Email marketing campaigns still remain an effective and successful marketing tool for any business. They are a highly effective in lead acquisition and work well to increase online traffic to your websites and landing pages. Moreover, campaigns contribute to higher ROI and attracting the attention of a more invested and interested audience for your content.
[quotes]Despite the apparent benefits of email marketing, it is often viewed by many marketers as a challenge[/quotes] – one that is almost not worth the effort. The reason? It seems difficult to convert email recipients into qualified leads, long-term clients, or paying customers.
While the cause of low email conversion rates could be that you are sending the right email content to the wrong recipients, the true root of this challenging problem might just be that you aren't taking it seriously.
Subconsciously, you have a bias against email marketing and think to yourself that you are, in fact, taking your email marketing strategies very seriously – but they just aren't getting the job done. You may have pushed email marketing to the side in favor of developing the newest “hot idea” like developing your mobile strategies or focusing on the next hot social media marketing site...more because it’s being flogged in the media than for the results you are getting from it for your products and services.
[quotesright]Regardless of what you are doing, you still need to continue your email campaigns. [/quotesright] These are the ones where you get 100 percent of the attention of your prospect and – if you are doing this right – staying in touch with a willing and interested audience on your schedule.
Here are 14 tips to help you increase the effectiveness and improve the conversion rates of your email marketing efforts:
- [quotesright]Start looking at email marketing as a relationship-building effort rather than an occasional one-sided conversation[-quotesright] with your leads and customers. As you build a relationship with your audience through email marketing, it provides invaluable long-term benefits like increased loyalty, consumer satisfaction, and a stronger B2C bond.
- As with all online content, [quotesright]avoid using technical terms, jargon, and "fancy" phrasing[/quotesright] that won't be understood by the average person. You aren't sending your emails to your industry peers; they are being sent to people who likely have little knowledge or experience in your area of expertise. They are beginners, so keep the content simple and easy to understand.
- Do as much as you can to inspire trust in your company. People will not commit to a relationship with a company if they feel it is false or superficial in any way. Increasing consumer loyalty is done through increasing trust, and it can provide your business with long-term repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals that are invaluable.
- [quotesright]Don't rely on images to convey your message. [/quotesright] Some users, especially on mobile devices, have image blocking options activated to reduce data usage rates or decrease page load time.
- Use A/B testing (alternative headlines, calls to action, offers, colors, wording, etc. Simple changes can make big differences in results.) as much as possible to determine what subject lines, images, advertisements, calls to action, or other content is going to be most effective with your recipients. [quotesright]You should continually test your material even after you find something that works, [/quotesright] because there's always something that will work better!
[quotesright] Test. The questions are all in here, the answers are all out there with your prospects. [/quotesright]
- Make sure your email content is optimized for readability on smartphones and mobile devices (the technical term is “responsive design”). Mobile use has increased dramatically over the past several years, and [quotesright]70 percent of people between ages 18 and 44 are using mobile devices to access their email. [/quotesright] It's vital that your marketing material is able to reach them effectively.
- Avoid a premature sales pitch. Before you can convince someone to take a desired action, you have to do two things:
- Make them aware of what is being offered, and
- Make them interested in what you are offering. After informing and attracting, you can then move them toward the final stage of making a commitment.
- Develop a list of possible objections that your audience may have to entering your sales funnel. Perhaps they are concerned about the fact that your offer is much costlier than your competition or that your business is newly formed. They might even feel as though you don't completely understand their needs, problems, or concerns. [quotesright]Raise and resolve these objections in the content of your message wherever possible. [/quotesright]
- Use a variety of analytic tools to determine what works and what can work better. Will a short preview video sell your product better than no video at all? Does a CTA at the top, middle, or bottom of your message entice users to click more often? [quotesright]There are many different factors in your email message that will influence visitor actions, [/quotesright] so it's important to keep a close eye on analytics.
- Reward consumer loyalty. If you have repeat customers or those who provide you with qualified referrals, reward them with an incentive to make another purchase. This type of incentive could be a percentage discount, flat-rate discount, buy-one-get-one offer, or any other type of reward that makes them feel appreciated for being patrons of your company.
- Increase awareness of your company, brand, product, or service with message consistency. If you have a logo, use it in all your emails. The same would apply to a photo of a product or other elements that put the same image in front of your audience over and over. [quotesright]This will help to embed your company in the minds of your target consumers. [/quotesright]
- Don't neglect to include consumer reviews where applicable. The use of consumer reviews can provide an increase of up to 13 percent in your email conversion rate, so it's important to let your target audience know what other consumers are saying about your product, service, or company.
- For online marketplaces, [quotesright]follow through on cart abandonment[/quotesright] and find out why your visitors did not complete their purchase. This can be done with automated software that will send a personalized message to the consumer asking why they chose not to complete the transaction. Not only will it let you know if there are technical issues with your cart system, but [quotesright]it can also bring awareness to consumer objections that you can address[/quotesright] in future email marketing messages.
- Coordinate your email marketing campaigns with social media marketing. Studies have shown that companies who include marketing messages in emails and on social networking sites see an increase of 22 percent in conversion rates, as opposed to recipients who were sent just an email.
Despite what you may think about the ability of email marketing to attract traffic and generate leads and customers, it remains second only to online searches as the most effective way to do so. [quotesright]It is a marketing tool you cannot ignore if you want your marketing efforts to succeed.[/quotes]
Combined with other tools and strategies, the right email marketing methods can provide you with an almost unlimited pool of potential leads, paying customers, and interested traffic to your website or page.