For businesses looking to reach their audience en masse, email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods around. According to eCommerce giant, Oberlo, for every $1 spent on email marketing, companies can expect a return of $42 — an ROI of 4200%!
The secret is in its versatility. A business can use email marketing to promote its products or services, sure. But, it can also be used to communicate with prospects & clients, regardless of where they are in the customer journey.
Email marketing is a smart way to ensure the right messages meet the right audience at all times. And though it’s incredibly strong on its own, using the tips outlined below can help businesses step up their results for even more success!
Take a look at these 5 smart email marketing optimizations to uplevel your business.
Table of Contents
Mind Your Metrics
As a business owner, it’s important to establish which marketing metrics and KPIs to track. And while there are several different email marketing metrics to review, here are a few to be familiar with that can help optimize your email marketing efforts:
- Open Rate – The number of subscribers (out of an entire list) that open a specific email
- Click-Through Rate – The percentage of subscribers who click on a link within the body of an email
- Unsubscribe Rate – The amount of subscribers who have opted out of receiving your emails
- Bounce Rate – The number of emails that have not reached subscribers
- List Growth Rate – The rate at which your email list is growing
- Conversion Rate – The percentage of subscribers who complete a CTA
- Overall ROI – The return on your email marketing investment i.e. how many leads, conversions, and sales you get from email
In order to fully understand your marketing ROI, these metrics should be established early and tracked pretty often. It’s also important to keep in mind that while there are standards for these metrics, check with your industry averages rather than general ones to get a better idea of where your numbers should be.
Clean Your List Often
Having an active and engaged subscriber list is vital to email marketing optimization. With this in mind, it’s important to periodically clean it up.
Remember the bounce rate mentioned above? Review your metrics and note any hard bounces. A hard bounce is an email that hasn’t been delivered because the email address is invalid — those emails should absolutely be removed from your list.
But when it comes to subscribers who are inactive instead of invalid, try to take a different approach. Rather than removing inactive subs altogether, create a re-engagement campaign. This can be used both to increase interest and engagement and to remove inactive subscribers, once and for all.
First, create a segment of any inactive users so you can reach them specifically. Next, create a sequence of 2-4 emails over a few weeks to re-engage them. If those inactive subscribers do not engage with your emails, feel free to remove them from your list to keep it clean.
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Double Check Any Doubts
There’s no fool-proof way to know whether or not subscribers will open and engage with your emails once they’ve opted in. After all, roughly 294 billion emails are sent & received per day — there’s a lot the average consumer has to sort through!
But even with an abundance of inbox competition, there are a few ways you can ensure that anyone who signs up for your list genuinely wants to receive information from you. Use the tips below to double-check any doubts from prospects or clients.
- Get a Double Opt-In: Once someone signs up for your email list, send them a link to confirm their subscription. This not only ensures that they’re interested, but this method can also help increase open rates.
- Make the Ask: Ask subscribers who do opt-in to whitelist your company email address. This should reduce the number of times your emails are sent to the spam folder and again, it helps with email open rates for your list.
Both of these methods require subscribers to take further steps after initially opting in. Don’t feel discouraged if a few don’t take you up on these offers though. Remember, it’s better to have a small list with high engagement than a large list full of subscribers who never open your emails.
Personalize Email Content
Personalization is when subscriber data is used to create a more targeted email marketing experience. A well-timed, well-written email can be powerful all on its own. But a well-timed, well-written, personalized email can take your strategy to the next level.
There are several ways to personalize email content to increase engagement so let’s break down a few common ones.
“From” name: When we think of personalization, we often think of the personalization of the customer. But altering the “from” name in company emails is actually a tactic for humanizing a brand. Research shows that by using a specific personal name, rather than a general email address or company name, you can increase open rates by as much as 35%!
Subject line: According to Campaign Monitor, emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. And it doesn’t just have to be their name either!
A personalized subject line outlines any detail relevant to the subscribers. This can be their name, occupation, purchase (if you’re doing an abandoned cart sequence, for example), or any other personal detail that you have stored for your list members.
List segmentation: Segmented email lists deliver targeted content to subscribers. Overall, it has the ability to meet clients (and potential clients) exactly where they are. When you segment your larger list, marketing messages can be tweaked and tailored specifically for the audience that needs to see them. This is a great way to narrow down content and resources to personalize the experience of your audience.
Create Curiosity
The final piece of the puzzle when it comes to stepping up your email marketing results is the copy itself. And the best way to increase engagement here is to create curiosity and leave your subscribers wanting more.
- Make CTAs Clear: Before you even begin writing your copy, think about your overall marketing strategy. What is your goal for email marketing? What actions (if any) would you like subscribers to take once they open what you’ve sent? These goals should be clear as CTAs within your emails.
- Use Action Words: And not just in your CTAs either! If you want your subscribers to answer a question, ask them to reply. If you want them to download a resource, use the actual phrase “Click here to download!” rather than just linking the name of your content. Be clear, be descriptive, spell it out if you need to!
- Avoid SPAM: Speaking of phrases… invoking curiosity is the goal but you want to do so in a way that doesn’t come off spammy — figuratively and literally. Hubspot has a great list of words to avoid for each industry. It’s important to make sure you keep an eye out when you’re writing so emails don’t end up being flagged.
Partner With Smart Girl Digital
Know what else can increase your marketing efforts? Having a smart, comprehensive marketing plan in place! Let the team here at Smart Girl Digital really take your business to the next level with email marketing & automation and more! Contact us today so we can help create campaigns that convert for your business!
