We’ve been creating emails for clients for years now, and the need for speed and low price have never been more important. Depending on the client, the process can be laborious, long-winded and non-fruitful – statistics show that traditionally, 53% of brands will take over two weeks to produce just one email!
Speed and timing
Emails should be perfectly timed to be in line with wider marketing campaigns, or responsive to something that should be shared as quickly as possible. Think about it… the brands that were ready to start promoting their Face Masks the day that Boris announced they were a requirement were 10 steps ahead of the game. By standardising your emails with templated designs, you can speed up the entire process and send out emails that look great with a very short turn-around time.
Audience
Know your audience. What do they want from you? What do you have to offer them? How do you get them to engage with you and your brand? Be clear and succinct and relevant in your message and use actionable language to achieve audience engagement – ‘Sign Up for…’, ‘Learn more…’. There’s nothing more frustrating than receiving an email but being unable to understand the CTA.
Stand out – get personal
It is estimated that in 2022, 347.3 billion emails will be sent and received every day. Personalise where possible – 70% of brands do not use personalisation so you’ll stand out if you do. Don’t use a generic email address to send your emails – you’re more likely to be deleted. Send them from a real person and add a real email signature – it’s far more personal and helps build relationships.
Stand out – subject line
Almost 50% of emails are opened because of the subject line alone. For many people, this is your one and only chance to grab their attention, to compel them to open and read your email – miss it, and they’re gone.
Your subject line should be clear and strong. Statistics show that subject lines with less than 50 characters achieve a 12% higher open rate and a 75% higher click through rate than longer ones; and bear in mind that on a mobile, only approx. 25-30 characters are displayed.
In addition, just under 70% of email recipients report emails as spam based purely on the subject line so remember to avoid spam trigger words in your subject lines at all costs. Here are some examples:
- Final
- Reminder
- Sale
- Tempting
- Specials
- Complimentary
- Help
- Donation
- Don't
- Unique
- State-of-the-art
- Discount
- Partner
Stand out – content
When writing copy for your email, it’s similar to writing copy for a website. Stick to a logical structure; keep your paragraphs short; include one topic per paragraph. Map out exactly what you want to say and what you want to achieve. Think about what would entice you to open an email – what would you want to see and what would frustrate/annoy you.
Keep your content clear and concise and make sure your focus is obvious. Include compelling benefits and features that relate to your audience but avoid sending too much information that will overwhelm or disengage your readers (this will also act as a red flag for spam filters). Ensure your call to action is very clear and easy to see – remember many people scan-read emails at speed. Remember you want to drive the reader to your website landing page for more information, so your copy needs to be short and enticing.
Email marketing continues to deliver results, but it is constantly evolving and in order to keep up, you need to trial and test new ways; send targeted messages, personalised messages, and understand that what has worked previously, may not work today.
Embracing change in your email marketing strategy can improve campaign performance, make your customers more responsive, and help your business to grow.
Is it time to update your email marketing techniques?