Boosting email engagement is not nearly as complicated as young brands tend to think, especially if you are already familiar with using insights and have previous experience in marketing. By the latter, we primarily imply — communication and setting the right goals.

Even if you are completely new to email marketing, you stand a good chance of growing your brand if you keep analyzing your campaigns’ performance and encourage feedback. In a nutshell, that’s all there is to success.

However, the trick is in getting people to actually open your emails, which is a bigger challenge than the quality of the actual offer and the content of your messages, believe it or not.

Getting Started

First of all, in order to understand the scope of the task ahead, it is necessary to understand your recipients’ online habits. When do they check for new messages? Which devices do they use? What do they expect from an email offer? What is one message too many? Are they likely to delete your message or mark it as spam? What does it depend on?

Some of the answers can be answered through stats:

• More than 52% of people access their inbox on mobile devices, and the percentage is on the rise and expected to keep rising
• 70% of mobile recipients read emails at least one more time
• 65% of the re-read messages result in a click
• One-third of all clicks are performed on mobile devices
• Most subscriptions take place on mobile devices

As you can see, optimizing email campaigns for mobile devices is imperative. This means you’ll want to go easy with images, use proper formatting and mind the recommended word count, especially when it comes to subject lines.

As regards the “one message too many,” use common sense. Newsletters are generally being sent either weekly, bi-monthly or monthly, so pick one option and stick to it! As for various offers, don’t be too aggressive in your online marketing efforts. Announcing a sale prior to it actually taking place is recommended, but don’t do it five times in a row and especially not every day leading up to the sale.

Stats also show that the best time to send emails is around 10 AM and 1 PM because the majority of people check their inboxes around that time. Need we say that you’ll want your message to be on top? People receive way too many offers for which they wouldn’t have enough time, even if they were interested in all of them (and they certainly aren’t).

In that sense, you’ll want your brand to become a household name for your loyal customers. Don’t be among those sending unwanted offers.

That, simply put, means that you should do your homework with audience research, including taking advantage of eLearning opportunities to become even more well-informed. Send your offer ONLY to your audience. Targeting, segmentation and personalization are the keys to long-term email marketing success, so that would be how you ensure your messages get the attention they deserve rather than being deleted or marked as spam.

Communicate!

There’s nothing wrong with asking people for feedback. Quite the contrary! This is the most efficient way to show your audience that your brand cares about the people rather than just the sales. Nowadays, when social media pages have become new virtual hangouts, it’s only natural to promote your offer on them as well.

The best results may be expected from cross-promotions. Of course, use your social media profiles as they should be used (i.e., Twitter for texting and discussions, Facebook for offer shares, Pinterest for images, etc.). And always stay in line with the best interpersonal communication options!

Email Marketing Tips

Frankly speaking, we’re sick and tired of the multitude of useful hints and tips everyone seems to be an expert on nowadays. Email marketing best practices fall under common sense, as we’ve summarized below. To do email marketing mojo right, mind the following:

• Explore the best email programs
• Optimize your emails for mobile devices
• Make your website responsive (especially the landing page and the page linked in your email)
• Write literate and concise subject lines, text and copy hook
• Subject lines should not be more than 30 characters in length
• The pre-header text should not be more than 50 characters in length (40 to 50 chars are recommended)
• Include contact information and unsubscribe button to all emails you send
• Feature a large call to action button that stands out from the rest of the text

For the rest, refer to insights. Insights, coupled with feedback, are the key to every successful strategy.

Finally, mind your brand identity at all times. No matter the variety of the offers, your communication style, and your business promise must remain consistent at all times. You may address different audiences in a different way, but stick to one style - whether you’re promoting tips on how to choose insurance or the best wedding videographer.

Let’s back up these tips with stats:

• Targeted email campaigns generate more than 75% of the total email revenue
• Transactional emails generate 6 times more revenue than other message types
• Transactional emails get 8 times more clicks than other email types
• Automated email campaigns have 50% conversion rates
• 77% of marketers use email to send personalized content to subscribers
• 67% of marketers use big data to personalize email campaigns
• 66% of marketers personalize email campaigns
• 64% of marketers use mobile-optimized designs for email campaigns

Conclusion

Email marketing is cheap, fun and holds an immense potential to multiply your customer base. Leaving complicated stats and calculations aside, in order for your campaigns to be successful, you need to be nice-mannered, communicate with your clients actively, and cross-promote your offer so that more people will get to see it.

Experimenting with various approaches is fine, but when you find a style that works — stick to it.

Last but not least — reward loyalty. Always devise special offers for people who’ve made your brand what it is. In that way, your business is guaranteed to become a household name.

Portions of this article were originally featured on Business2Community.