Examples and best practices for converting your subscribers to click and take action
Continuing my 3-part series on increasing email marketing conversions - Open > Click > Convert, in this post we’re looking at the second step in this process.
This step is the most obvious one you'll want to acheive and often most resource and attention is given to it and if we fail at this step, then we will also fail at achieving our final conversion. The conversion we hope to gain at this step is to drive them to the landing page, where the final conversion takes place.
Leverage the strengths of email and minimise its weaknesses
The aim is not to keep the readers engaged with your email and reading it at length in the inbox, but to convert them to the next stage – the landing…
Converting your subscribers to open and read the email
There are 3 key steps to increasing email marketing conversions and it’s necessary to get each of them right as they can all impact (either positively or negatively) the success of your email marketing campaign. All too often when we talk about email marketing we simply consider the email, however, email marketing is much more than that. There is a 3 step process to achieving conversions within email marketing and all 3 steps are as impactful as each other – so be sure not to neglect any of them! This article is part 1 in a series of 3 covering each step 1 - you can read part 2 and part 3 here.
Step 1: Email Opens
Yes, this first step is an obvious…
Don't fall-foul of these Email Marketing myths
Have you inadvertently bought into an email marketing myth? It is easily done, but you could be losing out.
Email Marketing works differently for different brands and industries, so in this infographic EmailMonks are dispelling the myths that Tuesdays or Thursdays are the best days for email campaign broadcasts.
They have collated 15 myths, backed by evidence, to share how email campaigns can be more successful through companies adopting specific email marketing techniques. For example...
Brands are doubling their open rates by increasing the frequency of their emails and and re-emailing with a change in 'subject line' to lift non responders.
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Explaining the differences and options for AB and multivariate testing for email marketing
It can be difficult to know where to start when working on testing your marketing emails to boost the results of your sequences or campaigns. Which elements should you change? CTA, subject line, colour of your button, the list goes on.
In their latest infographic, our friends at EmailMonks have designed a handy checklist to prompt testing ideas, by revealing which elements to test. Plus they share some examples and best practices from Samantha Iodice of the Email M@ven blog. The text is a little on the small side for us, so if you click we have an enlarged version for you.
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Using the Three Cs Formula to engage your subscribers
The delete key is only seconds away, so how do you structure an email to avoid being deleted?
Eventbrite asked me to deliver email copywriting tips at the London Brite Space event, to help event marketers avoid the delete key and aid conversion.
As the copy tips are relevant to more than just event invitation emails and went down so well I thought I’d share them and slides here.
Stand in the readers shoes
Start by thinking from the readers’ perspective. The reader has simple questions:
1. What’s this email about?
2. Why should I care, what’s in it for me?
3. What action should I take?
Your job is to answer these questions – and quickly. Making sure the tone and voice is all about what the reader wants and not what you want. A simple…
Every piece of content should be as long as it takes to convey the message, and no longer...
How many times do we ask ourselves or colleagues, is there is any successful evidence to demonstrate how long different types of content should be (taking into account the restrictions of our platforms)? For example, length of our updates across Tweets, Facebook updates, LinkedIn posts, Videos, and slideshares, email marketing subjects ...
Well the folks at Buffer and Sumall have been looking into this and we thought this was an interesting summary to prompt that question - should we be doing this differently?
Highlights: Tweets receive a 17% higher engagement rate if they are no more than 100 characters and the Top YouTube Videos are no longer than 3 minutes.
Of course the right answer is 'it depends' copy needs to be long as its needed, according to your…
Practical techniques to increase response to your marketing emails, from copy to layout to product
An effective email is so much more than just finding some pretty images and filling the copy with superlatives and hype words, in the hope that someone will be motivated into action by this. Based on a recent breakfast seminar I’ve pulled together 15 of the best tips for better emails.
Pick images that speak for your email
We’ve all been told an image speaks a thousand words but the skill is picking an image that speaks the right 1000 words!
1. Show your products. An attractive woman or handsome man might make the email look beautiful but if you are selling products, a high quality product image is the better choice. It’s an absolute must in fashion and many retail verticals. Depending on your product showing it in use or context can help too. It helps customer imagine themselves using…
8 reasons to use dynamic email personalisation and 18 scenarios for using dynamic content
EmailMonks have produced another informative infographic for email marketers looking to improve their use dynamic content.
As you will see in the infographic, dynamic, also known as smart or adaptive content enables email marketers to personalise their messages in an efficient way. Different messages or different offers can be given to different subscribers depending on their profile fields using the same template rather than creating a separate email for each target segment.
It's packed with examples, so you may need to click to expand to see the detail.
Thanks to Email Monks for sharing their Infographic. Email Monks offer fresh email design, template customization and design to HTML…
A creative subject line choice boosts clicks 228% for Money Dashboard
In this example, the email was gave uplift when targeting an inactive list segment and the winning subject line was itself being pitted, in an A/B split test, against a previously strong performer. So this was not an easy win against a poor subject line. It also shows the power of a creative approach to devising subject lines.
Re-engaging inactive customers is an important element of all email strategies.
Money Dashboard email marketing campaign case study
As this case study shows, the gap between good and great for inactive customers is wider than for active customers.
The details below include how it was done and a drill down into the performance difference between active and inactive customers.
Money Dashboard is a superb free online solution that keeps track of your…
Don't forget the bigger picture
When writing emails, we do like to "optimise" each individual element of the message. Which is a good thing, provided that optimisation takes account of how those elements interact with each other.
If it doesn't, you end up with mails like this:
From line, subject line and preheader are all individually optimised to ensure people recognise the message. But the combined impact is over the top and ignores the potential of, say, the subject line and preheader to better highlight why someone would want to take a closer look at the mail. (And, yes, I have seen mails like this!)
There's a broader impact to consider that depends on the combined impression generated by these elements as people work their way (or not!) through the email. It's why you might ask your copywriter for a headline change and find them rewriting the rest…
