Email marketing is different from sales pitching. It’s a valuable tool companies use to build and grow many aspects of their entire business.
Marketing experts say there’s a buzz around the benefits of email marketing, which puts it in the “don’t-miss-this-opportunity” category for success:
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Statistics show email marketing is the most cost-effective, conversion-rich form of digital marketing today.
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For every dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return on investment of at least $40.
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The number of global email users is expected to grow to 4.6 billion by 2025. People are continuing to use email, and you can reach them 24/7/365.
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Email marketing is versatile. You can use it to:
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Illustrate what you and your company stand for.
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Introduce new products and services or remind people of their benefits.
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Create connections with new prospects.
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Nurture relationships with current customers.
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Develop leads and get the sale.
5 Easy Ways to Improve Email Marketing
People are sending and receiving an astonishing amount of emails every day - 333.2 billion. By 2025, expect that number to increase to over 375 billion!
So you must differentiate your email messaging and create standout emails that rise above the rest. You want them to be personalized, yes, but they need to be more. Here’s how.
- Work hard on your subject lines.
Realize that the subject line of your email is the first thing your recipients will react to, and possibly the only thing they’ll read. Make sure they want to click it open.
Strong subject lines are usually succinct, grab attention, and give an idea of the email’s purpose. It’s a lot to expect from such a short message, almost like an art form.
Research shows that personalizing subject lines with a recipient’s name can generate 50% higher open rates. Incorporating directives such as how-to, steps, tips, etc. that your recipients will find useful can pique their interest. Eliminating unnecessary things like emojis, excessive punctuation, and filler words will keep your email out of the spam folder.
Using different types of emails can customize subject lines and garner greater results. For instance, welcome emails have an open rate of 68.6% compared to the average of 19.7%. Ecommerce abandoned cart emails can actually create more orders. Sending out three instead of just one can increase an order by 69%.
Don’t forget to write content for the preview or preheader text, that longer but still brief message seen underneath the subject line. It can be an attention-grabber and lead to higher open rates.
- Ask recipients to take action.
Think of calls-to-action as invitations for recipients to get more value from your email. When they take action, they get something in return.
Making your emails actionable for your recipients can be:
- Straightforward, like offering a way to sign up for an appointment or pay a balance right in the email.
- Experiential, like inviting them to a webinar, seminar, and other educational opportunity or subscribing to a company newsletter.
- Providing incentives like downloading ebooks, whitepapers, and guides, sharing a review, or taking a survey.
A note about free offers: Some email providers see the word “free” and think your email is spam. Your recipients can think that, too. Try to avoid making incentives the focus of your emails.
- Create email content that’s easy to read.
Long sentences or paragraphs with no breaks can tire eyes and frustrate readers. Format the text of your emails so it looks like a quick read. Limit paragraphs to about 100 words, leverage white space, and shorten the entire length to an average of 750 words. To help you compose effective emails, consider using email marketing software with easy-to-use templates for designing business emails.
- Use images and embed videos.
Pictures, artwork, informative graphs, charts, maps, and other images in your emails help to create better engagement with your recipients. Embedding videos and including sliders, collapsible menus, and GIFs help make your emails interactive, which means even more engagement. In fact, adding a video to your email can increase the click rate by 300%. Remember to optimize interactive emails for mobile devices.
- Capitalize on previous success.
Analyze your email campaigns to understand why some work and others don’t. Review open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates to measure the usefulness of each email. Use audience segmentation to hone in on specific needs or interests that can make your campaigns more useful and less unwelcome to your recipients.
People Really Do Want To Hear From You
It’s encouraging to know that at least 49% of consumers say they like to receive marketing emails from their favorite brands every week. So you’re probably not emailing your best customers too often. You’re making them happier when you do.
11outof11 Knows Email Marketing
When you’re ready to improve your email marketing and create standout content for it, connect with 11outof11. Request a complimentary call with an 11outof11 expert. Contact us to learn more.