Imagine this scenario: Your email audience is turning over rapidly, click and open rates are plummeting, and you have no clue how to fix this mess. It might not be your worst nightmare, but it has to be pretty high up on the list if you’re serious about the future of your online brand. Thankfully, there’s plenty you can do to give your email marketing campaign some much needed virtual CPR. With these five tips, you’ll have the tools in hand you need to say goodbye to sluggish results and reinvigorate a disinterested audience.
Don’t Go the Quantity Route without Quality
One of the biggest mistakes an email marketing campaign can make is to go the spam route. While quantity isn’t always a bad thing, emailing your database all the time with junk is a surefire way to turn off your viewers in a hurry. If you’re already trying to keep up the pace with lots of regular emails and that’s not working, consider scaling things back until you start pumping out content that’s worth reading. By refining what they’re reading and then upping your monthly and weekly messages, you can rebuild an audience that’s tired of having to sift through offerings that are better suited for the virtual trash bin.
Clean Up that Preview Text
Just like web pages that don’t bother filling out the meta description for entries on Google, Bing, and the other search engines, having weak preview text can wreak havoc on your email’s chances of getting opened. Think of it this way: if you’re checking your inbox while enjoying a morning cup of coffee, are you going to click on the email with sloppy text that doesn’t fit in the preview area, or the one with a clean, simple explanation of what’s inside? Unless you’ve got a thing for poorly optimized emails, you’re probably going to make the same choice as your audience and click on the email with tidy and enticing preview text.
Power Words and Numbers Go a Long Way
Taking this a step further, make sure that your subject lines, preview text, and headlines in the actual email really pop in the viewers’ eyes. While this sounds like a marketing buzzword deal, it’s actually a big reason why some email lists generate massive traffic and others find their way to the spam folder. Sensory and emotional words are the big draw here because they evoke response from viewers.Instead of the bland “please read” approach, try telling your viewers what happens if they don’t read your email, or what they can gain by reading it. This way, you’re creating a call to action that gets them interested in what you’re actually promoting. Similarly, using digits instead of writing out numbers also stands out in an inbox. In fact, the “5” in the headline of this post might have been the hook that got you to click on this tip list in the first place.
Time is Money
Time is money; it’s an old saying that’s mostly meant to teach people the value of a great work ethic, but in this case we can give it a new spin. Basically, when your viewers are reading your emails is just as important as what they’re actually reading. If you’ve got great content but can’t seem to generate any traffic off of it, it might be time to switch things up as far as when you’re shooting off these emails. Depending on your target audience, figuring out what time’s best might be a little tricky, but that’s nothing that some A/B testing or trial and error can’t sort out. Once you’ve got it figured out, you can check this box off of the list of potential problems that are keeping your readers disinterested.
Give Them Something Extra
Last, but certainly not least, is the tried and true concept of giving your audience more stuff to get them in your virtual storefront. If all else fails, there’s nothing wrong with offering better discounts more often to liven up a flagging or stale email list. Considering that the alternative, facing turnover that hovers around a 33 percent a year average, is basically the last rites for any email list, it can’t hurt to see if giving an extra coupon or limited time offer here and there can help. Combined with all the other tips and tricks on this list, periodically putting these kind of “enhanced” promos out could be just the spark your list needs to come back to life and get your bottom line in the green again.
