Does your recruiting department or search firm send out a weekly or monthly newsletter to subscribers? If so, you probably track how many emails are opened and the click through rate for each campaign. Today, at Dallas Digital Summit, I attended a session called Making Email Work in a World That Hates Email. The session, led by Matt Byrd, outlined techniques that will allow email marketers to increase open and click through rates while providing a more engaging experience for readers.
Below are some of the highlights from the presentation.
Subscribers to your email newsletter expect three things.
1) Seamless, Cross-device experiences
2) Hyper relevant experiences
3) Engaging Experiences
Seamless, Cross-device experiences
- 49% of email opens are mobile
- 400% growth in 3 years
The most popular email client iOS mail on iPhone (28% of all opens) per emailclientmarketshare.com.
Know your audience: Every company has a different demographic… MapMyRun, which is a business to consumer application, has 70% of their readership using mobile devices. Litmus, which is business to consumer service, has only 15% of their emails opened on mobile.
Marketers should use an “any inbox, any device” email marketing strategy which requires a responsive design. For those of you who don’t already know, responsive design responds to the type of screen it is being viewed on to allow all readers to have a positive experience regardless of the device they are using. Get 7 free responsive templates here.
Why is responsive design important?
- 80% of subscribers delete emails that look bad on their phones
- 31% of email marketers aren’t sending responsive emails
How to Look good on mobile devices.
- There should be strong visual hierarchy
- Marketers should “embrace the scroll.” Scrolling is very intuitive for readers.
- Emails should include big buttons with clear calls to action.
Why is responsive so important?
- You’re meeting readers where they are.
Optimize the preview header text.
- Pre-header text. This should be more clear. Preview text is pulled into the inbox automatically.
- 75% of emails get displayed with preview text.
- optimized preheater text improved Matt’s click through rate by 30%
Subscribers are also expecting hyper relevant experiences
- Personalization isn’t just throwing in a first name. Emails needs to be more personalized.
- Consider your subscriber behavior as a trigger for emails (videos watched, tool usage, logged-in to a tool, attended event, downloaded something, etc.)
- Your audience is always 1!! Your list may be large but each is an individual. Segment your marketing lists in a way that allows you to be as personalized as possible.
Subscribers expect engaging experiences.
- Animated gifs are engaging. Netflix recently sent a really creepy email with a GIF of Kevin Spacey. The online reaction to the email was very positive.
- Push boundaries.
Email in the future…..
- Gmail recently introduced inbox app which puts more control into the hands of subscribers.
- Wearables is a very important topic for email marketers to watch. We’re not sure how it’ll effect mobile but we assume this will be important in the future.
- Technology will change
Good emails make people OPEN and CLICK. Great emails get people to think, feel, laugh, act.