Email marketing – Some Top Tips from Weave Marketing

The best email strategies are based on customer insight; who are your customers, why are they interested in hearing from you and what do they want to hear from you via email. If you have any insight on your customers, use it to shape the content you send them; one size most definitely does not fit all when it comes to email marketing.

Building an email strategy can seem daunting, but here us some simple tips to improve open rates and the all-important click thrus:

1. Write a killer subject title

Your email has a lot to compete with in an inbox, so write a subject line that gives customers a reason to open the email, or a vague idea of what they can expect from it. Keep it short and punchy where possible and ensure it reflects your brands tone of voice to keep it authentic.

2. Content is king

Keep the email short and sweet, making sure it’s relevant to the reader and has a clear Call to Action (CTA) i.e. its very clear to the reader what you want them to go an do after reading your email.  Try not to overload one email with too many different messages as this will dilute its impact and will likely reduce the number of conversions you get.

3. Add relevant imagery to break up text.

The right image can inspire a successful action so use inspiring, eye-catching imagery to break up the text in your email. A lot of email clients block images by default. In these cases, the images won’t load so be sure to add alt text to all your images. Adding alt text within your email will convey your message to recipients, even if they can’t see the images right away.

4. Add links

Add links to your email (albeit sparingly!). In addition to your main CTA and images, consider including a noticeable text link (or two) as having more links increases the opportunity for engagement. A lot of readers expect to be able to click thru on an image, so ensure your images all have links added to them. Lastly, make sure to put at least one of the click thru’s above the fold of the email – this is really helpful for mobile users who view the emails very differently to desktop and may not read the entire email, so you want to have a main CTA quite early on in the email.

5. Include sharing options

Allow people to share on their social media and get them talking about you! This is especially effective if your email contains an offer, as it’s a great way to amplify the reach of the offer and will hopefully encourage wider take up. Beyond social, why not include a forward option? This is again another great way to promote further than your email list, and make it easy for your customers to share via email. Most email platforms will allow you to track the success of this so over time you can see what content resonate best and encourages the most sharing.

6. Mobile first

With the increase use of mobile devices for everything, it’s no surprise that over 50% of people open emails on their phone.  Ensure the design and layout of your email works for mobile first and provides a really excellent customer journey.

7. Test & Learn

It’s not rocket science when I say test your email first before sending out to your database. Send a test so you can review what it looks like, double check over spelling and grammar and ensure all links are working.

Email is a great tool for engaging with your customer. Ensure after each campaign you look at the results and see if it delivered what you expected it to. As you send more email campaigns out, its vital to gain a better understating of what’s working well vs. not so well. When you have this insight, you can tweak lots of different things (e.g. frequency of send, subject line, time and date of send, type of imagery used, length of email, types of offer, etc) to try and improve the effectiveness of your emails and better achieve the most important KPIs for your business (be it open rates, click thru rates, offer redemptions, website visits, etc.)

8. Email new sign-ups within 24 hours.

Once people have signed up to receive emails from you, send them a confirmation email within 24 hours, if not instantly. The welcome email is very important at it’s the first step in building a successful relationship with your customer. Start as you mean to go one –  this is the first email a potential customer will receive from you and usually receives the highest open rate as this is when the recipient is most likely to be engaged. So, think carefully about what you want them to take away from this all-important email.

9. Collecting customer data

GDPR is the biggest change to impact email marketing this year. Quite simply, it’s the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into force in May 2018. Its intent is to strengthen and unify data protection for individuals. It will enforce tougher fines for non-compliance and breaches, whilst giving consumer more of a say over what companies can do with their data. So what does it mean for you and your data collection?

• Consent to use data must be an active, affirmative action by the user
• Pre-ticked boxes or opt-outs will not be allowed as part of new legislation
• Organisations must keep a record of how and when an individual gave consent
• An individual may withdraw their consent whenever they want

10. Call us!

Having the right email data in place, a considered design and structured process to review success will give you a great platform from which to measure, test and develop an email program that will deliver positive ROI for your business in the long term. Our bespoke email marketing package includes an analysis of your existing campaigns and performance with clear recommendations to improving effectiveness through campaign planning, targeting, messaging and design. Please contact us if you’d like to know more about this, we’d love to hear from you.

alison@weave-marketing.co.uk

www.weave-marketing.co.uk