With the holiday season quickly approaching, we thought it was time to talk about seven email marketing hacks to improve your conversion rates.
With millions of people nationwide checking their emails daily, you can leverage the power of desktop and mobile email marketing to drive business to your landing pages and improve your conversion rate optimization.
According to the Radicati Group, the number of email users worldwide will approach 2.6 billion this year. They go on to report that in 2015, the number of emails sent and received per day total over 205 billion. This figure is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 3% over the next four years, reaching over 246 billion by the end of 2019.
With those statistics in mind, using your email marketing to improve your conversion rates is incredibly important. We encourage you to start with a plan. Email marketing isn’t like throwing darts at a dartboard. Get productive and create goals and a plan.
As you go about creating a plan, know your end goal. Keep the following questions at the forefront as you work on your plan. What call to action will you include? What page of your website will you send them to? A product page, email sign up or another page?
Let’s uncover the seven email marketing hacks now:
Hack #1: Use Urgency
Urgency is perhaps one of the best ways to boost your conversion rate. A recent study on the phenomenon of urgency shows the human brain stops thinking and starts acting when faced with a pressing situation.
You can use two different types of urgency in your email marketing to boost your conversion rates: time-based and scarcity based.
Time based urgency says you have X amount of time to make your purchase at the special price. Consider the Groupon emails that inform you that you have three days, four minutes and thirty-seven seconds to make your purchase. We bet you’ve even acted on a few of these time based emails!
When using time based urgency in your email marketing, use trigger words – you can use a specific time like Groupon or words like limited time only, last chance, final days, etc.
Scarcity based urgency lets your readers know there is very little of something left. It makes people want what everyone else has already purchased. Be careful here as you don’t want to say you have 10 left when you really have 100 left.
Whichever method you choose, urgency is a powerful conversion rate booster when used in your email marketing.
Hack #2: Use the Power of Three
Buyers want choices, but not too many choices, and that’s where the power of three comes in. Marketing experts suggest the power of three makes your efforts more effective.
Much in our world is set apart in threes: Olympic gold medals, the rule of thirds in art and music, three primary colors, high, medium & low, and the list goes on.
To use the power of three in your email marketing campaigns to improve your conversion rates, send the magic number of three emails per campaign. Or, schedule three days between your email sends. Keep bullet points to three. Keep number of items listed on each email to three.
Hack #3: Use Large Buttons
Don’t use linked text as calls to action in your email marketing. With rising numbers of people checking their email on mobile phones, you want to use large, visually attractive buttons for your calls to action.
These buttons should draw the reader’s attention and guide them to your desired action. Test different colors to see which color results in a higher conversion.
Hack #4: Personalize Your Emails
Personalization is important. Recipients are more likely to open a personalized email that is addressed to them using their first name.
So many emails sit unopened in inboxes. You can increase your open rate by personalizing emails. That means you’ve crossed the first hurdle towards improving your conversion rates. The second hurdle is getting the viewer to click the button to take the action.
Hack #5: Use Video
Video is top of the list when it comes to communicating quickly and effectively. Using video in your email marketing is a terrific way to increase your conversion rates. In fact, in one study, marketers who used video in email campaigns saw increased click-through rates.
Consider creating a series of no more than 90 second videos for your next marketing campaign. Include a call to action with each one and in each email to improve conversion rates. Sounds easy, right. There are a few things worth noting about your videos.
Do you embed them or not? Technology limitations used to make embedding videos in emails problematic. Yet, it’s not so hard anymore. But, the question remains: should you embed the video or use an image link to take your customer to your website?
Consider how easy it is to view a video. Slow loading videos on their mobile phones will drive them crazy. And, if your goal is to get them to your website, embedding the video isn’t the best option.
We recommend using a thumbnail image with a play button in your email and using a link that takes the email reader to your website or landing page. The video should load and play immediately to grab their attention. This is a reminder that your call to action (the link to the video landing page) has to match and be easily found.
Hack #6: Craft Killer Subject Lines
Your great subject line may get users to open your email, but then your email must deliver the promised content right away. If your subject line mentions women’s jeans on sale, don’t start your email with children’s jackets.
Clever subject lines are great if they match your content. You also want to make sure that the call to action in the email matches the landing page where you send users. You’ll improve your conversion rates with a clear funnel that tells the same story: email subject line, email content, landing page.
Hack #7: Resend Your Emails
Don’t be afraid to resend an email. Just because they didn’t open it the first time doesn’t mean they won’t the second time.
Resend your emails to recipients who didn’t open the first time around. Consider adding an incentive that gives them a reason to convert on your site.
The Take-Away
We’ll leave you with one last email marketing hack: don’t quit.
Quitting too soon is why so many people fail at email marketing. You have to stick around long enough to earn your customer’s trust while constantly testing your emails to find out what works best.
Test your copy and subject lines. Segment your lists. Constant testing is the number one way to get your emails opened and improve your conversion rates.
Looking for some help using email marketing to improve your conversion rates? Contact us today. We’ll provide you with our FREE site performance analysis to help you decipher how you can use these seven email marketing hacks for conversion rate optimization.
Image: Dennis Skley
thanks so much. I have seen many studies that have revealed that the more personalized your email is, the better it will convert. The simplest version of this would be to include your client’s user name or name in the intro to the email; while the most complex one would be to send multiple versions of your email with customized offers and products displayed to users based on their on-site attitudes and purchasing patterns.
Personalization is definitely important, but make sure you do it right! I can’t speak for everyone, but I definitely feel put off whenever you can tell they tried to personalize the email they sent me, but they messed it up and used the left half of my email address for my name (or something like that). So then that gives away that it’s automated, but they were trying to make me feel like the email is personal, so then I feel like they’re being dishonest and… you get the idea. It’s not like I don’t know the email is automated, but at least make it believable, man! Let me pretend you care about me!