5 quick ideas to improve email campaign open and click through rates

Most of the so-called internet marketing experts say that email marketing is gradually becoming ineffective, but do not let that fool you.

If you are conversant with these easy steps outlined below, you will be able to optimize all the emails you send and dramatically increase your open and click through rates.

Personalisation

It is important for you to personalise your emails as it helps to build trust and familiarity between you and your readers. Add your recipient’s name in each of the following places:

The subject line of the email (this will assure the recipient that your email is not just spam)
The greeting (you may use either the first or last name of the recipient)
In statements and questions in the body of the email

Convenient Layouts

Your eyes can easily be strained by reading a computer screen. Therefore, it is important that you make your emails easy to read.

First of all, limit your email lines to 40 characters wide. This will require you to make use of the enter key instead of allowing your email client to determine the length of each line. This may sound odd, but it greatly improves readability of the mail because the eye can skim through the emails without having to move from side to side. This in fact is the reason why magazines and newspapers make use of columns in their publications.

Next, make use of the enter key after every six or eight lines. Creating spaces like this makes the mail appear neat and inviting and also breaks the text into smaller chunks which the eyes can easily skim through, even adding in an image or two can help to tell your subscribers a story or help visualise what you are talking about.

Not forgetting making your email template responsive and making sure it displays correctly across multiple email clients and multiple devices; pc’s laptops, mobiles and tablets, even consoles now you can browse the web and check your emails. You can use a service like Litmus or Email on Acid to run tests of your email campaign for you.

EDI-Email-v2

Your Call to Action

Your call to action refers to what you want your readers to do after they must have read your email. Your call to action needs to be easy to understand and also tell the recipient of the mail exactly how to take action. You should include the instruction at least twice within the body of the mail.

For this most companies use buttons to entice reader to click through to their website, be aware though as images might be blocked be default it might be an idea to use http://buttons.cm/ to create text buttons instead. Below is an example of the button we created using Bulletproof Buttons for our own newsletter.

Text Button

Segment your data

Segment offers to certain subscribers, so maybe target campaigns on current email openers or link clickers in a previous campaign. By doing this you will only be emailing subscribers who have shown a previous interest in your product or service, maybe you can give out a discount code to encourage them to make a purchase on the product they previously showed an interest in?

You can always do the opposite and email subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked in a while, again using a voucher or discount code to try to persuade these subscriber to make a purchase via your website.

Avoid the use of spam language

The use of certain symbols such as “:) $$$ !!% etc, can make your email appear like spam to both your recipients and spam filters. The use of this sort of communication will diminish your delivery rate. A good idea would be to make use of spam checker programs to ensure that you did not include any trigger symbol or word in your emails and test these to yourself prior to sending. Some email service providers have a subject testing function, so make use of this to see how they rate your subject line, before sending!

Allow your readers to easily Opt Out.

Each email you send to your list should include a link that allows your readers to opt out easily and quickly. It should be automatic such that when the link is clicked on, it will direct the reader to a page where a single click will be required to stop your mails from reaching their email box. This helps to reassure your readers that you are concerned about spam issues (in most countries, including an opt out link is compulsory).

Over time subscribers may no longer be interested in your product or service, or maybe their circumstances change, so don’t be disheartened if people decide to unsubscribe. It at least shows 3 things;