These three hypnotic tips will entice your readers to open and click through your email.
Assuming your marketing email breaks through spam filters and over-zealous anti-malware systems, the next challenge is to get your prospects to actually read and click through the message.
Like many marketing techniques, generating clicks appears to be a dark art.
Here are some of the very best ways to make your prospects click through to your website.
1. Finding the charmed hour
Reaching your customer’s mailbox is one thing, but reaching it at the right time of day pays a significant part in the potential success of your campaign.You need to ensure your email arrives when:
- Your reader is most likely to have time to read it.
- Is least likely to be clearing ‘junk’ out of their inbox.
- Is actually in front of their screen when the mail lands.
According to Mailchimp research:
- Most mail was opened between 2pm and 5pm, so apparently this is the sweet spot to aim for for B2B customers.
- The highest volumes of mail were sent on Tuesday and Thursday, suggesting your recipients’ mailboxes will be most active on those days.
- The most email opens and click-throughs came on Wednesday and Thursdays.
Based on this data, 3pm on a Thursday is probably the best time to try and entice your prospects to click through.
2. Beguiling personalisation
If you want customers to act on your offers, you must provide information that is genuinely useful to them. This goes beyond simply getting the name of the recipient correct in the greeting.
You should personalise the message using:
- Any preferences stated during the email sign-up process.
- Mailing list segmentation to ensure prospects are targeted based on previous purchase history or similar.
- Further personalisation based on site browsing history, abandoned shopping carts or social signals – anything that helps your business offerings more relevant.
Relevance is the key to hypnotising your customers. Show an interest in your customers’ problems, provide a solution and hey presto! They’ll be clicking through in no time.
“14% of marketers indicated that personalised campaigns generate a better response rate than mass-market campaigns.”
3. Bewitching wording and artwork
The text of your email and the artwork you use will either attract or repel your reader. Quantifying exactly what attracts a user to go further with your email is difficult – your best bet is to institute a split testing regime to look at:
- Colours.
- Shapes.
- Buttons.
- Calls to Action (CTAs).
Over time you will learn which design elements offer the best positive uplift in click-throughs. Every time you find a particular tweak that performs well, add it to the next email template. And don’t forget to consider mobile email readers – 51% of all emails opened are viewed on a smartphone or tablet.
“Only 31% of marketers carry out ‘regular’ testing, despite 74% of those marketers reporting ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI on their email activities.”
Email Marketing Platform Buyer’s Guide 2013, Econsultancy
Enchanting emails
Remember, if you want to hypnotise your customers:
- Work on the timing. There is a sweet spot for hitting your customer’s inbox – find it!
- Get personal. Generic emails do not encourage click-throughs – target your offers to customer preferences instead.
- Test your words and artwork. Institute a proper testing regime to better inform each marketing cycle.
Get some additional help with your marketing email content with our free eGuide: The 5 Tenets of Modern Marketing