These are the methods that are currently working.
In fact, the tips we are about to share are the same ones we used to help one small business generate over $30,000.00 in revenue from their email campaign.
And helped another small business generate over $12,000.00 in revenue for their email marketing campaign.
So if you are ready to send emails that actually get opened, clicked, and converted into sales, you are in the right place.
Let’s dive right in!
5 Proven Effective Email Marketing Tips
Email Marketing Tip #1: Email New Subscribers Immediately
There is a small window of opportunity after someone joins your email list when they are excited and hopeful for the content you have to share with them.
The best thing that you can do during this peak engagement period is to instantly deliver on the promise you made when they opted in.
Doing this has one powerful benefit: It sets expectations that when your company says it will do something, it does quickly.
This ultimately builds trust and brand loyalty.
Think of emailing your new subscribers like you would with shipping times. Most people hate waiting on things to be delivered.
In fact, a 2020 survey revealed that fast and free shipping was the most popular reason why people shop on Amazon.
So in short, treat your new email subscribers like how Amazon treats their customers and delivers fast.
Now doing this manually every time you get a new subscriber would be pretty tough to do and not very efficient, which brings us to the next tip.
Email Marketing Tip #2: Use Email Automations
Email automation sends automatic, time or action-triggered emails to your subscribers.
A trigger is simply the action or non-action taken by your subscriber that starts the automation.
The most common trigger being someone subscribing to a list such as a newsletter, but there are a ton of other triggers as well.
Here’s a list of 23 possible triggers:
This means that while you are sleeping or eating breakfast, automation is working for you to send emails automatically.
All of this can happen with no involvement needed from you.
The best part about email marketing automation is that you can create a series of emails to go out over time.
Doing so can help move people from a simple subscriber to a paying customer.
This is often known as a drip campaign or email sequence.
We know a few marketers that have an entire year’s worth of emails in their drip sequence, so they barely have to think about their email marketing.
Our three favorite automations to use are:
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Welcome email automation
This automation includes the first email that someone receives when they join your email list and a series of other emails that help nurture them over time.
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Abandon cart automation
This automation aims to recover the 81% of online shopping carts that were abandoned by sending emails that overcome objections to purchasing.
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Repeat customer automation
This automation focuses on driving repeat purchases from previous customers by sending new offers and products that solve their problems.
Our favorite email marketing platform for email automations is Active Campaign.
But other platforms such as Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor offer automations as well.
Email Marketing Tip #3: Use Text-Based Emails
We’ve all seen those emails that are beautifully designed with a ton of nice images and color.
You know, the ones you get from Wayfair or Chewy.
While they look great, they don’t necessarily send the right signals to your audience.
Here’s why…
The emails we care most about are the ones from our friends, family, and colleagues.
And those emails are usually not heavily designed.
In fact, they are typically standard text-based emails with bold or italicized fonts used every so often.
Yet, the emails that are typically designed tend to look like advertisements.
If you don’t believe us, compare the emails in your promotions tab in Gmail vs the emails in your primary tab.
It’s not a coincidence that the emails that look like promotions the most are filtered by Gmail as promotions.
So if you want your emails to feel more personal and authentic, swap the design for a simple, mostly text-based design.
Email Marketing Tip #4: Replace Generic CTA Copy
Read more.
Learn more.
Buy now.
Shop now.
These are the CTAs we’ve seen a million times.
And because they are seen so often, they don’t do a good job at enticing action from subscribers.
By using cliché CTA copy, you miss out on potential clicks and increasing your email open rate.
So here are three high-impact email marketing tips to create CTAs for your emails that your subscribers can’t help but click on.
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Include an Audience Goal or Pain Point
In the best-selling book How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carniege, it states that:
“The only way on Earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.”
The same is true for your CTA copy.
The thing your audience cares about most is finding the solution to their problems or the path to their goals.
Thus, incorporating them into your CTA copy can have amazing results.
Here’s an example from the company Casper.
Casper knows that one major goal of their audience is to keep their bed clean from dirt and spill.
So instead of opting for a generic CTA message like “Shop Now”, they used “Stay Clean”.
This appeals to their audience’s goal and provides them a path to accomplish it.
Just don’t overdo it and make sure the CTA copy you use actually supports the overall message of your email.
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Make Your CTA Low-risk
Words like “Buy Now” require a lot from your subscribers.
It asks them to commit to grabbing their credit card and spending money before they even click to make it to your sales page, which is a lot to ask.
Instead, try something more low-risk such as “View Products”.
Even a simple change from “Sign Up” to “Sign Up For Free” can appear less risky.
Remember this, readers are more likely to take action on your CTA when it is low-risk.
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Provide A Peek Into The Future
Most people prefer to know what is behind a door before they walk through it.
For this reason, CTA copy such as “Click Here” is not the best way to get someone to your website.
This is because it provides no indication of what happens next.
Instead, use action-oriented verbs and descriptive copy to foreshadow what the reader can expect.
