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Increasing Click-Through Traffic
According to MarketingSherpa, only 16 percent of all B2B email marketers achieve a click-through rate greater than 21 percent on email newsletters that are sent to in-house lists. However, a well-crafted email campaign may receive a click-through rate of 70 percent or more. To achieve results like this, you need create newsletters that are less about your company and more about your subscribers.
Know your audience: Customer preferences and a segmented database are just the beginning. To increase traffic to your website through email marketing, you must know details such as the best day and time to email your customers, whether your customers prefer HTML or text only email messages, and what your message is competing against in your subscribers’ inboxes. Every other email in their mailboxes is a direct threat to your campaign whether it comes from one or your competitors or not. This is why subject lines are so important.
Subscribers use subject lines as gate-keepers. A well-written subject line contains information such as the sender’s organization, keywords explaining what the message refers to, and a clear call to action or deadline. Subject lines may also contain personalization such as the recipient’s name and product preference. These components let the readers know prior to opening the message who the sender is and what the message is about, and it allows them to make an instant decision on whether or not they are interested in the offer. For example, “Susan, don’t miss MegaJewelers 2 day sale on orange sapphires” is clear and to the point. Customers that have shown an interest in orange sapphires have a reason to read the message and many of them will take advantage of the offer. To learn more about subject lines, read Listrak’s white paper Crafting a Must-Read Email Subject Line.
The best way to learn about your customers is to send out a brief survey along with your welcome message. This will give you a lot of the information you need to know upfront before you ever send out an email campaign. You will also want to test your email campaigns through A/B split testing and you need to carefully track the results.
Integrate RSS: Offering your email newsletter via email or direct RSS feed is a viable option for many email marketers today. Although the messages cannot be tracked through RSS the way they can be though email marketing, offering your subscribers the choice of subscribing through an RSS feed is a great way for them to cut down on the amount of emails they receive and for you to avoid the inbox clutter.
Only send out new, relevant information: The content of an email newsletter must be useful to subscribers – it must be new information that they haven’t read before and it must be relevant to their business in order to drive the traffic to your website. Email marketing is a great way to raise awareness of your brand, and, because of this, many marketers make the mistake of sending out too many email campaigns. This could actually hurt your business as subscribers may opt-out of your list or even report you as a Spammer. Subscribers only sign up to receive information from companies they know and trust – they are already aware of your brand. Your targeted email marketing messages should be sent out in a timely manner, but you must limit the amount of times you email your list each month.
Give them a snapshot: The text and body of an email can be challenging for email marketers. They must present enough content to interest and inform readers while keeping it light enough so the readers may easily scan through the information. Subscribers of both B2B and B2C email newsletters are pressed for time when reviewing the contents of their inboxes. If your email has a compelling enough subject line to stand out and be opened by the reader, you do not want them to delete the message immediately because it is too long or because the important information is buried beneath text that does not apply to them.
Targeted email messages are tools that drive traffic to your website by pointing readers to useful online information. The email should offer the reader a reason for taking the time to visit the site, such as a link to receive free white paper download, a special code that can be used online for an extra discount or free shipping, or simply a synopsis of a case study, a pie-chart of relevant information, or a brief answer to a frequently asked question on your website. The trick is to give the reader enough information to capture his or her attention and then provide a link to your website where the reader can acquire additional information.
Include a clear call to action: When writing the content of your email message, it is important to have in mind one clear call to action that you want your readers to respond to. Do you want readers to make a purchase, answer a survey question, download a white paper, or forward your information to a friend or colleague? In order to have people react to your message, you must tell them what to do. For example, instead of using the “click here” button, try using action words such as “get it ” or “I want this” for readers responding to a sale promotion or “read now” for a white paper download. Instead of the typical forward link, use a button that says “share with friend” or “send to colleague”. Action buttons tell the reader exactly what to do and it makes it easy for them to respond in the way that you intended.
Make it interactive and fun: Readers need to be informed, but they also like to be entertained. For example, if you are announcing a new product launch in your email newsletter, direct the subscribers to an online contest where they can answer questions using information gained in the newsletter to win prizes. Many of your subscribers will take the time to play a quick online game if it is exciting and fun, and they will be more apt to buy your products if they win free shipping or an extra discount.
