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Every marketer faces the challenge of effective email campaigns, but the best marketers take that challenge head-on. Improving email performance takes extra effort, as these emails must be targeted, relevant, and break through the noise and hurdles of our inboxes.
To help, Heinz Marketing and RingLead teamed up to break down the necessary pieces of an effective email in this infographic below. With some hard work and creativity, you can catapult success before you hit the send button. Here are some tips to do it:
Before you start the email process, you must find the right contacts for outreach. It’s crucial that you identify your desired contacts in a matter of seconds in order to save loads of time.
The truth is, an email will not be received unless you have the right data. Therefore, strong data and finding the missing data, will ensure the right email gets to the right contact, each and every time.
If your email went to the correct address, did it hit the inbox or get caught in spam? Check your emails against an email spam system before you hit send. New email spam systems pop up all the time, so go online and search for tools that can check to see if the email that you're sending looks like spam.
If it does look like spam, and it gets scored like spam, it's never going to be seen. Email spam systems break your email down, telling you what's wrong, allowing you to fix it.
Even the best email will fall flat if you are sending too many emails, too often, to the same people. Cadence is also about timing. There is a right time to send an email, and there is a wrong time to send an email. A detail as seemingly trivial as the timing of an email can determine whether or not a lead responds at all. For example, many tests have found that emails sent during the workday on Tuesdays and Thursdays tend to have the highest open rates.
Great emails are all about personalization. People are wary of being spammed, and your email to even just 15 people with the same message can come across as spammy. You’ve got to write that email to each and every one of your audience members if you want to get traction. For example, look at your "Sent From" address. Is it from a generic marketing email address or from Jane Smith in Marketing? The “From” name should appear as a person’s name so it doesn’t feel impersonal and auto-generated.
If your email is reaching the right inboxes and the right audience, ask yourself, is it interesting? Should they care? Are you targeting the right demographic? Have you segmented the email? Does it assert influence? The message, audience, and content itself needs to grab attention.
Impact is not about gut feelings. Impact is about metrics. Measure the impact of your email by the long-term success of the customer that comes from your emails. Focus on the real numbers, such as opportunities and pipeline, as a result of email. These numbers trump actions, such as open rate and clicks. According to RingLead CEO, Donato Diorio, “An impactful email is one that creates a customer.”
The subject line is one of the most important pieces of the email puzzle. Spend your time writing and rewriting it, and test different versions. When creating it, remember: Tell, don’t sell. Strong open rates can indicate a trusted sender and a compelling subject line.
The body of the email, or the email copy, should follow your overall campaign messaging and guidelines. Make sure it’s clear what you’re asking recipients to do. No one wants to read through a soft, boring email, especially in the intro. Maybe I haven’t heard of your company, but that’s not what’s really important. Tell me why your product is fantastic and how it will help me solve my problems early in your email.
Simple email design with a good color balance helps drive engagement. If you're using images, make they aren't too big and don't overload the email. Not only can they be triggered as spam, but they may get in the way of your message.
Use bullet points, graphics or video to engage your audience. This grabs their attention which really is the game. You’re going to be one of 200 emails that your audience sees, so find ways to get that person’s attention.
The CTA should be easy to follow so the user can rapidly and efficiently get to the desired destination.
Include a strong call to action at the end of every email, and if possible, include an incentive. Be strong yet non confrontational.
Test the links. After you test them once, test them ten more times and ask other team members to test them.
Do you have tracking in place and are you going to look at it? We’re in an age where sending emails blindly will no longer cut it. In order to thrive in 2015, you need to know which email strategies are most effective. The way to do that is through analytics. Create dashboards showing email opens and customer engagement and report on it weekly, if not daily.
Check out even more tips on email success with the latest infographic from Heinz Marketing and RingLead.
