Email Campaign in Trouble? Mr. Email to the Rescue
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to stay in touch with your clients and prospects and build a base of loyal customers.
But if you’re not seeing measurable results from your email campaign, it may be time to re-evaluate your strategy.
In order to increase your conversion rate, email marketers can take some clues from landing page optimization techniques.
First, we’ll look at how the two venues are different, and then we’ll evaluate some techniques that are essential for both.
How Optimizing your Email Campaign is Different than Optimizing a Landing Page:
Think of landing pages like store-fronts—anyone can walk in—and email as a personalized letter—intended just for the recipient. Because of the personal nature of email, you’ll need to present yourself as a person having a conversation with another person. Email entails each of the following:
- Person-to-Person Conversation—Merge personalized data (name, birthday, user behavior) into your emails to deliver personalized messages to each subscriber.
- Increased Level of Trust—Subscribers have trusted you with a piece of personal information—their email address—and you should respect their privacy by not spamming and by sending valuable information that will benefit the recipient.
- Heightened Level of Interest—Signing up to receive your newsletter means the subscriber is already interested in what you have to offer. Take advantage of that by sending carefully crafted offers based on what you know about that person.
- Use of Surveys – Your email list is perfect for surveys. Keep them brief and around topics that will ultimately benefit them. Survey’s can tell you the preferred form of email (text only or including images), length and topics.
Techniques You Can Borrow From Landing Page Optimization for Your Email Campaigns
Despite the more personal nature of email, you can borrow ideas from landing page optimization in order to increase your engagement. Email optimization strategies should include:
- Stellar Copywriting—Content is king, especially in email marketing. People may be willing to read more in an email than they would on your website, but it should still be fresh, relevant, and well-written.
- Call to Action—Every email needs a call to action that invites the reader to do something. There’s no point in sending emails that don’t ask subscribers to take the next step. Make it clear, concise, and compelling.
- Video—Videos can dramatically increase conversion rate. Email campaigns generally do best with links to the video on your website.
- Social Proof—Testimonials can boost your conversion rates, but only if they appear genuine. People have gradually become cynical of overly gushy testimonials, so avoid anything that looks fake or made up.
- Testing – Just like you test your landing pages to determine the one that maximizes conversions, you need to test your emails. Once your list is large enough, send out two preliminary emails to a small group of people and see which version produces more clicks on your call to action.
Of course, once the subscriber has clicked on your email call to action, he’ll arrive on a carefully crafted landing page designed to move him forward to conversion—right? Spend time not only optimizing your emails, but also creating a stellar page for the reader to land on once he clicks.
