2021 while it’s been a challenging year for marketers due to factors such as constant algorithm changes, it’s been a good year for email marketing. 77% of marketers have reported seeing more engagement with email over the past year. Whether you’re an SME or multinational Corportation, email marketing is a strategy that can work for your business.
If your already running email marketing campaigns but you're getting little engagement or high bounce rates, you’ve come to the right place.
Here’s 6 tried and tested ways of improving your email marketing performance.
Make sure your emails are optimised for mobile devices
In 2021 mobile was the most popular place for emails to be opened, as the 2021 Litmus report share’s that 43% of emails were opened on mobile devices as opposed to 19.4% on desktops.
Especially now that remote working continues to grow in popularity, even post pandemic, using mobile as the primary device for opening emails is a trend that is likely to grow.
When designing your emails, it’s important to remember that it’s more than likely they will be first opened on a smartphone. An email that displays well on mobile will have a higher open rate and better engagement.
Segment your list’s
Email marketing campaigns work best when they are tailored and precise, but what’s the best way to ensure the right emails are landing in front of the right audience. The answer is list segmentation.
Email list segmentation is the practice of dividing your contacts into smaller email lists based on specific factors or criteria.
Lists can be segmented by many variables, some of the most popular including
- Demographics I.e., age, gender, occupation etc
- Geographic I.e., segmenting groups based on specific locations
- Customer behaviour I.e., purchase history, page visits etc
Segmenting your list’s means that recipients will be receiving content that is highly relevant to them, meaning recipients will find your content valuable and will be more likely to engage.
Regularly clean up your CRM/database
Cleaning up your database might be a task that continuously falls to the bottom of your to-do list, but it’s an important step for improving email marketing performance.
Review your list on a regular basis look out for typos within emails, remove invalid email addresses, remove any emails with spam in the address and remove inactive subscribers.
Before removing inactive subscribers, we would recommend re-engaging them using a tailored email campaign or using lead nurturing tactics, ultimately if they remain inactive, removing from your database would improve your ROI.
Keeping your database clean will improve your open rates but could also help reduce company costs. With many email marketing platforms, prices will vary based on the amount of contacts you have on your list, keeping your database clean ensures all contacts are worth the cost as they could be a potential lead.
Personalise your emails
Generic emails will come across as lazy and mass-produced. An email that is personalised will make the recipient feel like the email was tailor-made for them, and in turn they are more likely to open and engage.
CRM’s like HubSpot include functions that allow for email personalisation. Personalised email templates can be easily set up and emails can be personalised in many way’s including adding the recipient's first name, last name etc.
We would also recommend including a signature that allows the recipient to know who has sent the email, again making the email more personal. Maybe even add your photo also!
Write emails that will interest your audience
Customers now receive an overwhelming number of emails that ever before, HubSpot’s 2021 State of Marketing report revealed that over 30% of marketers are sending between 3 – 5 emails to customers per week.
With so many emails’ clogging up your audience's inbox, it’s important that your email cuts through the noise. Promotional emails are an essential part of email marketing, but they shouldn’t be the only content that your audience receives.
Focus on also creating content that is relevant, information and will interest or delight the reader. Share blogs, articles, how-to guides or relevant industry updates.
Take all aspects of your email into consideration, your email subject line will be the first thing that your recipient sees so many sure it grabs their attention and gives them an idea from the outset of what your email is about and what action you want them to take.
Test your emails
Testing is a crucial part of any marketing campaign, and in particular email marketing. Make it a standard practice that all emails are tested before being sent. Especially if you are using personalisation, you should be testing your emails prior to sending out to your subscription list.
Before sending out any emails make sure you carry out these steps
- Preview your email using your email builder and check it works for both desktop and mobile
- Check all your links within the email work correctly
- Send a test email to yourself so you can see what the email will look like from the perspective of your recipients
Popular email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp, have a built-in preview and test function within their platforms to make testing your emails even easier.
Enjoyed these tips? Why not check out our 7 tips for an effective inbound marketing strategy.
