In most businesses, the power of email marketing is underestimated as a revenue driver, it’s frequently done wrong. I have compiled a simple list of tricks you can act on now without spending anything to improve your email marketing strategy.
A good sender name is important
This is obvious, but very much ignored. I see marketing emails with names such as notifications@xyz.com and no-reply@xyz.com when the sender obviously wants a reply.
Getting replies to your emails is actually great for your email marketing practices as it informs the algorithms of the inbox provider that your emails are relevant to the recipient. For your sender name, try and keep it consistent
Create eye catching subject lines
This is 70% of the reasons your emails will ever be opened. And with so much competition from other senders, how do you make your emails stand out?
- A. Try personalizing your subject line with the recipient’s name.
- B. Be creative with emojis in the subject line.
- C. Use alliterations, copywriters swear they work wonders.
Ever heard of alt text?
On the web, it’s a common standard for content creators to include alt text on all images for SEO reasons and for readability purposes. So why not do it in an email when email clients are notorious for blocking images (I’m looking at you Yahoo).
See how Buzzfeed does this. They’re literally the kings of copywriting so don’t expect your first attempt to look as awesome, but try hard regardless.
What to do about your pre-header text
This is literally a goldmine for email marketers and copywriters. Space compliments your subject lines and allows you to pack in more meaning to your subject lines.
The truth of your deliverability
You might actually be doing everything right but you are experiencing bad results. Don’t worry, there’s a solution.
For a lot of folks new to email marketing, there are a lot of technicalities that you’ll only figure out along the way if you don’t ask questions. One of those questions is about your DNS records.
Because of the high rate of spam emails and phishing out there, inbox providers cross check your records in the DNS to authenticate your email and combat phishing. If these records are not present, you could experience a very low deliverability rate even though you are a legitimate sender. Most important of these records are your DKIM and SPF records.
Segment your list if you can
If you are gunning for better results, then you must do this. Email gives you a great way to market items that are relevant to a particular buyer so it makes obvious sense to gather information about your audience when they join your email list.
For a fashion eCommerce store, it would be in the best interest of your store to send relevant content to your subscribers. You really do not want to send an email about beautiful sunflower dresses to your male subscribers unless you are trying to get them to buy for the special ladies in their lives.
See how Adidas does this — they send emails about male tracksuits to their male subscribers, and female tracksuits to their feminine audience:
Re-engagement campaign?,Ditch the coupon code !
Every email marketer is presented with this nightmare — subscribers that no longer open your emails. Most times, it means that these persons have churned and you really want them back.
There are different tactics out there to re-engage churned subscribers, and depending on your business type you might go with what fits your business best.
One common tactic is to offer coupon codes, and this is exceptionally tricky as it could put you in debt. Instead, you would rather use Dropbox email marketing. They go emotional with illustrations and copy
If the emotions don’t work, then you can gun for the coupon codes. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to keep the coupons for your best customers because they represent 80% of your revenue. Treat them special.
