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In the email marketing world, we tend to get focused on getting things out the door. Then we’re often generally happy with the results as long as the latest campaign didn’t bomb because we have to get going on the next one. But there’s always the potential to optimize your email efforts. With very little extra time, you can get a lot more email marketing ROI from your existing spend if you optimize your email and your landing page. In this issue of the ClickMail Marketer, we’ll go over ways to optimize your email. In the next newsletter we’ll explore ways to optimize your landing page.
Typically email marketers focus on open rate and click through for measuring email optimization. There are two components of your email to consider when optimizing for those two measurements:
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Subject lines (open rate) |
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Email body (click through) |
As promised above, there are little things you can do to improve your email and therefore your results without increasing your spend. Here are some tips for optimizing your subject line and email body so you can further maximize your email marketing ROI.
Subject Line:
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Subject lines should convey specific relevance to the recipient. |
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There also needs to be compatibility between the subject line and email copy. |
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The two primary factors for relevance leading to opens and click throughs are the nature and urgency of the offer. |
Offer:
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Have an offer. That’s the value you’re promising in exchange for the recipient clicking through. We don’t mean the offer in terms of what you’re ultimately selling, but an offer for the click through only. |
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Express the offer clearly in the subject line as well as the body copy. |
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Make sure there’s an incentive, like a bigger savings or an exclusive preview. |
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Distinguish between the product offer (what you’re selling) and the click through offer (what you’re offering in exchange for their click). |
Also keep in mind that you have to remove as much friction (physiological resistance to a given element in the email) as possible, in addition to making the tweaks listed above. The three elements that add friction are length, difficulty and tone.
Then think about where they’re going when they do click through. In the June issue of the ClickMail Marketer, look for tips on optimizing your landing page. That’s even more important than making sure your email is tweaked for maximum email marketing ROI, because that’s where people go when your efforts increase your click throughs. Optimizing your email won’t do you much good if you don’t take advantage of the increased traffic by optimizing your landing page too.
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