10 Tips to Boost Email Marketing Engagement
Email marketing is one of the most effective methods of digital marketing. It can help you promote your products and generate sales. According to statistics, as much as 60% of digital marketers note that email marketing outperforms social media, and the main reason is that it is highly engaging. Email marketing can drive more traffic to your website and generate more conversions.
People who opt-in to receive your emails are interested in your brand. You can turn them into loyal customers and increase their lifetime value, and the only thing you should do is to keep them engaged. Keeping your subscribers engaged is the biggest challenge of email marketing because, if you fail to do it, you will not only lose subscribers but also damage your credibility. You can analyze your click-through and open rates to learn more about your subscribers and to determine what content is the most interesting for them. However, if you see that your open rates decline and people start to unsubscribe, it means that your emails are not engaging enough. Here are some tips that will help you boost your email engagement.
Tips to Increase Engagement
1. Let them know what they’re signing up for
First, it’s important to set expectations before people decide to subscribe to your emails. No matter if it’s seasonal offers, monthly newsletters, or helpful tips, you should clearly indicate what types of emails they’re going to receive. This way, you will attract the right audience, and your subscribers won’t be disappointed by any unpleasant surprises. Besides, if the content of your emails doesn’t meet your subscribers’ expectations, these emails may end up in the spam folder. Thus, we recommend that you always describe the type of emails in the signup form.
2. Send engaging welcome emails
A good welcome email can be a reason why your subscribers will continue to engage with your brand. Welcome messages have higher open rates, and you should use them to your advantage. A simple thank you email will help you establish good relationships with your subscribers. We also recommend that you include a list of things that they will receive in the future (e.g. newsletters, promotions, etc.) so that they can know what to expect from you.
3. Communicate frequently
If you don’t send emails for a long time and then try to re-engage with your audience, your unsubscribe rate may explode. We suggest that you send your subscribers regular emails and relevant offers to keep them engaged all the time. However, don’t send too many emails. One or two emails per week will be fine. Besides, make sure that your content is actually valuable.
4. Use personalization
Personalization allows you to add value to your emails, tailoring them to the preferences and interests of your subscribers. According to statistics, 90% of marketers note a significant impact of personalization on profitability. To create personalized email marketing campaigns, you can segment your lead lists. Determine what types of products your subscribers have purchased in the past and create valuable content that will reflect their interests. A good example of valuable content is emails that educate and teach your subscribers something new. You can also personalize your promotions.
5. Put more effort into your subject lines
Even if your email is great in terms of content, nobody will read it if its subject line is ineffective and weak. Your subject lines must grab attention and motivate the readers to open your emails. “People get dozens of emails every day, quickly skimming through their inboxes, so your subject lines must stand out. Ask a question, mention a special offer, or create a sense of urgency. I also recommend that you address your subscribers by name,” adds Kimberly Thomas, editor and email marketing specialist at LegitWritingServices.
6. Use automation
Automation can make a big difference because it helps marketers combine strategy and software, enabling them to create personalized and relevant email campaigns. Automation allows for creating dynamic content and A/B testing, which are just two of the many benefits of automation that can help you boost email engagement. It will also save you a lot of time and help you communicate with the subscribers at the right moment.
7. Add social links
If you enable your subscribers to share your emails on social media, you will increase subscriber engagement significantly. Emails with social links demonstrate 158% higher click-through rates. We recommend that you add highly visible social media buttons to make sharing your content as simple as possible.
8. Use different types of emails
Provide different types of content to make your emails more engaging. We’ve already mentioned welcome emails, which should be simple and personalized. In addition, send weekly and monthly newsletters with targeted content. Share relevant offers and don’t forget to send thank you emails when your subscribers use your offers.
9. Include a strong call-to-action
The purpose of a marketing email is to not only give your audience something to read but also to motivate them to take action. For instance, emails may ask them to purchase a product, sign up for a webinar, or to follow you on social media. Make sure that your CTAs stand out visually and are easy to follow. Besides, the design of your emails shouldn’t distract your subscribers from the CTAs.
