Key takeaways
- Power up subject lines: make them useful, unique, urgent and ultra‑specific, identify your brand, build trust and rapport.
- Show empathy in email content by addressing readers’ questions, comments and daily-life concerns to build goodwill after the open.
- Avoid spam filters: skip “spammy” words (examples: “buy,” “free,” “stop”) and fix coding/template errors so messages render on target platforms.
- Use holidays and local events in campaigns to break monotony and help your brand stand out.
- Embrace mobile: use responsive templates, keep copy brief and continually evaluate the mobile experience (with more than half of emails opened on smartphones and tablets).
Introduction
At the end of the day, there’s a reason why email marketing is known as the best way to reach your digital audience – when you do things right, nothing else can compare to the results that come with this process. However, just because there’s seemingly limitless potential held within this practice, that doesn’t mean you get a free pass to a happy ending. To generate a powerful following – and the sales that come with such a contact list – there’s plenty that needs to go right for your brand. With this in mind, let’s spend some time talking about five fast and efficient ways to give your email marketing return on investment (ROI) a healthy boost.
Power up your Subject Lines
Since the first thing your viewers see when a new email goes out is the subject line, Entrepreneur magazine’s Eric Samson points out that there’s no better place to start this discussion than with this portion of your message content. In order to capitalize on the ROI gains found within your subject line, Samson explains that you need to hit on three key points.
First, make sure that the subject line is useful, unique, urgent, and ultra-specific. Viewers don’t have time to waste on changes found within these headers, so get to the point and make sure it stands out in a big way. From here, try to identify your brand; it’s important that your audience knows exactly who is attempting to connect with them. Finally, great subject lines take these two attributes and add factors that promote trust and a rapport with the person on the other side of the screen when possible.
Show Empathy in Your Content
Once you’ve garnered that all important open via a strong subject line, Samson goes on to suggest that you continue to build goodwill with your readers by way of emphatic content. Making a point to highlight the fact that you’re willing to use this content to cover any questions, comments, or concerns regarding both the daily life of these audience members and your products or services shows that your brand is able to connect on a deep and meaningful level with consumers.
Avoid the Spam Filter
From a technical aspect, Eric Didier of MarketingProfs suggests that your brand can boost ROI by avoiding the spam filter. By avoiding “spammy” words both in your subject line and within your content, your email blasts can successfully bypass these filters and end up in front of your targeted audience.
Aside from succumbing to the temptation to use damaging words like “buy,” “free,” and “stop,” Didier also pinpoints coding errors as a way to trigger filtering on your messages. Before hitting send, make sure that your template functions properly on both mobile and traditional platforms. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when the response to this content is stymied due to unnecessary spam filtering.
Play to the Holiday
Is there an important or exciting holiday/event coming up in your region? If you answered “yes” to this question, then Social Media Today’s Veronica Taylor explains that you might be sitting on an ROI boosting goldmine. Whether it’s Christmas, Easter, or a more localized reason to celebrate, developing content that highlights these exciting times not only breaks up the monotony of generic offerings, it also helps your brand stand out while other organizations let these opportunities slips through the cracks.
Embrace the Mobile Future
Finally, if there’s only one piece of advice you follow from this look into boosting ROI, it needs to be the fact that embracing the mobile future of the email marketing world is vital to your campaign’s success. With more than half of all emails being opened on smartphones and tablets, it’s more important than ever before to get things right with your on-the-go customers.
Implementing responsive templates that shift to the needs of each device or platform, keeping message content brief and concise, and constantly evaluating the mobile experience from a critical perspective helps ensure that your brand is always on the cutting edge of this front of the email marketing industry and maximizing the impact of its mobile ROI potential.
Naturally, there’s so much more that goes into boosting ROI than just these five tips. However, if you’re strapped on time and looking for a few quick fixes to get things back on track in terms of extracting the maximum value from your email marketing operations, you’ll be hard pressed to find better tips that what we’ve covered here today. Once you’ve hit on each of these points and you’re ready to take the next step with your campaign practices, the sky is the limit in terms of your ROI potential.
FAQ
Subject lines that are useful, unique, urgent and ultra‑specific perform best. Also make the sender/brand clear and, when possible, include elements that promote trust and rapport with the reader.
Use your email content to address readers’ questions, comments and concerns about daily life and your products or services. That emphasis on helpful, empathic content builds goodwill and deeper connection after the open.
Avoid so‑called “spammy” words such as “buy,” “free” and “stop.” Also watch for coding or template errors that can trigger filtering, confirm templates function properly on both mobile and traditional platforms before sending.
Implement responsive templates that adapt to each device, keep message content brief and concise and continuously evaluate the mobile experience from a critical perspective. More than half of emails are opened on smartphones and tablets, so mobile optimization is vital.
Develop campaign content that highlights relevant holidays or local events. Doing so breaks up generic messaging, helps your brand stand out and captures opportunities other organisations may miss.
Apply the five fast tactics: improve subject lines (useful, unique, urgent, specific, identify brand, build trust), show empathy in content, avoid spam triggers and coding errors, use holidays/events in campaigns and embrace mobile with responsive templates and concise copy.
Confirm your template renders correctly on both mobile and desktop to avoid coding errors that can trigger spam filters or impede deliverability. Also review subject line and body copy for spammy words.
