Email marketing
Email marketing is an excellent way to increase your brand awareness, stay in touch with your subscribers and build a strong relationship with them. And the more your email list grows, the greater your enthusiasm to send your audience useful, entertaining emails to enjoy. But how do you know what would most appeal to the people in your list? Also, how can you make sure your subscribers receive your content? We’ve got a few tips that should help you boost your email deliverability and improve your open and clickthrough rates.
Always check your campaign reports
Let’s start with the most important thing: your campaign reports, the mirror of your email marketing program.
Hitting the “Send” button is just the first step in getting in touch with your subscribers. Once you’ve sent out your email, keep an eye on your reports to see that your campaigns are getting the results you deserve.
First, look at your bounce rate: how many emails have either soft or hard bounced? Do the numbers worry you? Then it’s time to let an email validation service investigate your email hygiene. For example, you may have too many invalid addresses in your database. If you’re not using the double op-in subscription model, or an email validation API on your signup forms, your list might be clogged by misspelled addresses. A complex email verification system will be able to determine why you had any soft or hard bounces. And, of course, will eliminate those bad contacts to help you achieve better deliverability.
Why would your emails land in the Spam folder?
When it comes to your open rates, there are two reasons why they could be low: either your content isn’t engaging the people on your list, or they never see your emails, because they land in the Spam folder. Why would your emails land in the Spam folder, since you’re a legitimate sender? The answer, again, has a lot to do with your email hygiene.
Catch-all, disposable and abuse emails, along with spam traps, can seriously harm your sender reputation. Internet and Email Service Providers have complex algorithms that analyze your sending behavior and email laws compliance. Based on that, they decide whether to deliver your email in the inbox, the Spam folder, or to not deliver it at all. That’s why pruning your list has such a significant impact on your reputation and, ultimately, your deliverability. Email verification is becoming a standard for many marketers, and for a good reason: open rates can never grow in lack of a thorough email hygiene.
Stay up to date with what happens in your industry
Smart marketers use email not only to promote their products and services, but also to establish their brand as an industry authority. In order to do that, you have to strive to always be up to date with what happens in your industry.
Learn the news before everyone else does, look for innovations and developments that can impact your audience. Then, share them with your subscribers by adding your own take. In the long run, they will come to see you as a thought leader in your field and will most likely open your emails for information and inspiration.
Run A/B tests to see what works best
Even when you make the effort to know your subscribers, you can’t always anticipate what they expect from you. Some may be interested in your coupons and discounts and rather click on promotional emails. Others are keener in getting your insight on a specific industry topic.
Running a few A/B tests will let you know what type of content your subscribers would most like to see from you. Feel free to get creative with your subject lines and preview texts, as they are the first things your recipients see.
Your story is unique, capitalize on it
The average person receives about 121 emails a day. Think about that for a second: do you have the time to go through 121 emails every single day? So, for marketers, the competition for people’s time and attention is fierce. In order to get higher open and clickthrough rates, you have to find a way to stand out within the inbox. How do you do that? By capitalizing on your own unique story.
Don’t hesitate to share your insight on current events and innovations, to give people a glimpse of your day-to-day life and company culture. Let your subscribers be a real part of your story and reading your emails will become the best way for them to keep the story going.