10. Make your emails mobile-friendly
According to research, 55% of emails are opened on smartphones and tablets. If you don’t optimize your emails for mobile devices, they will look terrible on small screens so you will get fewer clicks and engagement will drop. Fortunately, you can use mobile-friendly templates when working with MailChimp, Mailchimp alternatives, AWeber, and many other service providers.
Conclusion
If you see that your emails are not as effective as they used to be and people don’t respond to them as often, these simple tips will help you increase engagement so that your email marketing campaign will bring you better results. We recommend that you clearly indicate what kind of content your subscribers will receive from you and send them personalized thank you emails to build positive relationships. Segment your audience and use automation to communicate with your subscribers at the right time. Include strong CTAs, optimize your emails for mobile devices, write engaging subject lines, and you will boost your email marketing engagement in no time.
Rhonda Martinez
Rhonda Martinez is a marketing manager and blogger with a thorough understanding of social media, content marketing and customer engagement. Rhonda is truly passionate about marketing communications and enjoys sharing her knowledge through blogging. Find her on Twitter here: @rhondamarines.
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Mike, thanks for this impressive post, I find it short but very useful.
If I may ask, what do you think is the single best benefit of boosting email engagement?
Hi there Frank, you are very welcome.
Thanks for your visit and thanks for the kind words.
To answer your question, there are certainly many benefits of improving email marketing engagement from generating more leads to getting more sales conversions, however, if I really need to choose one:
The email engagement rate will also affect deliverability. ISPs and email providers (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) will “push” your emails to the subscribers’ addresses when more of your subscribers are opening your emails and clicking CTAs. This is because email providers will track your domain name and IP’s reputation (engagement rate).
High engagement rates, simply show your ISP and email provider that your subscribers (recipients) want your mail, and will increase deliverability (acceptance rates).
So, boosting the engagement rate will in turn, improve the whole email marketing campaign in general.
Hope that helps,
Thanks and best regards,
Mike
Hi Mike, thanks for this.
I find this post very interesting and inspiring, and I’ll certainly try some of your tips in my future email campaigns.
If I may ask one question, what’s your take on re-engagement campaign, and any tips on email re-engagement?
Thanks again,
Gwen
Hi there Gwen,
Thanks for the kind words, appreciate it.
Very good question. Re-engagement is very effective in reducing list churn rates (the percentage of people who unsubscribe from your list), which in turn can also improve the overall engagement.
The idea of re-engagement is to target your inactive or semi-active subscribers with “recycled” emails they might miss, and here are some tips I’d recommend for an email re-engagement campaign:
Personalize your copy accordingly, not only using their first name on the subject line, but also make sure your message is clear with unique benefits they might care about.
Segment inactive and semi-active subscribers properly, so you can implement different re-engagement automation for different segments. For example, you can create different segments for people who open the email but don’t click, people who do both, etc.
I think that’s it, hopefully, it can help your campaign.
Thanks and best regards,
Mike
I think you shared very useful tips, and hopefully, they can increase the results of my email marketing this year. I personally have a retail business with an okay email marketing campaign but currently struggling in improving my website’s traffic (eCommerce). How do you think boosting email engagement can help in increasing website traffic? Any tips?
Hi there Jake,
Thanks for your kind words, good luck with your website and your business.
Yes, you can certainly use email marketing to improve website traffic, mainly by offering something valuable in your email to direct the email recipient to your site, such as:
A giveaway or competition, for example, you can offer discounts or free shipping for those who signed up on your mailing list. They have to visit your site or a landing page to enter the competition.
Create coupons available only on your site.
Special deals (i.e. buy one get one), provide a link to your site so they can check the information
Limited-time offers (I.e. including a countdown clock)
There are obviously various other ways, but hopefully, you get the idea.
Best regards,
Mike
Hi, thanks for sharing the email marketing engagement. Emails should be engaging – it’s just that simple. You have a very short window from the subject line, with only three to five seconds once the email is opened to capture the reader’s attention. If you’re yawning no one else is going to engage with your email either. Test the response to your email internally before you distribute. It is a cost-effective and most-effective way of engaging and reaching your prospects and encouraging them to take action. IMO subject line is also one tip to improve email marketing performance.