probably be surrounded by inbox messages that include emoji’s in the subject line. It is a great way to stand out, and when used in combination with the right words, your open rates will be much higher.

5. Test deployment time

What’s even worse than sending emails to unsegmented lists, is sending emails to people and assuming that everyone will have an interest to read them. You should always experiment and test deployment times. Begin by sending messages to half of your subscribers; the check metrics and see who liked what; the last step is assessing analytics. If you sense that most of your emails were opened at night, then it might be a sign your best performing emails have an impact in the evening; but it might also happen the other way round.

6. Customized responsive email template

Most of your subscribers will most likely open your emails on mobile. This means it’s fundamental that you make use of a responsive newsletter template. Services like MailChimp are extremely smart and easy to use. Most of their templates are pre-designed and responsive, thus making your job to engage people a lot easier. Make sure your message has the right font size attributed, for both smartphone and tablet. Customize your emails in a way that they scream originality – just make them stand out. The cost involved is small, and the impact your message might have depends on how well you truly know your audience.

7. Crystal-clear call-to-action

If your call-to-action is not clear enough, the results won’t exceed your expectations, meaning that you’ll be disappointed and your results will be lower than expected. Keep in mind that subscribers won’t have time to read lengthy and detailed emails in an attempt to determine what you’re trying convey. If a recipient can’t figure out exactly what you want to say within a few seconds, they will skip your email or worse, delete it and mark it as spam. You certainly don’t want that to happen, which means a crystal-clear, concise call-to-action becomes fundamental.

It doesn’t really matter what you want from them. It can be to ask readers to click on a link, call a phone number or contact you by email. As long as you can hook their interest in a split of a second, you’ll have their undivided attention. But that attention won’t last long if your email is not of the highest quality. Don’t forget that even when it comes to mail marketing, content is king.

Improving email marketing performance demands a lot of time, commitment and patience. Mailing mail seems like the simplest job to do; but things are a bit more complicated than that. To succeed, first you have to have a well-defined target audience. Get to know as much as possible about your subscribers, and don’t send all the exact same email. Remember, not everyone is 30 year olds! If you can do that and know exactly what your people like and don’t like, the next steps to crafting a killer campaign are a lot easier.

Have you read?

The Growing Importance of Visual in the World of Text
15 Key Questions To Ask When Picking A Potential Business Partner
7 Inspiring Leadership Books that Will Influence your 2017
In the Smart Machine Age, the so-called female confidence gap may be a blessing in disguise
9 To-Do’s for Entrepreneurs to Find a Better Work-Life Balance

Written by Steve Brown.