Email marketing - how to send emails people will open

Abe Dearmer

Mar 13, 2019

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5 min read

Email-Marketing

These days marketers have a lot of different tools at their fingertips, with social media leading on top. But email marketing is still a very valid and effective way of finding prospects and converting them. This form of marketing has been proven time and again to be efficient and has a wide reach, as opposed to some other methods.

Whether you want to integrate email marketing with your other strategies or solely focus on it, there are certain tactics you can use to write emails that people will open. Since emails are the primary way professionals communicate, they have a plethora of unopened emails, so you need to make sure yours gets noticed and opened.

Here are some simple ways you can entice your email receivers to notice you and get your message across.

Emailing lists

First and foremost, you need to make sure your emailing list is up to date. It is never a good idea to buy emailing lists and it is a better practice to organically get emails of people who are actually interested in your company through landing pages or newsletter subscriptions.

It is also a good idea to regularly clean up your mailing list and remove recipients who never open your emails, as not doing this brings down your open rate. To have an good representation of the open rates in your emailing campaign, analyse people who haven't opened your email in a long time but are still subscribed to you, and remove them from the list.

Compelling and to the point subject lines

The subject line is the make or break item of your email as this is what prompts the email recipient to open or delete the email. You need to write a concise and interesting subject line that has a call to action and makes the reader click on it.

It is best to keep the subject line between 30 and 50 characters with spaces as anything longer than that could be cut off. It should also indicate the subject of the email and create some urgency that makes them want to read the email.

Optimised for reading

Many people go over their emails while on the go using their mobile phones, which means you need to optimise your email accordingly. Whether your email recipient is reading on their phone or their laptop, it is a good idea to keep the email width between 500 to 650 pixels otherwise they will have to scroll horizontally to read your content.

By making it simpler for them to go over your emails, you are also doing yourself a favour as this increases your chances of getting read. No one wants to take the time to scroll in four different directions just to read an email from an unknown sender!

Fewer typefaces

Using different fonts and typefaces can attract attention in the right or wrong way. You want your design to look clean and not cluttered so it is a good idea to not use more than 2 to 3 typefaces. Different fonts can help divert attention to important parts of the email, but pick fonts that are pleasing to the eye and not jarring.

Offer incentives

Nothing entices a customer more than incentives! Research shows that adding an incentive in the email subject line can increase open rates by almost 50%. For instance, "Get 30% off on your next order" or "Free shipping on every order today" are subject lines that will get the reader to not only open but even potentially make a purchase on your website.

Make sure to not overwhelm our email recipients with such emails though. Also keep sending value adding content instead of just promotional content. Informative newsletters, DIYs, industry insights, special company announcements must also be circulated.

Personalise the emails

Getting personalised emails feels much better than to be greeted with "Hi member." In fact, they also have a higher chance of getting read. Customising the greeting of each email with the member's name makes it feel more personal and grabs more attention.

Thankfully, you don't have to add each and every name on the email separately. There are plenty of email marketing tools that can help you automatically do the same.

Logo placement

It is imperative to add your company logo in every email, as people always associate your logo with your brand. But logo placement also matters as its visiblity needs to be high. Research shows that placing the logo on the left upper side of your email gets it the most attention as that's where most readers instinctively look for it.

Landing pages

Consistency can take you a long way when it comes to gaining a customer's trust, which is why the design, content and layout of your landing page as well as your email should be the same. Create a format for yourself that people recognise you by.

Your landing pages and emails should be closely tied together and reflect your mission. Make sure to also always add links to landing pages and monitor emailing campaigns to see which ones are doing well.

Test it out

It can never hurt to get a second opinion on your email to ensure what you are intending is portrayed. Test out your email by sending it out to a friend or work associate first to make sure they get the call to action and feel it is attention grabbing. If they do, go ahead and send it out!

There is no doubt that email marketing has stood the test of time and this reliable marketing tool is quite indispensable. Its influence on prospects definitely helps you get the most out of all your email marketing initiatives!

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