In many ways, the importance of maximizing the open rates of your email is obvious. If you cannot get your audience to even read your message, you will have no chance of convincing them about your brand’s benefits. But as you might imagine, open rates are not the only metric that should matter in analyzing the success of your marketing emails. In many ways, click-throughs matter just as much.
What is the goal of your email marketing strategy? For most brands, the answer has something to do with maximizing conversions. Of course, you can only reach that goal if your recipients click on a call to action within your email to have a chance to convert on your website. To help you get there, here are 5 ways to increase your email marketing click-through rates.
1) Focus on a Single CTA
For any marketing email to be successful, you have to keep its focus singular. The same attention ratio principle that is so crucial to your landing page success applies here: The more choices your audience has, the the less likely they’ll be to take the action you really want them to take.
In fact, too many choices can actually lead to a common psychological problem knows as the ‘paradox of choice’: presented with too many options, your audience will become increasingly likely to choose none. Prevent that from happening with a single call to action for your most desired marketing goal.
2) Keep it Short and Sweet
As our attention span continues to shorten, you need to get your message across as quickly as possible. Research has shown that emails between 50 and 125 words tend to be most successful, so try to keep yours in that range. Generally speaking, a couple of paragraphs focused specifically on the single CTA mentioned above will generate the highest amount of clicks.
3) Make a Personal Appeal
Personalized emails perform better. The more relevant you can make your message, the more likely your audience will be to convert. In fact, personalized emails can generate six times higher transaction rates than more generic alternatives that are simply broadcast to your entire recipient list. You can personalize your emails both by segmenting your audience and tailoring individual messages to each segment, and customizing the content of the message itself by dynamically substituting in information about your leads.
4) Focus on Consistency
Regardless of how personalized, short, and focused your emails are, a simple truth remains: if you don’t follow through on your promise, you won’t get clicks. In other words, the content of your message, and your CTA, should correspond directly with your subject line. If you make a promise of content or value, the body of the email needs to confirm that promise and deliver on it. The more consistent your email, the more trust you’ll build.
5) Establish Your Credibility
Finally, use your email content to generate credibility in the eyes of your audience. Given that we receive more than 100 emails every day, it’s difficult to understand which messages to trust. Provide sources and statistics for your claims, and use visuals to convey your message. Social proof can also be immensely effective in letting your audience know that the benefits you tout are not just empty claims.
If you use email marketing, chances are that you are looking to achieve a specific marketing goal. And whether that goal is lead conversions or eCommerce transactions, it probably starts with a click from your email to your website. Maximizing your click-through rate, then, has to be a priority anytime you create a marketing email. Using the above tips, you can improve your CTR, and optimize your email marketing for success.
To learn more about how to improve your marketing strategies, give us a call at 661-702-1310!
