Get the most out of your email campaign by boosting its important metric, besides your open rate: the click-through rate! The click-through rate (CTR) shows you that not only have the readers of your email opened the message but they are interacting with the content. Something spoke to them!
If you’re getting phenomenal open rates, at least you know you’re on the right track. But if no one is clicking on the links within, then you don’t get to show your readers what you want them to do. With each click they make you get closer to a sale, and with each click you get closer to converting one interested reader into a customer.
Here are our 8 surefire tips for turning your marketing emails into conversion machines.
- Keep the branding consistent
- Add your logo somewhere prominent
- Use the same colors from your website
- Use the same voice or tone you use on your website
- Stick to one layout
- Use a single column layout if you have a single CTA
- Use multi-column layouts if you have lots of content to share
- Make it responsive
- Include images
- Use Button CTAs (Text Links Only for Less Crucial Clicks
- Focus on one CTA
- Follow with a P.S. Section
- Add Share Buttons
- Do the “Squint Test”
Make your emails look consistent with your website and all other branded material. Readers intuitively look for clues that tell them they are in the right place. If they already feel a connection with your brand, they might find it jarring (or suspicious) if your email asking them to make a purchase doesn’t look 100% like it’s coming from your business.
The logo is probably the most important of those three. Just because you know the Nike name doesn’t mean they don’t emblazon the famous swoosh on every email they send out.
Choose how you will present your information and use that same layout for the rest of your emails. If you keep the layout consistent, then you can start tweaking smaller elements, like the Call-to-Action (CTA).
MailChimp, one of the world’s leading email marketing tools suggests this:
Learn how to create a responsive email design and your email click-through rate will skyrocket just by you making your email easier to read.
If you can’t do that, at least show your readers the most important or eye-popping part of your email through the email preview. Campaign Monitor analyzed over 1.8 billion email opens in 2013 and only 28% of them happened over the desktop. Three years later and that number is only growing smaller, so to appeal to the most number of people you should consider making your preview width about 600 px to appeal to the largest number of people.
Appeal to your reader’s visual senses with a compelling image. Make it original, if you can. Then link those images to the URLs you wish your customers to click through.
Vero analyzed over 5000 campaigns and found that campaigns with images had a 42% higher CTR than campaigns without images. Another survey by HubSpot shows that 65% of respondents prefer emails that contain mostly images, versus 35% who prefer text.
Use buttons as your primary CTAs and use text links to re-enforce them. Your readers are hardwired to click on buttons, so give them buttons of all kinds. Clicking on a CTA button is as instinctual as twisting one type of door knob while knowing to pull the handle of another type.MailChimp’s analysis shows that linking a phrase with about noticeably long (7-10 words) is great for boosting CTRs.
Focus each email on just one CTA and give your reader several chances to participate in the CTA. To see this concept in action, we recommend reading about how Whirlpool got a 42% CTR increase and HelpScout increased click-through rate by 17% by using this tactic.
Finish your email with a quick post-script. It’s a well-know secret, used by copywriters everywhere to drive the message home and make a last hail mary CTA. This concept follows the Serial Position Effect, which states that the item placed last in a series draws as much attention as the item placed at the beginning of the series.
Add at least the three most relevant share buttons for social networks and platforms. You never know how much you’ve peaked a reader’s interest until they are so excited they need to share the information.
Check out GetResponse’s email CTA infographic about social share buttons driving up CTA. According to the image, emails with social sharing buttons have a 158% higher click-through rate over those without the buttons. That’s one of the most outstanding stats in this piece because it encompasses the readers of the email and the readers that saw the content via the original reader’s social channels.
Squint at your screen! Can you see your CTA button loud and clear? If you can’t, it’s time to make the button bigger, clearer or more colorful. Better yet, save your eyes and grab this coolsquint test Chrome extension. If you can still tell where the call to action is when squinting, then you’ve won the CTA game.
Now all you have to do is hit send and let your content fly into the in-boxes of your expectant subscribers.
P.S. (See what we did there?) don’t forget to give readers a reason to participate in your Call-to-Action and that your content clearly demonstrates the benefit of engaging in the action. If you give your Call-to-Action a sense of urgency, it must make sense or you will come off as pushy. Not everyone is as passionate about your business as you are but with the right wording and some carefully placed buttons, you can make a new customer out of just about any email subscriber.
