Is Anyone Out There? How to Get Your Emails Opened, Read and Clicked

In an article posted on fastcompany.com, Aaron Orendorff writes about the five things your email messages need to get people to read and respond to them. Take these actions to drastically improve your email marketing efforts without sacrificing time or budget. We will discuss what you can do with your email marketing and why you should do it.

There are hundreds of ways to improve your email marketing but we will only hit a few key action items so you will not get stressed out. Follow some of these tips and you’ll do yourself a huge favor.

Personalization

Campaign Monitor reported that emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Studies by Demand Metric show that 53% of marketers say ongoing, personalized communication with customers results in “modern to significant” revenue impact. Personalization is becoming a large factor in the success of email campaigns. But why is it effective? And how do you use it?

People want to feel known and communicate with those they know and trust. Orendorff has good advice when he says, “Always address your emails to a real person…and always make it from a real person, you!” If you want to use personalization in your email, you must make sure that your contact list database is clean and usable.

With the way that personalization functions, it will take whatever is listed in the contact record and display it to that subscriber. So if that contact record has an accidentally misspelled name, that subscriber will receive an email with an incorrect name. However, when your personalization is confident and on-point, your email marketing will become that much more relevant to your subscribers.

In addition to displaying personal information like the contact’s name, you can personalize email based on their position in the sales cycle, geolocation, or product interest. The more relevant you are with your messaging, the more engaged your contacts will be.

Brevity

Keep your emails brief. MailChimp suggest to keep your subject lines under 50 characters long. If your subject line is too long, you run the risk of having it cut off or even ignored. Regardless of subject line length, make sure that it is brief and relevant.

Keep the main content of your email brief too. You have about a 60-second window to get your subscribers’ attentions and get them to follow through with your actionable items like your call-to-action. Break your content up into easily digestible sections with only a few sentences each. Your best bet is to make the email as easy to consume as possible. “Get in. Get the job done. Get out,” says Orendorff.

If you follow these tips with your email marketing, you will find greater success connecting with your audience. By being personalized and brief, you will be able to effectively engage with your subscribers when you need it the most.