With more and more of our clients moving their highly valued marketing budget from Pay-Per-Click (PPC for short) to other areas of marketing after dreading the thought of lining Google?s pockets further. We thought a post all about the most under-rated marketing channel was in order.

Email marketing? Now we know this often leads to yawns but hear us out. Yes we all get bombarded (we?ll come back to this), and yes we all do get the same urmm unsavory (you know what we mean) emails but this shouldn?t put you off. Email marketing when executed correctly is a fantastic channel to drive; interest, brand engagement, website traffic and hot leads.

In this blog post we will highlight our top three quick-wins we look for in every campaign, strategy & template. We hope you enjoy and if you have any further queries feel free to call us or email our team of experts for more advice (our phone number will be at the bottom).

 

1 ? You don?t need to tell the whole story in an email.

What we often see when reviewing email-marketing campaigns is simply too much information. For instance if you have just written an amazing blog post, or a member of your team has just got married. You do not need to tell the whole story in your latest newsletter? Give the user a chance to digest bullet points, snippets, an opening paragraph and then allow them to link to your website for more information.

Yes it does sound obvious but we all can get carried away when we?ve just created the next big thing! So remember keep it short & sweet in the email and let the product sell itself onsite.

2 ? Clear Call-to-actions are needed in emails too

Again a common mistake in email marketing is not making main call-to-actions clear enough. Now we?d always suggest repeating what the user will see on the main website in the header of your email so replicating a condensed version of your logo & main CTAs ? this then keeps the user from feeling there was a disconnect between the two.

When you come to build you next email have you logo, phone number, email address or online booking link & social media channels displayed clearly.

3 ? Make subject lines engaging!

If you?re offering a one off chance to visit the set of Game of Thrones or offering your product at a heavily discounted rate then talk about this in your subject line. A common mistake is to leave this great news in the body of the email however unless the subject line grabs the reader, they are unlikely to ever know!

Subject lines do have a few rules to follow so before you go ahead and add in your ?FREE HOLIDAY IN CUBA? take a moment to review this list of do?s and do nots:

 

Do?s:

  • Add great offers in your email subject line
  • Do add in correct capitalisation
  • Do add in ?!? when something needs punctuating
  • Do keep subject lines short and sweet (on mobile this will be trimmed down anyway)
  • Do test your email subject lines see what works for your market
  • Do personalise if possible include first names
  • Do add in good descriptive messages

 

Don?t

  • Do not add in all caps
  • Do not add too many emojis
  • Do not ask for help or include help in subject lines
  • Do not include numbers as this can often lead to your email being sidelined with many other promo emails
  • And finally do not use special characters

 

Our last two small points:

  • In email marketing regular emails are great, however less is often more. When reviewing your email marketing data if you see your unsubscribes & spam rates have increased try reducing your sends
  • Images are great! Where possible include nice big images to engage your readers, nothing says dull like reams and reams of copy ? so liven things up with some optimised images

 

If you follow these few simple rules your emails will be looking razor sharp in no time!

Also as promised should you wish to discuss your email marketing strategy with a member of the CB team please feel free to call 01273 640315

 

Good luck!

CB team