We live in a world where email subscribers are losing interest fast. It takes a truly catching hook to reel them in and keep them engaged, but if you know how to fashion that hook, you’ll increase your read rate, decrease your unsubscribe rate and reach the hearts and minds of your most important subscribers. Here’s how to do it:
Improve Your Inbound Marketing Strategy
If you’ve ever had people unsubscribe after only one or two emails, it’s easy to assume they’ve simply changed their mind. In reality, though, it’s very likely your inbound marketing strategy that has caused this problem! When subscribers expectations aren’t met almost immediately, they can rapidly lose trust in your brand. This is a very bad situation, as once this trust is lost, it’s very difficult to win back.
The primary cause of early unsubscribing occurs if you’re not gaining subscribers honestly. Buying or scraping email addresses is never a productive method of building a solid subscriber list, but tricking people into subscribing (such as adding a default subscribe box in the checkout etc), pressuring them or making false promises are just as bad. By ensuring your subscribers actually want to hear from you in the first place and are receiving the information they were expecting, you’re creating a list of people who actually look forward to hearing from you.
Keep It Simple
Nobody wants to open an email that takes longer to load than a bogged-down website. Keep your emails short, sweet and to the point. If you can’t restrict your emails to a few sentences, then give your subscribers the option to click a link to ‘learn more’.
Make Your Subject Line Direct and Honest
It’s not about how many of your emails are opened – it’s about engaging those who do open them, so it’s always better to create a subject line that gives the reader an honest and direct idea of what your email is about. Put yourself in your subscribers shoes and ask yourself how they will benefit from opening your email, then put that into words and voilà!
Offer Value
Again, seriously consider the reasons your subscribers would want to open your emails out of the sea of emails they likely receive each day. Don’t just self-promote – offer targeted advice, a solution to a problem or some type of promotion. It’s not about what you want, it’s about what they want.
Address Your Subscribers as Though They Are There In Person
Marketing language may have worked early last century, but these days, readers automatically filter out anything even close to a sales pitch. Think of how you would speak to your readers if they were standing in front of you and then write that down.
Don’t Ever Stop Learning or Testing Your Methods
If you truly want to optimise your email efficiency, marketing automation is where it’s at! Using tools like A/B testing is an absolute must if you want to increase your email open rate. Ideally, the more you can test, the better (i.e., test your subject lines, content copy, CTA message and button and even your colours). Another great idea is to send the same email with a different subject line to subscribers who didn’t open the original email. This greatly increases the chances of all your emails being read by everyone.
Ask Your Subscribers What They Want
There’s no better way of discovering what somebody wants than to simply ask them, so why not do the same with your subscribers? Adding a brief but targeted survey to your emails every now and then will not only enlighten you to what your readership wants but will also make your subscribers feel like they’re being heard and appreciated. It’s a total win-win!
Always Deliver Content That’s Relevant, Unique and Personalised
Email subscribers are an extremely valuable asset, so you should always treat them as such. If you consistently deliver highly personalised and unique content in a timely manner, your ROI will definitely pay off. The absolute best way of ensuring you’re delivering relevant, personalised emails is to use a marketing automation system that has a good-quality engagement scoring process, such as those offered here at Swift Digital. If you want to reach the hearts and minds of your email subscribers, contact the friendly team at Swift Digital on 02 9929 7001 and we’ll show you how!
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You can raise engagement with embedded images, videos, polls, article feedback, and emojis and schedule messages to send at the right time.
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Swift Digital is Australia’s leader in marketing automation software and event management working with organisations like the NSW Government, ATO, and companies like Westpac Bank and Qantas.
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