5 Ways To Improve Your Email Marketing ROI

Published on:

What's the first thing you do at work? Check your emails? You're not alone. Let's take a look at how you can improve ROI for your email marketing campaigns and catch your leads at the right time.

Email is one of the few communication and marketing channels whose relevance remained intact in spite of the rapid development of social networks. On the contrary, the amount of sent and received emails keeps growing every year, hitting a 281 billion mark in 2018, with this number expected to reach almost 350 billion in 2023.

Reasons to include email marketing in your digital strategy are numerous. The number of email users still tops that of all social media combined and 58% of people claim that the first thing they do in the morning is checking their email. Most importantly, return on investment (ROI) that you get with email campaigns is huge compared to any other digital channel, as it stands around $44 per $1 invested.

However, this ROI can’t be achieved without a careful and knowledgeable approach to your campaigns. Here are a few tricks you can employ in order to use the full potential of this channel and maximize your income.

#1 The Power Of Segmentation

The true basis of a successful email strategy is careful targeting. Just like with any other type of marketing, with emails, it’s all about getting the right message to the right people. Naturally, not all people will be interested in all the news or offers you send them.

That’s why you need to divide your list into groups. There are numerous criteria you can use, from more general ones like gender, age or interests to economic ones like purchase history, purchase frequency or value of an average purchase. Sending special offers on ski helmets to those who bought bathing suits from you probably won’t be too effective, but singling out those who purchased skiing boots and sending this offer to them is a whole different story.

By segmenting your list properly, you will significantly improve the efficiency of your emails. As a result, the click-through rate can go up by as much as 100%. You can also expect to boost all other important stats, such as open rate, unsubscribe rate or unique opens.

Obviously, in order to make the most out of this approach, it’s crucial that you obtain accurate and timely info about your customers, prospects, and visitors. In this respect, a reliable free CRM system can save you a world of effort. Some of them will not just collect relevant info across different channels and platforms, but also help you automatize and execute the email campaign itself.

#2 Smart Copywriting & Engaging Subject Lines

The enormous amount of emails sent and received every day means that our inboxes are absolutely buried with messages we’ll never even notice. Thus it’s vital to grab people’s attention in the very first instant. The best way to do this is by coming up with a catchy subject line that will stand out among all the others, as 35% of recipients choose which emails to open based on this factor alone.

This can’t possibly be done without proper segmentation being carried out beforehand. Subject lines should be customized according to the recipients’ demographics and interests. Same goes for the content of the email, which should be brief, on point and using the tone and language that will intrigue and engage the particular reader you’re addressing.

Going a step further and personalizing the subject and content of the emails is also a great idea. Including the person’s first name in the subject is a good start, for instance. Keep in mind that personalized emails drive 6 times more interactions than non-personalized ones.

#3 Optimizing Landing Pages

Getting people to open your emails and click on your links is the first step, but that alone won’t improve your ROI. Since the goal is to increase conversions and sales, optimizing your landing pages is of utmost importance.

The key is that once you convince people to visit your website, you fulfill the promises you made in the email. If you offered an attractive discount or a giveaway to trick them into clicking, this will increase your traffic but these people aren’t likely to spend a single dime on your website.

Apart from that, you’ll need to pay attention to a number of other details. For example, you need to make the CTA buttons on the landing page clearly visible, but not too flashy or aggressive.

The content is also important. Try presenting the benefits your customers will have if they buy your product in a straightforward and concise manner. And adding functionalities that will make it easy for users to share the page on their social channels won’t do any harm as well.

#4 Optimizing For Mobile

In this day and age, having your emails designed and written so that they fit different devices is a must. In October 2016, mobile traffic has surpassed desktop traffic and it’s hard to see this changing any time soon. Moreover, 61% of email opens happen on mobile devices, and 71% of consumers will delete them if they don’t render properly.

This means that creating mobile-friendly emails can make a considerable difference when it comes to the cost-effectiveness of your campaigns. For instance, a subject longer than 32 characters will get cut off on an iPhone, so keeping it very short and concise is essential in this respect.

Furthermore, pay attention to the design of your emails, as well as your landing pages. Pages that don’t fit the mobile screen properly, small CTA buttons or illegible content will surely chase away a significant portion of potential customers.

#5 Perfect Timing

Proper timing of your emails can be a huge factor for the success of your email marketing efforts. This goes beyond just choosing the right days and hours to send them or taking care that you don’t spam your subscribers with too many emails.

Thanks to advanced automation tools, nowadays it’s quite easy to pick the exact right moment to send an email to the exact right person. There are a number of software that will automatically send emails, triggered by specific customer behavior, and thus increase your chance of converting.

For example, you can set these tools to track customer behavior of your website visitors and check which products they’ve been looking into. Then the software can send emails with special offers on related products even while they’re still browsing your site. Onboarding or transactional emails can be used for a similar purpose as well.

Finally, you should make the most of seasonal events such as Christmas or Black Friday. Here, it’s all about good timing and proper personalization of your messages and offers.

Test & Adapt

At the end of the day, keep in mind that every email campaign is different. These tips should be understood as general guidelines, but you’ll also have to figure out what specifically works for your brand and what doesn’t.

Thus it’s very important to continually analyze the results of your efforts and adapt accordingly. Never ignore bad feedback and stay fresh and innovative. Email campaigns can bring a lot to the table, so it’s always worth putting in some additional effort in order to do them right.

 

 

___________

Sharing is caring!