10 Actionable Tips for Better Email Marketing Results
Of all the marketing tools that are used for promoting eCommerce stores and products, email marketing ranks among the most powerful. Not only is it affordable, but it is particularly effective in capturing leads, keeping prospects in the sales funnel and converting them into paying customers.
If you’re hoping to reap all these benefits and leverage email marketing to its full potential, you will need to consider the factors that jointly affect the outcome of every email campaign. In this article, we’re going to outline strategies for optimizing each of the factors and offer practical guidelines for creating email campaigns that bring tangible results.
Use a trustworthy sender name
Sender name is usually the first thing people see when they open their inbox. And it’s also the first thing that can prompt them to click the spam button and permanently close the communication channel. As a matter of fact, 43% of email recipients will mark a message as spam based solely on the sender name or email address, without ever even opening it.
Probably the best piece of advice to prevent this from happening is to refrain from being too creative. Opt for your usual brand name – it will represent your business in the best possible way. You could also try blending the name of your marketing representative with your brand name to create a more personal feeling:
One thing that the majority of email marketers would agree upon is that using only the name of the marketing representative presents a substantial risk. Unless the recipient immediately recognizes the name, the email could end up in the trash folder.
Avoid no-reply email addresses
If a person has a question or a comment after they’ve received a marketing email from you, it only seems natural they should be able to click the reply button and send their inquiry. From recipients’ perspective, it wouldn’t seem fair that you can email them, but at the same time they cannot email you.
One-way communication conducted through a no-reply address can create an impression that a business is not interested in hearing what a customer or prospect has to say. They will receive one of those automatically generated responses such as Mail Delivery System — email could not be delivered and their message will go completely unnoticed:
Still, there are so many brands out there that use no-reply email addresses to distribute their content. This gives businesses that encourage replies a great opportunity to delight customers by making direct communication with them possible. In some cases, the mere availability of your business to receive replies might convert a dissatisfied customer into an advocate for your brand.
Craft a winning preheader text
If you’re wondering what a preheader is, it’s that short text that is displayed right next to the subject line in almost every modern email client. Email clients usually draw some text from the very beginning of your email and then show it in the preheader in order to give recipients a better idea about the content of each message.
The number of characters displayed varies from client to client and it also depends on whether you’re viewing email from desktop or mobile. And in case you haven’t been optimizing your preheaders, it is possible that the text that has been displaying next to your subject line is something like Email is not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
The first step in preheader optimization would be to start thinking about the preheader as an extension of the subject line. It should concisely summarize your promotion and convey the sense of value that will inspire recipients to open your message rather than rejecting it as spam.
Write compelling subject lines
As much as sender name and preheaders matter, subject lines matter even more. With a staggering 69% of recipients who report email as spam based solely on the subject line text, subject lines are definitely one of the factors that most directly affect email open rates.
They should summarize and reflect the content of your emails so make sure you only promise what you can deliver. Your customers will not appreciate feeling misled if your email content doesn’t deliver on its subject line promise.
Another important thing to remember is to do everything you possibly can to avoid triggering spam filters. This includes using caps lock sparingly (all-caps is a big no-no) and omitting phrases such as Buy now, Free or Click here, that are well known for flagging emails as spam.
Here are some other SPAM triggers you should definitely try to avoid:
Keep it simple and relevant
While it’s true that the process of crafting effective marketing emails can get complex, emails themselves should, in essence, be simple. Presenting too many offers and overstuffing with information can create indecisiveness and hesitation that often leads to a lack of any action.
Focusing on a lower number of offers that are more personalized (and thus more attractive) can increase the effectiveness of your message. Email segmentation in combination with creative ideas like offering store credit rather than traditional discount should help you achieve this level of personalization and send more targeted emails that recipients will better relate to.
The principle of simplicity applies to email formatting as well: a template with one big image, a little text and a prominent call to action, repeated for each of the offers included in the email, usually works best. As a rule of thumb, the simpler the content is, it is also easier to load correctly on different devices your recipients will be viewing emails from.
Here is a great example of simple and relevant messaging from Nike. The call to action is abundantly clear: customise and buy.
Also, notice the preheader text in the top left corner.
Create a sense of urgency
You’re well aware that besides your emails, your recipients also receive dozens, if not hundreds, of other messages every single day. This massive amount of promotional emails that are sent out on a regular basis creates a sort of a numbing effect that makes it difficult for marketers to grab recipients’ attention and inspire them to take action.
A limited-time offer can help recipients feel the urgent need to respond, so feel free to tie a discount, free shipping or another offer to a defined time frame. For the best effect, make the element of urgency a part of your subject line as in the example below and then carry it through your preheader, call to action, and landing page.
Of course, you should restrict the number of limited-time offers to prevent recipients from getting accustomed to seeing them in their inboxes and losing interest. Consistently promoting ‘limited-time’ offers can also hurt your credibility when it becomes apparent that they are not genuinely time-sensitive offers.
Include ALT attributes
For security reasons, some email users set their email clients to prevent the download of images by unknown senders. And since they will not be able to see the images you’ve included into your email, you need to make sure you set their ALT attributes.
The ALT tag is a short text that is shown in the place of an image in case that the image can’t be displayed. It is particularly important for images that represent your calls-to-action. Their ALT attributes should have actionable text to make it easier for people to understand where the link associated with the blocked image will lead them.
Notice how all the ALT tags in this welcome email from Macy’s are optimized to match the text that appears in the images. Thanks to this, even when images are not loaded, the recipient can easily figure out the content and locate their promotional code:
With images loaded:
This image, however, doesn’t really tell the recipient anything:
Set up cart abandonment emails
Shoppers sometimes begin filling their cart and then suddenly leave the website without actually making the purchase. If you’re using software that allows automation, you can set it up in such a way that a follow-up email is sent to shoppers who placed items in their cart, but never clicked the confirmation button.
In many cases, you might find that customers didn’t intend to abandon their cart, but a bug in the checkout process prevented them from completing the purchase. Besides getting rid of technical bugs, this can also be a great way to collect customer objections and find ways to address them earlier in the sales funnel.
Combine email with social advertising
Coupling email campaigns with social advertising can increase the impact of your email marketing. A great example comes from a US retailer who targeted about 925,000 email subscribers with regular emails and a coordinated Facebook ad campaign. They found that recipients who received both ads were 22% more likely to purchase an item than those who received just the email.
To go back to Macy’s for a moment, they also run a Facebook campaign parallel to their regular email newsletter campaign. Once a subscriber receives an update about hot deals and new items in the store, they are targeted with incentivized ads that show up in their Facebook newsfeed:
Be prepared for seasons and holidays
Each holiday and every change in season bring along creative and commercial potential that your eCommerce business can use to inspire sales. In order to prepare on time for the upcoming wave of sales, create a 12-month newsletter calendar with all the important holidays and special events. Remember, if you wait too long, your customers will have already decided to buy from your competitors.
Wrapping up
Any extra effort put into designing and carrying out your email campaigns can reward you with a better customer response and an increase in sales. Hopefully this post has given you some ideas that you can apply and experiment with. Now it’s your turn to work out the details and see what works best for your business. Happy emailing
