Making your emails more engaging

How many emails do you receive during the day?

According to email receiving statistics, the average person receives over 100 emails per day!!

And of those emails, how many do you engage with, and how many do you simply delete?

When it comes to sending out emails or newsletters, you are battling against the wind. There are several things that marketers can do to try and stand out.

• Catchy subject line
• Pictures
• Content

But with so many emails being sent, there needs to be something more, a new development in marketing emails. There are two ways to achieve this: one is to include dynamic content.

Make your emails dynamic

We’ve all become accustomed to seeing our names appearing in the text of an email, but you can go a step further and include content that you know is relevant to your reader. Examples of relating content to known behaviours and preferences are showing a customer an item related to one they have already purchased, or including advice on a topic relevant to their age or interests.

Marketing automation software like Constant Contact, linked to your website, makes this mass customisation of emails relatively straightforward.

Better still, make them interactive

The next development starting to appear is interactive emails. The larger companies are good at these already, but marketers in smaller firms aren’t embracing them fully yet.

Case Study: PrimeStox

How we helped PrimeStox treble registrations while reducing spend in just two months.

What is an interactive email? These are emails that include a gif, a countdown, or something that the reader can do something with.

“91% of consumers want interactive content, but only 17% of marketers provide it,” said Megan Moller, director of content marketing at Litmus.

Case Study: The Replace Base

An online retailer of mobile device repairs and replacement parts

Could you make a gif of new products? This would be eye-catching and could also work across social media. How about a countdown to a new brand launch? These give a sense of urgency to your email and encourage people to act right away.

Everyone loves quizzes, so you could insert a simple quiz to find out more about your subscribers to help with future dynamic marketing,

But beware

New capabilities tend to lead to over-use and they can quickly become a gimmick. The trick is to make sure the dynamic and interactive feature you use are suitable and have a purpose; placing them in there for no reason won't have the impact you're looking for.

You will know your readers better than anyone, so use what you think will work and experiment. The first item you try might not succeed, but another one will: it's about not being afraid of trying something new.

And finally, before you press send…

With any form of email, not just interactive ones, it is essential to check accessibility. This ensures that visually impaired, deaf, and hard-of-hearing users can enjoy your emails in the same way as everybody else.

As part of your final checks before you press send, make sure your email looks as you want it to on different devices; what looks good on a desktop might not look the same on a mobile.

If you'd like help with any forms of email marketing, please get in touch with us, and we'll be happy to help.