If you want more responses to your email outreach campaign, you’re likely going to want to see if you can improve your click rate. The "Open" or "Click" Rate (Direct Response terms used interchangeably) tells you if your campaign was engaging enough to entice an open and to inspire action from your audience.
So, what constitutes a good click rate?
That depends on who you ask, what you’re offering, and which industry you’re in; but generally, if you are maintaining your lists well with low bounce rates (not using purchased lists or sending to out-of-date, inaccurate emails), anything below 1% is bad and 2% or over is doing well.
There are areas one can make when sending a marketing email, which can quickly improve your click-through rates. Be sure to make your campaign as successful as possible and keep your customers clicking with these steps.
Cultivate your email list.
You don’t want to just blast emails out to every single email address you have ever collected. If you’re sending emails to people who have no interest in the content you’re sending or what you’re selling, they’re not going to get opened or clicked on, which will contribute to a low click rate. Instead, carefully refine your email marketing list to include recipients who are likely to be receptive to your content.
You can do this by personalizing and segmenting your list of how you were contacted, the contact’s industry, purchase history, or the length of time since your last interaction. Breaking down your email list and sending different targeted emails to the varying groups will allow you to send more focused emails, improving your open rates. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure your list is up to date and full of quality leads. There’s no sense in sending emails to business owners who have shut down their companies or inactive subscribers. And finally, periodically check your list of subscribers for any obvious mistakes or misspellings. Sending emails to a “hotmial.com” address won’t be going anywhere, and therefore, won’t be getting opened or clicked.
The Email Hook is an important part of your engaging email.
The subject line is likely to be the first thing your email recipient reads, so you want it to catch their attention immediately and make them want to open your email. There are many techniques for a successful subject line. Some are avoid writing subjects that contain words that will come off as spam (or worse, actually get picked up by spam filters). These include words like “sale,” “free,” rich,” or “deal and emojis as well.
Deliver valuable content.
You don’t want your email to come across as a brochure or a coupon. Obviously, you want to engage your customers and prospects enough to further investigate your company and your offers, but you can do so without shoving canned sales pitches down their throats. Send relevant, engaging, and useful content to your sales leads or current clients that link to a supporting landing page.
Do your research.
A/B testing can come in handy with marketing emails. It can be used to test the effectiveness of your subject lines, content, and your recipients. Take the time to find out who your best target audience is and cater your messages to them. Find out if your open rates increase when you write your emails to one person rather than just sending out a generic “Hello!” (Sometimes, open rates increase when emails are written directly to one recipient. This helps create a sense of familiarity and focus.) Figure out if your emails get opened more often when they are sent from a person or a company. An email sent from a generic company email address might immediately get written off as advertising, while an email sent from first.name@company.com gets opened as it feels more personalized. Know the right time to send your emails, too. If you are sending your emails to organizations after the end of the workday, they may not get opened as people have already left their offices. The right timing for sending out your emails may depend on the industry you are targeting or other demographic characteristics of your audience. You’ll also want to know if the majority of your emails are getting opened on a desktop or mobile device so you can be sure to appropriately format your messages for small phones and large desktop monitors because
communicating with text and images are very different.
The Takeaway
Email marketing has one of the highest engagement rates and returns on investment (ROI) of an outbound marketing strategy to date, so if you aren’t making use of it, you are missing out on potential business.
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