Every business owner knows the indispensable value of email marketing. From promotional emails, newsletters to advertisements, the scope is endless for well-crafted emails. It’s safe to say that this trend is here to stay.
On average, an individual receives over 121 emails each day. And marketing/promotional emails comprise the lion’s share of them.
In the face of such stiff competition, marketing emails need to be informative, intriguing, and entertaining, all rolled into one. To find out the various ways to make your business emails more alluring, continue reading this post.
A guide to crafting the best business emails
Everything about emails and email marketing is an art. And, just like any other art, there are various nuances to it. From nailing the subject line to focusing on the audience, a lot goes into a successful business email. See for yourself!
1. Create an Irresistible Subject Line
The subject line of your email is your opening salvo, and you need to get it right. Statistics show that by sending out emails with personalized subject lines, the consumers are 22.2% more likely to open them.
Even the length of your subject line has a vital role to play. For instance, research has shown that 6-10 words long email subject lines have the highest open rates, at 21%.
Here’s a list of the other things you can do to develop a winning email subject line:
- Use action words to create a sense of urgency
- Convey a powerful message
- Prompt consumers into taking action by promoting the value
2. Make the Customer Feel Important
Often, business emails go overboard with their marketing. Look at it this way. If you only talk about your products and business in the emails, there is no room for your customer.
That’s why it is essential to place your customers at the very centre of the emails.
For instance, don’t talk about how you developed the fabric for the new range of jeans that your business is launching. Instead, tell your customers how comfortable the jeans are going to be.
3. Create and Provide Value
It’s effortless. If you want consumers to open and read the email, you need to entice them with the promise of value. This is precisely what the shoe retailers TOMS did.
When customers subscribe to the TOMS mailing list, they get sent 2-5 successive emails. These emails are a part of their automated welcome email series, which include the following:
- A vivid narration of their brand story
- A discount coupon or code
- Links to different sections of their website
- A mention about the social cause that’s dear to them
In short, TOMS welcome emails are jam-packed with value and are customer-centric. And that’s what makes them wildly successful.
Even Shane Barker, a digital marketing consultant, believes that companies should not underestimate the power of welcome emails and be used to nurture strong customer relationships.
4. Check Your Email Domains
This is important if you want your marketing emails to avoid the dreaded spam folders. Evaluate your business email domain reputation. You can use many online tools in this regard, like SenderScore.org, TrustedSource, Postmaster Tools, etc.
Alternatively, you can create an account solely meant for your business’ email marketing campaigns.
Get this: If your reputation score falls between 91-100, there’s a 92% chance that your marketing emails will land safely in the customer’s inbox.
5. Nail the Right Frequency
It’s time for the million-dollar question: How often should businesses send marketing emails? Well, it entirely depends on the nature of your products and services and the preferences of your target demographics.
Monitor the consumer response to your emails for a while. Identify a frequency that works. Maybe it’s twice a month. Perhaps it’s once a week. Finally, stick to the schedule.
By doing so, you’ll generate anticipation amongst your customers, and your emails will be well-received.
6. Include Button CTAs
Here’s a fun fact: People are obsessed with pushing buttons. Also, they are a great choice if you want to encourage customers to buy from you. Thus, it would be a good idea to include button CTAs in your emails.
To make your CTAs more actionable, keep the following in mind:
- Use action words to create a sense of urgency
- Choose contrasting colours
- Keep it short
- Provide value
And, et voila, you’ll have more people opening your company’s marketing emails.
7. Visual Appeal Matters a Lot
A lot has been said about the attention span of customers. For emails, the span is pegged at 11-15 seconds. Your email needs to do something incredible in this tiny time frame to bait the customers into reading further.
This is where your email’s visual appeal will matter a lot. It would be great to go all out. Listed below are a couple of things you can do:
- Use interesting fonts that are easy to read
- Throw in images, videos, animations – anything to break the text trail
- Think long and hard about the mobile and PC layouts
- Select a great colour combination
8. Segmentation is the Key
Are the products of your business targeted at different demographics? Then, segmented email marketing is an absolute necessity.
Not only is this a tremendous data-driven marketing strategy, but it is also helpful in sending meaningful emails across your vast customer base. Eventually, as the open email rates improve, so will the conversion rates.
Segment your customers, understand their needs and send them emails accordingly.
9. Mix up Your Content
No, uniformity is not a good policy when it comes to email content. Don’t use your emails to send your customers newsletters all the time. Think differently. Given the versatility that email as a medium brings to the table, there’s a lot you can send:
- Infographics
- Offer-specific emails
- Emails that tell a story
Put on your thinking hats. Rest assured, it will be a rewarding endeavour.
Wrapping Up
With sufficient planning, you can easily make your business emails more enticing to customers. In addition to the nine ways mentioned above, focusing on email deliverability is also a good idea.
Even if your customers only open a few promotional emails a day, make sure that yours is one of them!
Shirley Stark is currently working at InfoCleance as a Marketing Team Lead. She Has hands-on experience in B2B marketing and loves to write blogs, tips, reading b2b articles, creating business strategies, and traveling.
Sourced from Jeff Bullas
