Tips to Boost the Success of Your Email Marketing

Even though you put a lot of time and energy into creating the “perfect” email, you have to realize that not every email you send is going to perform well. That’s why you analyze your email marketing metrics. After taking a look at your analytics, you should optimize your emails so that they are as effective as possible. In this post, we’ll discuss how to improve email marketing metrics.

Why Email Optimization Matters

Even if your email campaigns are doing well, there is always room for improvement! Email marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it process, so you need to look for opportunities to boost your success. There are many components you can tweak in your email to see if your email metrics increase.

How to Optimize Your Emails

Here are a few approaches to optimizing your emails and improving your email metrics.

If you have a low open rate, try:

• Optimizing the subject line

If you have a low open rate, then maybe your subject lines aren’t appealing to your subscribers. You can fix that by ensuring that your subject line is clear and concise. Also, be sure to front-load keywords or key phrases that will instantly grab your audience’s attention.

For example, instead of writing “Come join us at ABC Park for our 2nd Annual Picnic” try using, “2nd Annual Picnic at ABC Park: Join Us!” By placing the point of the email at the very beginning of the subject line, your audience will immediately know what it’s about, even when they’re skimming.

Lastly, avoid pushy subject lines. People don’t like being told what to do. If your email subject lines are constantly asking your readers to take an action without showing how it benefits them, they’re not going to click. Be sure to convey value in your subject lines.

• Setting better and clearer expectations for subscribers

Your subscribers could be ignoring your emails because when they opted in to hear from you, they didn’t expect to hear from you so frequently. So one thing that could improve your open rates would be to cut back on the number of emails you send.

Be sure that when you send an initial email to a new subscriber that you confirm how frequently you’ll be reaching out to them via email. This will help clearly set expectations with them.

• Double-checking your segmentation

Segmentation is an essential email marketing practice. By segmenting your contacts, you are ensuring that they are receiving relevant content. However, if you notice that your open rates are low, double-check that your lists are receiving information that pertains to them. More often than not, they’re ignoring your emails because they don’t see how it’s relevant to them.

If you have a low click-through rate, try:

• Tweaking your call-to-action

A low click-through rate can indicate that your CTA didn’t convey the value of the content to your reader. Before you start to make changes, ensure that you only have one CTA per email. If you are sending an email, and it’s not a newsletter, then do not include multiple, different CTAs. Giving your reader too many options will cause them not to click on anything.

After you ensure that you are only asking your reader to complete one action, then you can start to tweak the CTA button. There are many components to a CTA you can change, but be sure to only change one element at a time. By doing this, you can track exactly what changes were successful with your audience. You can change the copy, the color, the font, or the alignment.

In case your user doesn’t scroll to read more on your email, especially if they’re reading on mobile, then you need to ensure that you have a CTA placed above the fold in your email. You can have another button placed near the bottom of the email so that your reader doesn’t have to scroll to the top. Multiple CTA buttons in an email are okay, as long as they all have the same goal.

• Using a responsive template

Another possibility for a low click-through rate is that your email template didn’t display correctly on your reader’s device. This is the direct cause of not using a responsive template. If your subscriber couldn’t read your email, then they couldn’t click through to continue engaging with your organization! Make sure that you design your emails with mobile in mind.

• Including white space in your copy

Your copy helps tell your reader why they should click on your CTA and engage with your organization. If you send your reader a text-heavy email with little-to-no spacing, then you will notice a lack of engagement.

White space is the blank space in between text and images that helps create a visually appealing result. Keep your copy concise and use white space to help your reader scan the email easily. They should be able to get the gist of the email just by scanning, and if they are interested they can fully read for the details.

When you are able to get your message across clearly, then your reader will see the value in your content and want to click through.

What about the other email metrics?

If you’re noticing low conversion rates, then the chances are that your landing page isn’t living up to the expectations that your email set. After all, your reader clicked through and made it to the next step. So make sure that your emails lineup with your overall goal.

If you have high bounce rates, ensure that you have entered the correct email address. If it is correct and produced a hard bounce, then do not attempt to email that contact again. Doing so will hurt your email deliverability in the future. Clean your email contact lists regularly to maintain a healthy bounce rate (2% or lower).

When you keep track of your email marketing analytics closely, you’ll know which elements to optimize in your email. By using these email optimization techniques to improve your metrics, you will maintain an effective email marketing strategy.

To ensure you are sending effective email workflows, download our free slide deck guide for email marketing tips and best practices!