Improve Conversion

1.      What’s the subject?

The most important aspect of an email is to provide an intriguing and
interesting subject line for recipients to be tempted to find out more. If
possible carry out an initial Split run test on a small proportion of the
email list. For example we tested two different subject lines for
LondonCakes.com. We discovered that one of the subject lines had a 6.74% increased open rate and on a
list of 50,000 emails, that would lead to a potential increase of 3,370 more
opened emails.

2.      Who opened? Who clicked what?

If your email marketing software allows, it can be hugely beneficial to
monitor who opened the email and who clicked on which of the ‘calls to
action. The ability to resend the email to customers who did not open the
initial email and simply change the subject line can prove to be a valuable
exercise. For example we resent an email to non openers for
ChocolateOnChocolate.co.uk which led to an increase in the overall open rate of 6.16%.

3.      Above the fold!

All key offers or promotional messages should be clearly noticeable
immediately upon opening any email. Specifically they should not require the recipient
to scroll. Recipients must not be made to think or read too much as key
informative topics should be made clearly visit.

4.      List Hygiene

Email lists need to be checked regularly for hard and soft bounced emails to
keep deliverability rates up. If emails are not opened by recipients for
over 3 months it is good practice to send out an ‘un-missable’ offer to
those recipients and if the email is still unopened, the recipients email
address should be removed.

5.      Obvious Calls to Action

Implement key noticeable distinct ‘calls to action’ buttons and use obvious
blue hyper text, clickable links where necessary. Recipients generally skim
read emails but pay much closer attention to blue hyperlink as these allow
them to explore further, therefore wording used for hyperlinks should be
made to be preeminent.

6.      Distinct Logo

Ensure the company logo and slogan is at the top of the email so it is the
first aspect of the email recipients see, this instils company awareness to
the target demographic. It is beneficial for future email sends to allow
recipients to add company email to their address book and including clear
company name at the top of emails builds on consumer trust.

7.      Monitor + Adjust

Assess the best times of day to send to the target audience depending on
previous open rates. Monitor constantly the layout of the email design to
find which sections of the email are receiving the most clicks. Where possible,
build a trusting and informative relationship with recipients by providing
useful informative content. Provide incentives to encourage responses and
actions to be carried out by recipients for rapport building.

8.      List Segmentation

It is useful to be able to split email list into sectioned demographics to
allow targeted marketing offers to specific isolated audiences. This will
allow your email sends to be more targeted and aimed at interested parties
which will result in a greater click through rate and a higher return on
investment.

9.      Design Targeting

If possible, categorise target demographic and adjust email design to suit
demographic, as males and females respond differently to colours,
information and layout designs. It is important to deliver text versions of
emails as well as html versions as content validation checks are carried
out by Internet Service Providers to ensure authenticity.

10. Test test and then…..test some more

Test email in various ISP’s and browsers. Check for layout variations in
different browsers and grammatical mistakes in the subject line as well as
the email content. It is crucial to ensure every link is tested to be
working and navigating to the desired link corresponding to the relevant
page.