INSIGHT
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR
EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS
Email marketing is one of those grey areas where a number of different techniques and methods exist
to the point where it can become overwhelming. But it needn’t be that confusing, in fact, and once you
understand the basics you’ll notice that email marketing should be treated just like a landing page or
website. There will be certain elements that you need to include to maximise your conversion and others
that you will need to test in order to determine their ability to convert.
What metrics equal success?
Open rate
This metric relates to how many of your
subscribers opened your email in relation
to the number of subscribers you sent it
to. The open rate for a high quality email
list is never going to produce a 100 percent
success rate. In fact, an average open rate
in the world of marketing is typically never
over 30 percent; a figure that would be
considered a huge success.
You need to think about what elements
of your email could be turning your
subscribers away to the point where they
won’t even open your email. First things
first, although it may kill you to turn away
a ‘potential’ customer, go through your
email list and cut, cut, cut. Anyone who
hasn’t opened an email in over six months,
anyone whose email address bounces: get
them off your list – they’re just hurting you.
Secondly, make sure that you are using
your subscriber data to its full potential.
There is no use sending 1,000 emails
advertising women’s clothing when over 60
percent of your email list is male. Make sure
you do your homework and segment your
email list. Even separating your subscribers
by their gender and presenting them with
targeted male/female email campaigns will
do wonders to your open rate.
Finally, test, test and then test some
more. Split testing is not just reserved for
landing pages and websites. You should
be split testing every single email you send
out. Some things you can experiment with
include signature, from address, HTML
versus Plain Text, number of images
and image placement, subject line and
rewording your call-to-action.
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Click through rate (CTR)
List size
The CTR is simple; it’s the percentage of
total email recipients that click on it. Firstly,
at this point they’ve obviously opened the
email, so kudos to you on that. Now, you
have to think about what it is you want
This relates to how much your email list
has grown over the course of a calendar
year. A bigger email list with more varied
client categories means more revenue
opportunities for you and your business.
Make sure you make the growth of your
subscriber base a priority because a large
and established email list is one of the most
powerful (and valuable) tools you possess
as a marketer.
“The best road to take
when doing any kind of
marketing is to keep it
simple... and this applies
greatly to email marketing.”
them to see. If you’re one of those artistic
folk who love to be heavy handed with the
imagery, then bear in mind that 60 percent
of people have images disabled. “Well that’s
easy”, you think. “Just have a single image
and more text and there won’t be an issue.”
This will only work out well if you have put
some effort into your ALT tag, which is the
text description that appears when the image
does not. If you fail to make these words
descriptive enough, then all people who have
images disabled will see is a big blank space
– and who’s going to click on that?
Make their journey less complicated.
Don’t bombard them with lots of places to
click or they’ll get confused, frustrated and
hit the bin button. Keep your links
to five or less, go for a single column
layout as not only does it improve
readability and highlight your call-to-action
more effectively, it also looks good on
mobile devices. Finally, make sure you’re
using links or CSS buttons instead of
graphical buttons so that everyone will
have a chance to see (and click) your
call-to-action button.
Unsubscribe/spam
This is a sad metric (why would anyone
want to leave?) and relates to those who
click the fine print unsubscribe link you’re
obligated to include on your emails, or
those of the meaner crowd who report
you for spam. There is a trifecta of why
someone would be so cruel as to take either
of these measures:
a. You bore them
b. They never signed up to you
c . You are way too clingy and send too
many emails
Now, I can’t judge too harshly because
I too have hit the old ‘spammy’ button
when one particular clothing company
(you know who you are) sent me two,
yes two emails per day. I cannot tell you
how annoying it was. So, make sure that
you are promoting interesting content.
As a good rule of thumb, try to personalise
your emails (this is where categorisation
comes in) and try to make them
educational. Don’t go blabbing to the
universe with the same deals over and
over – make a journey of it. Create an email
campaign that builds with each email, like