7 Hallmarks of Emails That Get a Response
Getting an email notification, yet 80% of the time, once we see the subject line of that email, we navigate away without even opening it. Sounds familiar?
As a brand, your email list is marketing gold. You need a way to get your products, events and ideas in front of your customers, and email marketing is still the best way to do it.
While sifting through emails, even if your recipients ultimately delete most of them, they still warrant a few seconds of their attention. And in those few seconds, you have the opportunity to capture the customer’s attention.
So how can you do it? There are 7 hallmarks of email marketing that will get the job done and positively impact your bottom line.
1. Catchy subject line
The best subject line should be clear, concise and informative. Someone’s unlikely to click on an email if they can’t tell what it’s about. So make sure not to get so poetic that you mask the message’s intent.
Run headlines and email subjects through Advanced Marketing Institute’s headline analyzer to get a sense of whether you’re on the right track.
If you have a reason to use one, numbered lists are great, too. They pique curiosity and are eminently clickable.
2. Recognisable brand
You undoubtedly have a logo and probably a colour scheme for your business. You may even have a set of fonts that you use across your website or blog.
Make sure those are reflected in your email. It’s great to open an email and feel like you’re on the company’s website, especially if it is a brand you trust or have a special relationship with.
3. Reputable sender
People are warier than ever of phishing schemes and spam email. If your email comes from an automated account, try to make the address something human-readable, even if it’s an @no-reply address. Better yet, send it from a name people will recognise.
4. Personalised greeting
Is your company a “hey”” sort of place, or are you more of a “hi” or a “howdy”? Make sure you use a service that will grab the recipient’s name and fill it in for you.
5. Snappy writing
Get to the point. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short. Use bullet points where you can. Highlight important phrases by making them bold or underlining them.
Specifically, give some thought to the beginning of the message, which will likely show up as a snippet in the recipient’s email client. You want that to be as eye-catching as the subject.
6. Call-to-action
What are you hoping to achieve with your email? Make sure you communicate that to your readers (and don’t bother to email if you’re not sure yourself).
Do you want them to share a Facebook post? Purchase a ticket to an event? Whatever it is, say it several times and in several different ways throughout your email. You can say it in a paragraph of text and also provide a brightly coloured button below that leads to the same action.
Make the boldest ask at the end of the message with simple directions to complete the task.
7. Just-in-time delivery
Maybe you’re a night owl and you’ve drafted an email at 1:30 am. But do you think that’s when your email will get the most traction?
Give a little bit of thought to when you click “send”. The hours of 8-10 am and 3-4 pm are canonically top engagement times for email, but that may be different for your organisation.
Many email services will help analyse the best time to send a given email. Go ahead and trust it, unless you have specific analytics that lead you to think otherwise.
It sounds like a lot to think about, but once you have a solid template for emails, the other steps will fall into place. The most important thing is just to start. Send that first email and then iterate on the steps you take for the next one.
Focus on these 7 areas and you’ll see your engagement levels rise. Good luck!
SOURCE: 99 Designs
