11 Ways Email Campaigns Can Drive Conversions
Email marketing has become a necessity for marketers as it improves their relationship with their customers. It allows marketers to transform visitors into loyal guests and increase marketing revenues.
According to Forbes, 73% of marketers stated that email marketing was a major strategy for their business in 2014. In addition, 59% of marketers have been starting to increase their email marketing budgets since the beginning of this year.
These facts resulted from the rising trend of using mobile devices and increased email open rates by subscribers. According to direct marketing association, email marketing contributes a $40 return on investment for every dollar spent.
In order to use effective strategies for your email marketing campaign to boost conversions, you must ask the following questions: how are marketers using email campaigns to increase their sales? What techniques they should implement for their campaign in order to boost their return on investment? Here are some email marketing tactics you should use in order to boost conversions:
- Create behavioral webhooks
Create pop-ups asking to collect your visitor’s emails once they visit your website for the first time. This is known as the early customer acquisition at the beginning of the conversion funnel. You can choose to feature the pop-up once the customer visits your website, or upon a goal being triggered before their exits.
- Segment your customers
Email segmentation is critical to find out how to email your customers in the most effective way. Email segmentation could be applied according to:
- Geographic
- Demographics (age, gender, marital status)
- Interests (what are their preferences)
- Customers behavior (standing in your conversion funnel and how they are engaging with your brand)
By recognizing your target audience through your segmentation process, you can tailor your automated emails which go in line with your guests needs, increasing the potential of generating leads.
- Use email automation
Sending auto-responders is a great way to encourage your customers to take a further action. But this strategy should be done carefully depending on your visitor’s behavior. You can choose to automate your emails according to different criteria as represented in the picture below:
Target repeated guests who wished to check out but became hesitant at the last moment, send them an automated email asking what prevented them from completing their checkout. This maintains your relationship with your customer and increases the likelihood for more conversions.
- Reward your loyal guests
Loyal guests are the ones you should always improve your relationship with and never lose them. The most successful concept is to follow the 80/20 rule which states that your large amount of revenue is based on small number of loyal customers. For example, you are likely to offer discounts, coupons, a free gift, product trials or free shipping to those who are the most profitable for your business.
- Send a welcome email to those who filled in their email addresses
Your relationship starts with your customers. Sending a “thank you” or “welcome” email newsletter to your customers who accepted to sign-up is a smart technique to start building a relationship with them.
- Write compelling subject lines
Although what matters first is the relationship between the sender and the recipient, subject line also plays a critical role in influencing customers decisions. Writing appealing email subject lines leads to a significant increase in open rates. Prevent using some words that might make your email look like spam. For example, using words like “amazing,” “free,” and “100% off” indicate exaggeration leading customers into suspicion about your credibility. Depending on your email content, use attractive subject lines that create a sense of urgency or include facts or numbers.
- Choose the appropriate time
Focus on the time your customers are getting to read your emails. According to many studies, the most suitable time for sending emails is between 2 and 5pm. It has been also stated that Tuesday and Thursday are the best days to post. The most critical thing is to choose the most appropriate time that your customers are available to receive your emails.
If you find your email performance results didn’t go as expected, you can send the same email at a different time or date and measure again. Depending on your business and the purpose of your email, sending emails at different times or days might give you better results. Therefore, you should measure, measure and measure.
- Target your customers on their birthdays and holiday events
One of the smartest strategies email marketers use is to send series of automated emails to their customers during holidays and events. You can find out all coming holidays through the system calendar and automate your emails to be released to customers’ prior the day of the event. Similarly, you can schedule emails in advance to be sent out to your customers on their birthdays.
- Personalize your email newsletters
Through “Vbout”, you can choose to personalize your emails by inserting “Dear Username” and the system will automatically assign the corresponding name of the customer so when the customer receives your email, he sees his full name on the top. This is an effective way to maintain positive relationships with your customers and they become satisfied to receive your emails.
- Focus on mobile optimization
As mobile users have surpassed the number of desktop users, email marketers should take advantage of responsive design and use an appropriate formatting, that fits mobile and tablet viewing. Keep your content short and don’t bother your customers to scroll down to read your text. The problem with desktop websites is that they appear vague on mobile. Call to actions look hidden and it is hard to click on links. If the site is not optimized for mobile devices, users leave as they have limited patience to interact with an awkward website. According to huffingtonpost.com, 80 percent of shoppers said they are eager to buy and interact with a brand that features an engaging mobile experience.
- Optimize your landing page
Some of your email campaigns contain a click through link which directs your visitors to a landing page to make a specific action. Whether you want them to download a form, sign-up to your email list to get instant updates about your blog, get an e-book, register for a webinar or buy your product, the landing page should be appealing enough to push your customers to make an action. Your major objective is to create a simple landing page with a catchy call to action button. The design, structure and color are compatible with your brand and website theme. Your landing page should not be too long otherwise your visitors will get bored and leave your website. For example, the landing page below is simple and does not contain too many questions
Conclusion
When you implement the most effective email campaign practices, you’re guaranteed conversions. Different ways could be used to preserve your relationship with your customers and keep them from bouncing from your site. The eleven tips mentioned above might be helpful to increase your email conversion rate and reduce potential customers from leaving your website.