Did you know that Email Marketing is still up to 40 times more effective than social media and email users will grow to an estimated 4.3 billion in 2022?
In today’s video and article we cover 7 time-tested best practices that will up your conversions, and take your email marketing metrics to brand new heights.
Email Marketing Video Tutorial
1. Why Email Marketing Needs A Good Subject Line
First technique is nailing the subject line. This is the genesis for everything. If you don’t have a great subject line, I don’t care how good your email is or what offer you’re giving, your prospect will never know.
That’s right, Bad Subject Line = No Open. People spend hours, days on an email and send a horrible subject line. A good subject line requires understanding your end user. They’re thinking about themselves.
What’s In It For Me?
They’re getting hundreds of emails a day you must give them a reason to open your email. We have three tactics to get that reason. Number one is benefit driven. How am I going to Benefit?
Number two is a pain driven subject line, removing their pain. Still benefit driven, just coming at it from the pain side. For more on pain points and how to use them, check out my website content strategy post.
2. Curious How Email Marketing Really Works?
Wondering why I skipped the third subject line tactic? I didn’t, I just used it instead. It’s curiosity! Make them curious. What’s on the other side? I have to learn more. I have to keep reading.
The best marketers will use a combination of two or three of the tactics at once, curiosity being the third most effective and benefit and pain being the leaders.
Great marketers also research what customers look for and how they like to get it. Check out my SEO content strategy article for more on the language your customers use.
A New Era Of Email Marketing
Our second email marketing technique is optimizing your first sentence of the email. This is almost as important as the subject line itself.
We’re in the new era of email marketing. We’re inside mobile phones, tablets, apps. Now when you look at email, there’s a first sentence preview. It’s like a second subject line.
People are making decisions to engage based on first sentences. So continue with subject line tactics and dig a little deeper into your benefit, pain, curiosity, and keep it short.
3. When Your Email Marketing Is Above The Fold
A lot of beginners make the mistake of putting their call to action at the bottom of their email.
Our third strategy is putting a call to action above the fold. The fold refers to when people use to fold their newspaper. In web browsing its the viewable (top of the) screen, before having to scroll down.
Don’t make your prospect work. Emails can be long, just make sure you have click-ability above the fold. This will improve click through ratio and much more.
Now You Need Multiple Calls To Action
Our fourth technique is to have multiple calls to action throughout your email is just smart. You want more places the reader can click, one click for every 100 words.
If you have a 500 word email, you want 5 calls to action. The goal is that you get them to engage and go to the next place, next sales page, blog post, wherever you want. Take them on a fun journey of clicks.
4. What Clickable Images Mean For Email Marketing
Our fifth technique is clickable images. They are like two birds one stone. They’re engaging and make people forget they are triggering a call to action. Almost like an invisible click!
You can use your own images or stock images, just make sure they are engaging. Squint your eyes, do they still stand out? Images with faces are always click magnets.
I like to make videos and turn them into pieces of content. I’ll use screenshots of videos for a clickable image to the video. Check out my content multiplication blog for more about this wonderful time-saving technique.
ALERT: Don’t Make Your Images Too Big
This is very important. You don’t want your images to be too big. A lot of internet service providers will put you into the promotions or spam folder if you do.
Downsize your images, optimize them for web and email use. Image size also impacts the speed emails load. We’ve all gotten emails that don’t load. That means no dice, no open, complete waste.
I use a lot of marketing automation in my businesses, sending exponentially higher volume. If I make one image too big and send out tens of thousands of emails that don’t load, it’s catastrophic.
5. Don’t Give It All Away In Your Email Marketing
Our sixth best practice is to not give it all away in your email. I see this mistake being made all the time. The prospect gets the whole movie in the trailer.
You need to save reasons for the reader to move through your funnel process. A reason to go to your sales pages, blogs, or respond to your future retargeting marketing content. You want to have surprises.
If you give away all fifty sales page bullet points away in your email, there will be no curiosity left to drive their purchasing decision at later points. Instead, elaborate on certain details, tell stories, go deeper into the solution.
6. P.S. You’ll Love This Last Email Marketing Tip
Our last tip for today is using the PS area of the email. Readers are skimmers. They don’t read every word, they skip through your email and where do they end up? P.S.
The P.S. is a quick recap of the email. Only a sentence or two summarizing what you said. Give them another round of benefit, pain, curiosity, and another a call to action.
PS is one of the most read areas of an email, just like old-fashioned letters. PS also has one of the highest click-through ratios of all the linkable areas inside your email.
P.P.S. That’s Right We Are Not Done Yet
There is also a P.P.S! One last spot for your reader to click at the end. Treat it the same as the P.S. just mix it up and use another combination of tactics!
In my own personal business we send over 4 million emails per year. I have first hand seen the positive impact just one of these techniques has. Imagine using all seven!
My name is Steve Nixon. Thank you so much for watching and reading. If you enjoyed this video and article, I encourage you to visit us at strategysamurai.com or on YouTube. Thanks, I’ll see you soon