When it comes to e-mail campaigns each marketer has a singular goal in mind. Getting that all-important click or conversion. Converting the reader to app-user or product-buyer with an amazingly and elaborately crafted e-mail and customer journey.
Capturing the attention of your reader is hard, but getting them to engage, to interact, with your content is even harder. If you want to boost your e-mail engagement even more, then I got three quick tips to improve your e-mail engagement rates.
One Call-to-action is enough
Really, one Call-To-Action, CTA for short, is all you should aim for in your e-mails. Make sure you determine beforehand what your goals are and stick to it.
For example, when I’m running a data-collection survey, the only button in my e-mail will be to access the survey. It will be linked under several words with an anchor-link, sure. But every click brings my reader to the same destination: my survey.
Don’t try to get more out of your email. Your readers already have gone through the effort of opening it in the first place. Adding for example a button to visit the home-page, or adding in an embedded YouTube video, only distracts the user from reaching your goal.
Seriously, stick to one CTA only.
The subtle art of “nudging”
The better you are at nudging your reader to your CTA, the better your email will perform. Pretty straightforward right? But what do we mean by nudging? It’s not about “click here and get a free IPad”. Far from it. Nudging is about small little hints, pointers and attention-grabbers (see what I did there?) that sublty direct your reader towards your CTA.
Sentences like “click the link below”, with the emphasis on the word Link, would draw attention to it directly. Simply underline it, like I did above here, already goes a long way in grabbing attention.
If the word link is then also clickable AND goes straight to the desired page you mean to get the reader towards, you now have not one, but two methods for your reader to reach your CTA. One method being the button or link you are referring to, the other being the word itself.
Don’t overdo it either, but try to “hide” at least two or three of these nudges and links into your e-mail. As long as they lead to the same URL/Goal, as mentioned in my first point: Stick to one CTA.
Straight to the point
Similarly to the first point I made, you should keep it short, simple and to the point in your e-mail. Do not distract your reader with flashy images, texts or banners. Don’t swerve around the topic, trying to tease them or artificially extending the time spent reading. Your reader is skimming the text anyways. Just get straight to the point. Take this example below, a quick email to push free users of any subscription-based platform to convert to paying user.
“Hey dear [First.name],
We’re stoked to have you as a new user of our platform, Welcome aboard!
If you like our product, and are seeing the benefits of it, why not consider subscribing? You can do it via the button below, where you can also read all the perks that come with it.
[Button here]
Have a lovely day, we’re here for you if you need us!
Team [your business]”
That one is from me, for you, free to use. Copy it if you like!
You can also consider sending a short reminder two weeks later to people who did not open/click on the e-mail. Just add “In case you missed our last message” to the email’s introduction.
Your product and service speaks for itself (hopefully). If a user really loves it, he’ll love this short message, see the benefit for himself and convert.
Short messages are powerful, easy to read and respect your users/clients time. They’ll appreciate it, trust me.
Conclusion
There you go. Three easy tricks to boost your e-mail engagement. In summary:
- Stick to one CTA per email
- Try to nudge users towards your desired CTA
- Keep your emails short and to the point (Respect your readers time!)
Good luck putting this in practice yourself. It’s one thing to craft email campaigns, it’s a whole other thing to be successful at them.