Across the board, open rates for email marketing campaigns are notoriously low. Although agriculture, government and non-profits tend to see open rates above 25%, for many industries, an open rate in the high teens has you jumping up and down like a kid who just got a Furby for Christmas in 1998.But email isn't dead yet. Here are some tips to make it a bit easier to run an effective email marketing campaign.
- Get cozy with the clone button.Creating a marketing email from scratch can be a real pain. Work smarter by creating a template that you can reuse and modify for each unique email. It reduces effort and ensures consistency throughout the campaign.
- Keep it short and sweet.You have eight seconds to hook your audience. If you want to run an effective email marketing campaign, your message has to be clear, concise and to the point. And it starts with the subject line. Pay attention to character counts, reading level and environment context.
- CTAs are a must.What do you want your audience to do after they read your email? Tell them. Clearly, more than once and ideally in a bright, contrasting color that catches their eye. Make your calls to action specific and painfully obvious. Use A-B testing to try out different approaches and see which is most effective.
- Send to a healthy, legal list.For the love of all things PR, please stop buying lists. Not only is it rude to bombard people with emails they didn't ask for (and may not even want), but it can also damage your trustworthiness in the eyes of potential customers - and Google. Know what is and isn't kosher according to the opt-in laws that regulate commercial email messages in your country (CAN-SPAM Act in the States and CASL in Canada).
- Let data be your guide.Last, but definitely not least, rely on the analytics in your email marketing software to determine if your campaign was effective. Review the data to see what worked and what didn't. Don't be afraid to play with subject lines or experiment with the time of day and the day of the week. Running tests can help you discover the secret sauce for success. And remember, it's different for each specific audience so be wary of one-size-fits-all recommendations.
Do you have other tips for an effective email marketing campaign? Tell us in the comments below!