Email marketing has been making the rounds in recent times and just like most digital marketers, you couldn’t resist getting in on the act. But after giving your email marketing campaigns your best shot, so to say, you begin to wonder why your open and click-through rates are significantly low.
So, what could be missing in your tactics? Is email marketing overrated? Of course not! Perhaps, your email marketing is devoid of personalization. It’s an essential marketing practice capable of increasing your open rates by 18.8% and delivering 6x higher transaction rates.
Sending out personalized subject lines makes your business prospects feel valued and gives them the impression that they’ve been singled out by thousands to millions of people. That’s why it works well!
Interestingly, marketing automation tools can help you simplify the process so you need not worry about addressing every single email that gets sent out. Without further ado, let’s explore some amazing tricks and tips that generate higher open rates.
9 Best Practices For Email Personalization
1. Send emails that incite action, not apathy
If you do not want your emails to end up in the trash, you may want to consider exploring and introducing some better alternatives to the regular just checking in emails examples. Sadly, other variants like “just following up on…” incite the same apathetic feeling in readers.
Typically, follow-up emails aim to request status updates or maintain connections, so it just makes sense to take a more straightforward approach in order to incite more actions and better engage your customers.
You may want to start with the receiver’s name and offer something valuable to build healthy customer relationships. Check out the example given below;
Hi Julijana,
There are a lot of benefits in maintaining good eating habits, it has a lasting impact on your physical and mental well-being. Here’s [your ebook] that gives the exegesis of good eating habits. I hope you make the most of it.
2. Use compelling subject lines
Remember your email is just one out of the many that your subscribers receive on a daily basis, so you need to use that spellbinding “just-have-to-click-on-this” subject line. To do that, your subject lines should;
- Be clear, concise, and easy to understand
- Not exceed 50 characters to avoid being cut off by mobile device screens
- Be written in a language and style that your recipients are familiar with
- Feature actionable words that show immediacy and spark curiosity.
- Incorporate trending matters and prompt headlines
- Comprise a unique value proposition (like 80% off on all our training) to trigger customer interest
All in all, you need to be extra creative with your emails If you want to catch more clicks, and following the best practices for email subject lines takes you many steps ahead in the game.
3. Exploit the influence of humor
A humorous email works like magic and it has the potential of exerting influence on the emotions and thoughts of your readers. It can even keep your subscribers glued to their inboxes in anticipation of new content that you have to offer.
As such, when coming up with content, avoid boring your readers with seemingly detached and impersonal emails but instead, focus on using humor to build a more cordial relationship.
When all is said and done, irrespective of the tone you intend to use, be it satirical, sarcastic, or utterly hilarious, make sure your content isn’t devoid of value. That way, you stand a greater chance of seeing higher open rates.
4. Be on the lookout for spam filters
Email spam can be extremely irritating and thus, they never get opened. Asides from choking reader’s inboxes, they’re regarded as a threat so you need to be extra meticulous while crafting your email content; else, it will be detected by spam filters.
Another thing to note is that spam filter features have become more advanced so it’s not until you send out spam that your emails get tagged as one. Even the slightest grammatical and punctuation errors can trigger spam filters into action.
Luckily, there are preventive measures you can follow to bypass spam filters. Check out the ones listed below;
- To the greatest extent possible, expunge spam words like ”free” from your subject lines.
- Write your subject lines in lowercase letters otherwise, your emails get tagged as spam.
- Ensure your email account is authenticated to prevent third parties from sending out emails carrying your name.
- Give your subscribers the option to “unsubscribe” from your news
- Finally, don’t misuse customers’ emails but instead, stick with the main reason why they signed up in the first place.
5. Emojis work just fine
It’s a sheer misconception to regard the use of emojis in emails as unethical. Where’s that coming from anyway? Emojis are one of the perfect attention-grabbing elements that draw the reader’s eye to the subject lines.
Aside from emojis being used to communicate across language barriers, 91% of global users use emojis to lighten up the mood of the person they’re communicating with so it’s a sure bet to have higher open rates.
As such, when crafting new email content, take advantage of funny smileys like this to create that playful, personal relationship and reassure your readers that they’re not receiving spam from bots. However, be wary of going overboard with the use of emojis.
6. A/B Testing clears your doubts
Once in a while, you may find yourself in the dilemma of having to select the best out of a couple of tentative subject lines that you have drafted. What to do? A/B testing is all you need.
A/B testing allows you to compare and contrast variables of a particular content with a similarly sized audience to gain appropriate feedback and decide the most suitable one for your email campaigns.
Asides from your write-ups, you can test other elements like CTA buttons, and images to know which gets you more response from your subscribers.
7. Avoid lengthy emails
If you’re fond of sending out overly long and bulky content, then it’s time you adopt shorter and more detail-oriented emails with a clear-cut focus. No one really has the luxury of time to peruse those lengthy and boring emails especially when there are a handful of others to open.
The best way to keep your emails concise and appealing is to write as though you were making a real-time conversation. In cases where long forms are unavoidable, segment your content into smaller paragraphs and use visual cues to further pique your reader’s interest.
Let your emails resonate with clarity so that it can be easy for your readers to scan through for vital points and preferably, you may add one or few links to serve as touch points to your website or other social media pages.
8. Know why a customer unsubscribed
Don’t just let them go! It’s most likely that you’ve been in a similar situation where a particular mailing list becomes uninteresting or maddening and you just had to click the “unsubscribe” button.
Afterwards, you were probably redirected to a page where you had to select from a number of options about what prompted you to unsubscribe. Sounds familiar? Sure it does!
Every now and then, you may find your customers falling out of your email list so it’s imperative that you find out why they unsubscribed. The feedback you get from them can be a great eye-opener to the areas begging for improvement in your email tactics.
Keep in mind that a singular act of appealing to customer’s conscience can prompt them to unsubscribe from your mailing list. For instance, emails that carry “we miss having you around” vibes may be all it takes to get your customers back.
9. Be unforgettable
It pays to be unique! No matter how bulky your subscriber’s email inbox might be, showcasing uniqueness in your style of communication leaves a memorable impression of you in the minds of customers.
Consequently, you must avoid inconsistencies especially if the business is your personal brand. You may want to try sticking to a unique sender name, choice of fonts, visual cues and other elements that resonates the intent of your brand.
The whole point of this is to build a solid rapport with your email list and develop a deeper connection that generates higher open rates and ultimately converts leads into paying customers.
Level Up Your Game
And there’s more from where that came from! Email marketing is a double-edged sword. If done well, it can be the greatest source of ROI generation, but without adept understanding, it could be your greatest nightmare.
Now that you understand what email personalization is and how important it can be in increasing your click-through and open rates, it’s about time you re-strategize and leverage the beautiful insights you’ve gained from this piece to make your emails nothing short of exemplary.
Rilwan Kazeem is a freelance content writer, explorer, and reader. He has covered topics including digital marketing, HR, how-to guides, and product descriptions. Rilwan’s writing has been featured in Leaderonomics, Engagedly, and Newsbreak—where he unraveled “10 simple steps to launch an online business in 2023”, among others.
