Email campaigns can help you connect with your customers, but people today are very picky about which emails they choose to open. Emails must be carefully crafted and offer something of value to your email subscribers to be effective. To create an email campaign that gets opened, follow these five guidelines.

Write a Winning Subject Line

It’s no surprise that the subject line plays a major role in how many email subscribers open your emails. According to a statistic provided by Convince and Convert, 35% of email recipients open emails based on the subject line alone. The email subject line is your subscriber’s first impression of your email. You will want it to be catchy and interesting, but don’t forget to avoid sounding spammy. There are many formulas for writing a good subject line. Here are some of my top tips.

– Keep it short and sweet – The sweet spot is 5-7 words.

– Be clear about the content of your email. Don’t mislead; be upfront about what’s inside.

– Use personalization – Use their name or some relevant information about them. According to HubSpot, emails that include the first name of the recipient in their subject line had higher click-through rates.

– Create Urgency – Subject lines that create a sense of urgency can give a 22% boost to open rates.

– CTA – Tell them what to do.

Welcome New Subscribers

Once your email has captured your subscriber’s attention, welcome them to your emails. A good welcome email is the first step to a long-term and successful relationship with your email subscribers. Make sure to send out your welcome email immediately. You want your new email subscribers to get their welcome email within minutes, if not seconds of confirming their email address. The reason for having to send the welcome email immediately is because you want to take advantage of your subscriber while they’re engaging with your brand. They’re likely to be still on your website, your blog, or where ever they signed up. They’re not only engaged; they’re probably interested in your services and would like to learn more since they signed up for your emails. Continue the engagement with a welcome email.

Tell Them What to Expect

This goes hand-in-hand with the welcome email part. It’s important to introduce yourself, your business, tell them why your company is awesome, and what they should expect from your emails. Here are a few things to mention:

– How often you will be emailing them.

– What kind of emails and content you’ll be sending them.

If you promise the email subscriber only one email per week and instead send them daily, they’re not going to like that. You lied to them; you tricked them into signing up for something they may not be interested in.

Ask Subscribers to Let Your Email In

To ensure that your emails are even getting seen is making sure they’re getting received. To prevent them from being sent to the spam or junk folder, send your email subscribers instructions on how to prevent this from happening. For example, you can ask them to add your email address to their list of contacts or favorites so your emails bypass any filters.

Offer Readers Value

Offer content that is interesting and relevant to your email subscribers. Go beyond promoting your business and give readers information they find valuable. You can link blog posts, tutorials, e-books, and other informational content. Content that answers your subscriber’s questions encourages them to learn more about your brand, establishing trust and loyalty.

 

Email is easy to execute, however, it does take planning and requires you to put some thought and effort into it before you get desirable results. So, next time you’re planning an email campaign, follow these tips. Test them out and you may see an increase in your email campaign open rates. For more email marketing advice, contact one of our email experts at US Data Corporation at (888) 578-3282.