Today, the average office worker receives 121 emails in a day. These include personal, professional, promotional, and spam messages that fill up our inboxes – many of which remain unread. However, despite the overflow of messages we receive, email marketing remains one of the most effective methods for engaging customers today.
To get noticed and receive the opens and clicks you want, you need to design a compelling email campaign. Here are some essential elements you’ll want to consider:
- The Subject Line | Just like the title of a newspaper or blog article, the subject line is what grabs the reader’s attention and capture interest. This is your first impression and a critical factor in determining whether or not your email gets opened. In just a few short characters, it needs to be descriptive, compelling, relevant, and concise in order to be effective.
- Personalization | The most important thing to remember about email is that it is a one-on-one conversation. Recipients don’t want mass-email threads clogging their inbox. Instead, make sure that your message appeals to the individual not the group. You can even personalize your email campaigns using software that includes the recipient’s name and segments your audience based on their interests. The more personal you are, the more successful your campaign will be.
- Body Content | Information today is all about short, snackable chunks. Readers don’t want to spend the time looking through a long-form message on their phones, tablets, and other devices. By using the right tone and wording you can create amazing content that is brief, appeals to the reader’s interests, and drives traffic to your website.
- Visuals | A picture is worth a thousand words. When you’re trying to keep body content as concise as possible, visuals are the perfect way to reinforce your message and make your email more appealing. Today’s drag-and-drop email marketing platforms make it easier than ever for anyone to create visually spectacular campaigns. You can add videos, pictures, GIFs, and other visuals to make your emails more engaging and interesting.
- Call To Actions | In order to have an effective marketing campaign, you need to have a call-to-action. The purpose of your email campaign is to drive a specific action from your audience. It may be reading your blog, purchasing a product, or referring a friend. Your call-to-action should be direct, positive, and urgent. “Visit us today.” “Get yours now.” Make sure that these directives are clear and stand out in your email to encourage click throughs and conversions.
- The Unsubscribe Link | One of the reasons email marketing is so effective, is that your audience has voluntarily chosen to receive your message. In order for this form of communication to continue to be valuable for both parties, your audience needs to want it. That means allowing those who are no longer interested to opt-out easily, so that you can focus your messaging on those who still wish to participate. You can even leverage your unsubscribe link to gather insight to improving your campaign by asking why an individual is leaving.
Email is great way to engage your target audience and customer base. Leverage this channel for your small or self-employed business to keep communication flowing in a more personal one-on-one conversation between you and your customers.