When it comes to successful email marketing some of the simplest changes to your approach can yield some of the biggest improvements in your performance.

With this in mind, make sure you’re following these ten tips when it comes to sending emails to your database and you should see an upturn in click through rates and enquiries.

Getting your subject line right

It’s the first thing people see before even opening your email so it’s vital that you get it right or none of the rest of the factors in this blog post will matter.

• Keep it short; beneath 60 characters.
• Make it enticing; trial different headings and see if any in particular increase open rates.
• Consider asking a question.
• Make it relevant to the recipient.
• If you have quality data then personalise it with their name, but only if your data is good.
• Don’t write in uppercase; you’ll end up in spam and there’s no need to shout!

Is it working on mobile?

The likelihood is that a large proportion of your recipients are going to be opening your email on their phone, so make sure your template or design works for them too.  It can be tempting to just send a test to your desktop but always check your phone before it is sent out.

What are you sending it with?

So many people will use Mail Chimp because it is free or very low cost.  The only problem is that they all look the same and they often don’t look great.  The cheapest option in life isn’t usually the best solution, so if you’re committed to email marketing and making it work then speak to someone that can design something for you and send it with a great system.  We can help you here if you need assistance.

Never underestimate visual stimulation

Same as the above point really; using cheap stock photography such as Shutterstock or photos taken with your iPhone isn’t going to cut it.  Any stock we use is taken from iStock; might be more expensive but you can tell the difference and when it comes to sales and enquiries, it should more than cover that cost by making a real impression.

Never underestimate how much people don’t want to read

Your email shouldn’t have loads of text.  If it’s got more than a couple sentences in a row then it’s too much; you want to give them the essence and have them click through to find out more, not give it all to them upfront.  People don’t want reams of text in an email. Entice them to your site instead.

Give them buttons

Human nature; we like clicking on buttons and having them rather than text links has been proven to increase clicks.

Make it easy to click

Don’t just link the button; link the image and even the title if you can.  The easier it is for someone to do something, the more likely they are to do it.

Have a menu

Plays into the same methodology as our last two points; more opportunities to click means more clicks.  People like a menu at the top of an email and it can increase clicks by a larger amount than you would imagine.

Send on a regular basis

Your results are going to be better if you’re consistent and that means getting your newsletter or emails out on a regular basis. When you think of high street brands, have you noticed you get a steady stream of emails and they build up a constant contact with you? There’s a reason.  It works.

Give them what they want

You know what people are clicking on so take your most clicked articles or posts and give them more of it.  We noticed a few years ago that people liked articles that pointed out common errors made on things such as Facebook and Twitter.  What did we do? Gave them more error based blog posts.  What did they do? Clicked on them.

For more information on how we can help your email marketing please give us a call on 01566 232323 or drop an email to hello@mihidigital.co.uk