by Jaren Nichols, Chief Operating Officer at ZipBooks
Email marketing is a great way to connect with your customers, increase your online presence and drive traffic to your website. However, email marketing is no walk in the park and often business owners feel forced to settle with a good open rate, but a distinct lack of click-throughs.
Email click-through rate is one of the best ways to measure consumer engagement with your brand, but they are also renowned for being one of the biggest challenges of marketing – due to the fact that, well, people don’t really like receiving emails! However, with such a variety of email marketing platforms online, it’s becoming easier than ever to get customers to engage with your campaign, all you need is a few top tips.
Improve your Call to Action.
A poor call to action is one of the most common reasons for your audience not engaging with your email. This CTA is where the clicks happen and are the most important part of your email – as this is what will eventually lead to website traffic and sales!
A top call-to-action tip is to phrase the copy like your reader has already purchased the product – for example, ‘download my ebook’ as opposed to ‘download your ebook’. It also goes without saying that your CTA should be bright, legible, and incite a sense of urgency – be careful not to take this too far, however, or your readers will be put off.
Have an Email Validator.
Email validators are so much more important than people realize, but so many marketers fail to implement them. An email validator will remove spam or fake emails from your database, leaving only the emails who have actually signed up to receive emails from you.
Your click-through rate from spam or fake emails will likely be 0%, which will drag down your average and not give you a true reflection of your efforts. Getting these emails removed will enable you to see your real click-through rate, which you can then compare to industry averages.
Email validators will also decrease your bounce rate, save you money and give you more information about your subscribers – it’s a win-win!
Segment your Email List.
Dividing your email list up and sending highly personalized emails is one of the best ways to increase your click-through rate. It may require a lot more work, but sending an email that’s not hugely relevant to your whole database because you haven’t segmented your list is a fast road to losing subscribers.
Instead, personalize your emails. Divide it into potential customers, past customers, investors and any other category that you think might require a separate email – and then craft highly targeted emails for each of these groups.
Basing emails on purchase history, job title or location will give help you reach out to the right people and offer something that people actually want. Send relevant and engaging emails to the right people, and you’re bound to see your click rates, and subsequently, your sales improve.
A/B Testing.
Running A/B tests, or split tests is a great way to see what content works and what doesn’t. Whether you compare two separate images, headlines or calls to action, A/B tests can provide valuable insight into your email marketing efforts – and stop you from making the same mistakes over and over.
Conducting an A/B test is simple, and requires you simply knowing what it is you want to learn. For A/B testing, all you need is a control group, and a group of emails you will be testing something different on – for example, a different color call to action. The control group receives the email as normal, while the test group receives something different. The measure which group has better engagement, and use this data to improve your email marketing in the future.
By following these simple tips, you should be able to increase your email conversion rate — and with it, your ROI on that channel.
Jaren Nichols is Chief Operating Officer at ZipBooks, an online accounting software for small businesses. Jaren was previously a Product Manager at Google and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
