Email Marketing Optimisation: How To Guide

Email Marketing is a critical part of any digital marketing strategy, but it has challenges. On average, over 347.3 billion emails are sent daily, proving email is quite the popular form of communication, but the question is – how do you stand out?

In this blog, we eradicate bad email marketing optimisation practices to strengthen B2C (business-to-consumer) relationships.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a high-powered marketing channel where your business uses email communication to promote your brands and services. Email marketing is a prime opportunity to promote your latest offerings, new products, and services or, most commonly, promote offers and discounts.

By having and implementing an email marketing strategy, it can support your business with lead generation, increasing brand awareness, building B2C relationships and keeping your customers further engaged in your brand through different types of content.

Check out our post, for more on the do’s and don’ts of email marketing!

How to Achieve Fool Proof Email Marketing Optimisation:

Subject lines

The subject line of any email is the first thing (other than your brand contact name), and its goal is to hook your audience. It needs to grab attention and persuade a user to open your email and read on.

Well-optimised subject lines must be relevant to your audience’s needs or desires. It must provide some pain point relief and offer them something worthwhile. You should mould your subject lines with the recipient’s name and offer them something they cannot refuse. On average, 33% of emails are opened based on the content within the email subject line.

There are various ways you can target your audience via subject lines:

• ‘Laura, Open for 20% off Summer Dresses Today!
• Struggling with SEO, Paul? We can help!
• Need a Digital Agency Immediately, Brian?
• Amy, Let’s Track Your Analytics Together!

Something to consider is creating a sense of urgency within your subject line. Using words like ‘Today’, ‘Immediately’ ‘Now’ can create a sense of urgency in the human brain. Nobody likes to miss out on an offer, so use this to your advantage.

Personalise Your Sender Information

It’s important to pay close attention to who your audience is receiving emails from. Similarly to a subject line, the ‘from’ name can have a significant impact on whether a contact opens your emails or not.

If you appear as a stranger in somebodies inbox, your email will (in most cases) end up straight in the bin. Similarly, you could think your brand or business is recognisable enough to use a name only your audience would be familiar with – avoid this when targeting new customers.

Emails from a recognisable source should include a name in the ‘From’ field on an email, but in many cases, it’s most effective to use your company or campaign name. Part of being recognisable via email doesn’t just include the ‘sender’ option; it means being consistent is key. Ensure you are consistent across your email contact information, including the email address, to avoid confusion.

Include Great Content and Links

After you’ve persuaded someone to open your email with everything we have discussed above, the next step is to keep them there and interested. Email can be used to promote all sorts of content, blogs, new products, services, news and company updates. This information should be kept clear, concise, easy to read and accessible. Don’t bother waffling; tell them why you’re emailing them, how it benefits them and what steps to now take.

Then, make sharing the content the most simple thing about your email marketing optimisation strategy. Allow your emails to be forwarded, but for a more personal, brand-awareness approach, include links to social media networks in each email. This allows you to show off your other social media channels and allow the reader to investigate them.

Provide Clear Direction

A CTA (call to action) is a marketer’s golden ticket to securing leads, increased conversion rates and sales. By this point, you’ve managed to get your emails opened, thanks to your impressive subject line and personalisation. You’ve also managed to get them read thanks to the informative, helpful and interesting content included in the email.

Now, you need to tell your audience where to go next, what action to take and what they can get from reading your email.

Example: You sell watches and are implementing an email marketing campaign to showcase your new futuristic-style watch. When you reach the end of your content or advertisement information about the watch within your email, include a CTA such as ‘Don’t get stuck in the past – get the Future35 whilst stocks last’.

Not only are you providing a button which should take them to a new location, but you are also driving urgency by saying ‘whilst stocks last’ and ultimately encouraging them to purchase. Research has shown that button-based CTAs improved click-through rates by 127%!

Personalise to Your Audience

HEY *insert name* YES YOU. Doesn’t it feel nice and warm getting an email directly for you? Well, it does for us.

Make your email receivers feel as though you are talking directly to them. ‘Ellie, here’s your discount’ or ‘Callum, have a drink on us’ are a few examples for your inspiration.

The human brain is more inclined to open and become curious about content that is specifically targeted towards us as human beings. This is solidified by research into the open rates of personalised emails shows an average of 26%. 

Be Mobile-Friendly

Email on mobile is huge – nearly 1.7 billion users check emails on their mobile phones, so focussing on mobile within your email marketing optimisation strategy is crucial. Adapt your content and email design to appear on emails with no problems or broken imagery. It’s important to ensure that the content is accessible to any audience, regardless of the type of device they are reading on.

How gutting would it be to miss out on conversions because you didn’t take accessibility into account?

Don’t Force a Relationship

There is nothing more irritating than being poked and prodded by a business that is just refusing to leave you alone. Similarly, it’s infuriating when you can’t see a way to stop it. Allow your customers the choice to receive your marketing communications by including an ‘unsubscribe’ button at the end of an email. Chances are most won’t use it as the overall unsubscription rate is 0.17%, but it’s best to allow the option.

Looking to take your business to the next level? Look no further than ROAR Digital Marketing Digital Consultancy Services. Our team of experts are dedicated to providing top-notch consultancy that will help your business grow and thrive.