3 practical tactics to increase Email Marketing engagement and revenue

Clear subject lines, personalized content and clear call to actions will boost your ROI from email

Convincing customers to join your email list is tough, but keeping them engaged is even tougher. An email list is of very little value if it doesn’t contain engaged subscribers who look forward to receiving and reading your emails. If your subscribers aren't engaged they’ll never convert into paying customers or those who once bought from you, will not convert into repeat customers.

So how do you craft emails that will keep your subscribers engaged and get them clicking?

Here are three such important components that can turn your email campaigns into an ongoing revenue and engagement generator.

1 - Use creativity and personalization in subject lines to induce opens

The Subject line is the door into your email marketing world. It's the first thing your subscribers will see and it plays a major role in determining whether your email will get opened or not.

Your subscribers will only open your email if your subject line offers a clear value proposition. So, be transparent about your email content when crafting your subject line.  Ambiguous subject lines might get you opens but will have poor click-through rates. Did you know that “35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone?" But, as a marketer, what really should grab your attention is that “69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line."

When it comes to creating a subject line, the best approach is to make them as descriptive as possible so that the recipient clearly knows what's in it for them, but, at the same time they should not be generic. You don’t want your recipient to think that your whole email list got this exact same message.

Remember, creating a great email that people want to read is only half the formula for effective email marketing. The first thing that attracts a subscriber to open your email is the subject line, so give them a solid reason to open it.

There are a number of tips & tricks to optimize your subject lines, including:

1. Optimize the "from" field, the subject line and the pre-header. Though you might've read this a thousand times earlier, but these basic rules still play a major role in deciding the fate of your email. All of these 3 things when done right leads to increase in open rates.

Tip: While crafting your subject line, make sure the first thing you mention is your main offer rather then putting it in the pre-header. Your pre-header should complement or extend you main offer, besides if you put it at the end of the subject line then it might get truncated by some email clients.

2. Humanize your email; start by personalizing your subject line with your recipient's name. Our brain is hardwired to react to hearing or reading our own name.

Experian study shows that personalized subject lines have 26% higher unique open rates than non-personalized emails.

3. Use symbols in subject lines to stand out in your recipients' crowded inboxes. Studies have shown that our brain reacts more to visual elements, so the use of emojis and special characters catches our eyes quickly. Though using symbols has proven to increase the clicks and conversions, but it's very important to A/B test and decide what works for you.

For more on optimising subject lines see these posts and free download on Smart Insights on effective copywriting for subject lines.

2 - Make your email relevant to the recipient

Making sure your email provides value and engages your recipient is a high-stakes game. Your audience is no longer interested in receiving generic messages, no matter how well-designed and well-crafted they’re. Your messages must be personalized to win their allegiance. A study by Caslon & Co. showed that personalized marketing can generate around three times as many orders and leads.

Don't just collect data, personalize your marketing messages based on that data.

Target people on the basis of their behavior, (i.e. the actions they do or doesn't do when interacting with your website) geography, device, and time-of-open. This allows you to send emails that are truly unique and valuable to each and every recipient.  For example, you can target a customer who has browsed a particular category on your website with browse abandonment email featuring products only from that particular category to induce him to take the desired action.

Similarly, if you’re a travel company you can use geo-targetting to send emails that showed different deals to people according to the area they live in or depending on time-of-open and weather. Behavior-driven emails are a good way to personalize your marketing messages, which will ultimately improve your click and open rates, as well as conversions.

3 -  Include a clear and focused CTA to inspire action

Call to action is at the heart of any good email marketing campaign. Every email you send to your recipient should have a clear and attention-grabbing CTA. Once your subscribers open your email and start engaging with it, your CTA should encourage them to take the conversion goal you wish them to take.

When designing your call to action, be sure to keep 2 things in mind: i) You need to be absolutely clear about your goal and terms and have a singular primary call-to-action. Don't assume. Tell. People respond well if you ask them to do something clearly.

Remember, your subject line is your hook and CTA is your point of conversion. They’re what you want to achieve through your email campaigns, so make sure they’re designed and placed in a manner that they will induce recipients to click on them. Keep it visually distinct to make it stand out from the rest of the content.

CTA if used well can increase the click-through rates manifold. Most email marketers emphasize more on the offer & email design. Call to action is mostly left as an afterthought. Don't bury your call to action.

The inbox is a crowded scene and, chances are, your subscriber's inbox too is full of marketing emails from a variety of brands. So another generic email is not going to make an impression on them. However, that doesn't mean that you can't get results from email marketing. In fact, you can significantly increase your revenue from this channel by creating a personalized experience for them.

Thanks to Reshu Rathi for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Reshu Rathi is Digital Marketing Manager at Betaout, a customer segmentation and marketing automation platform for e-commerce. Her job is to create content & marketing campaigns to help e-commerce marketers personalize their marketing & increase conversion. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.