- Instead of “Get A Discount”, try “Get 30% Off”
- Instead of “Click Here”, try “See All Services”
- Instead of “Learn More”, try “Learn About Email Marketing”
A company that does a great job at giving their email subscribers a peek into the future with their CTA buttons is Handy.
Notice how every CTA is extremely descriptive and action-oriented.
Here’s an interesting spin on the common “Buy Now” CTA that is descriptive and action-oriented.
Give these three tips a try and see how you can transform your CTA copy and your results for higher click-through rates.
Email Marketing Tip #5: Re-Engage Or Remove
In email list building, the belief that having a large list equates to success with email marketing is an age-old myth.
In reality, having an engaged list is more profitable than simply having a large one.
But what do you do with the subscribers who have checked out and simply don’t open your emails anymore?
You send them re-engagement emails or most often known as a win-back campaign.
Why?
After receiving a re-engagement email, 45% of subscribers read future emails, according to Email Monks.
The best thing that can happen is that you extract those who are still interested and you even have the opportunity to generate a few sales while you’re at it.
The absolute worst thing that can happen – you get to clean your list of inactive subscribers.
Cleaning your list leads to four massive benefits:
- Higher open rates
- Higher click-through rates
- Fewer spam reports
- Reduced email platform costs due to the size of your list
Here’s how to re-engage or remove your subscribers.
Step 1: Create a segment of inactive subscribers who have not opened your emails
This may look different depending on the sales cycle of your product or service.
But for most businesses, if someone has not opened your emails in the last 60 days, it’s likely time to send a re-engagement email.
Step 2: Create a win-back email automation
This will be an automation series of emails that nudge your inactive subscribers to open your emails.
We recommend the following sequence for a win-back campaign: an incentive email, then a reminder email, and lastly, a “Before I Go” email.
Common subject lines include:
- [First Name], We Miss You
- Before I Go [First Name]
- Did You Forget About Us?
Step 3: Remove those subscribers who did not engage with your win-back campaign.
Remember, it’s much cheaper to keep subscribers than to acquire a new one.
We know we said that this is a post of 5 email marketing tips, but we have a bonus tip for you.
Bonus Tip: Create Unique Email Segments
Subscribers are not one size fits all.
They each have specific interests and attributes that make them unique.
So how do you send emails to every subscriber that is personal to their particular needs and interests?
The answer is through proper email segmentation.
Segmentation is the act of grouping subscribers by similar attributes, interests, or needs based on customer data.
By sending emails to particular “segments” of your list, you can make sure the emails are valuable to them.
Here are a few segmentation categories and examples to get the creativity flowing:
- Budget: Subscribers whose budget is over $2,000
- Products or Service Interest: Subscribers who indicated an interest in email marketing
- Engagement Level: Subscribers who opened any of your last 5 emails
- Location: Subscribers who live in Atlanta
- Purchase History: Subscribers who have not purchased in the last 60 days
- Order Value: Subscribers who spent more than $300
- Gender: Subscribers who indicated they were male or female
The segment combinations you can create are endless.
But the key to proper segmentation is to decide which metrics are essential for your business and to collect that information.
For example, if you are a service company, knowing how soon someone will move forward, is likely a metric you would want to know and segment your list by.
Or if you are an eCommerce company that has multiple products, knowing the category of products that your subscribers are interested in is definitely a metric you would want to know and segment your email list by.
Segment your email list to ensure that the right messages are sent to the right people at the right time.
Quick Recap
Well, there you have it – brilliant email marketing tips you can use to increase your open rates, click-through-rates, and sales.
To recap, today we discussed how to:
1. Email new subscribers immediately
There is a window of peak engagement when someone signs up for your email list.
And it is best to instantly deliver on the promise you made when they opted in for your newsletter or offer.
Doing this will set expectations that your company will follow through on its promises quickly.
2. Use Email Automations
Email automations are automatic, time or action-triggered emails that you send to your subscribers.
You can use email automations to create a series of emails, also known as a drip campaign or email sequence.
These are emails that send overtime to move people from a subscriber to a customer.
3. Use Text-Based Emails
Most heavily designed emails are viewed as advertisements or promotions that actually land in the promotions tab on Gmail.
In comparison, the emails we receive from friends, family, and colleagues don’t have any design at all and are simply text-based.
If you want your emails to feel more personal and authentic, opt for a mostly text-based email.
4. Replace Generic CTA Copy
CTA copy such as read more, learn more, and buy now are extremely common and consequently often don’t spark action.
Alternatively, by including an audience goal or pain point, it makes your CTA low-risk.
And by providing a peek into the future your CTA buttons will be more clear, engaging, and result in much better performance.
5. Re-Engage or Remove
We know that having an engaged list is more profitable than simply having a large one.
Therefore, to re-engage the subscribers who are inactive, try using a win-back campaign – a series of emails that nudge those who are still interested.
If they don’t respond to the campaign, you get to clean your list of inactive subscribers.
And if you found these email marketing tips helpful, we can do a lot more for your marketing.
We offer email marketing solutions that can boost your sales and conversions.
Simply contact us today to get started.