Many small business owners believe that to be successful in email marketing, they have to learn how to be like someone else, preferably that marketer who has historic open rates. But the truth is, more than studying other marketers, methods and tactics, a great (and highly converting email campaign) will come from knowing your clients, more than anything else.
Here are a few of my BEST email marketing secrets that will increase your open rates, get people to read what you’ve written and raise your conversions. FAST.
Use a subject line that looks like it is written to a friend.
Occasionally, add an emoji and you’ll get more opened emails. DO NOT use a first name or last name in the subject line. No one gets emails from friends with their name in them, so don’t stick out like a sore thumb! You want to be perceived as a friend’s email. THIS IS what will get your email opened. If the subject line is, “Our best lawnmower now on sale through April 13th.” VS “What cha listening to on that riding mower?” you can see why the second one would get opened more. Another one in this niche might be, “OMG! My grass is so green you’d think it was fake! (but it’s not!) Can’t wait to tell you!” Write subject lines that look like they are from a friend. Even my team can’t tell if I’m sending a sales campaign or a personal email with many of my subject lines. The ones that get them every time are, “Got a minute?” and “I had to tell yoU! :-)” (yes capitalize the U) and “When you’re free I gotta tell you something”. Try these out on your next campaign.
When you write your next email campaign, think of one person and write it to them.
Conversational copy converts at a higher rate because the reader feels as if they are ‘the only one’. The “whats in it for me” is also very effective when your client feels like you wrote the email just for them. Think about one person as you’re writing and speak conversationally; just like you would across a table having coffee. Or sipping wine. Your open rates will go up and so will your click thrus! When you have a link that you want the person to click through on, don’t say, “CLICK HERE NOW!” Instead be more personal, say something like “Here’s the info I promised” or “Let’s GO!” Small changes like this will make a big difference! (and use CAPS very very sparingly!)
Use red like lipstick and yellow needs to be used even less!
Internet marketing years ago created a ‘template’ of sorts where people would use red and yellow at the top of every sales page and in all emails, for emphasis. But as social media became a huge part of how we do life everyday, more and more people started getting even more selective as to what emails they would now open and read. As a matter of fact, some Sp*M filters would look for red and yellow and instantly throw it into the junk pile. So we can’t use colors like we used to in email for emphasis. As a matter of fact, unless you are scrubbing and cleaning out your email list every single week, you are going to want use very little graphics and colored text. Make emphasis with BOLD or underlined or italics. Read your email out loud and see where emphasis needs to be made. Then use one of these formatting tools to make that emphasis. But use red and yellow very sparingly, if at all.
Use some of these strategies today and you’ll see more opened emails, higher click through rates and more conversions!