Grab my 6 Proven Tactics to Leverage your Email Marketing.
They work no matter the plaform.
Email marketing is one of your best weapons for turning visitors into customers (some argue it can give you 40x ROI).
But, the email marketing is a crowded highway.
To be able to drive 100 km per hour in the fast lane, you first need to take L plates, then get your licence and drive every day.
It seems easy, but even when you get that sign-up, you must know to ride exceptionally well to avoid getting crushed by one click on the unsubscribe button.
With an average of 90 new emails in everyone’s inbox daily, your email marketing must stand out to succeed.
So, let’s dive into dirty work: what you must do to keep your email marketing effective.
Please stick to the end of this article as I’ll give you THE most important “trick” to ultimately better opening rates.
It’s not easy. When I started my first newsletter in 2010, I was clueless about what to do. But here I am, still popping out in readers’ inboxes, and I have a few learnings to share with you.
The tips below will help improve your email open rates and ultimately help you gain more clients.
But, first - if you’re a beginner, grab this free resource below:
If you still haven't used email marketing for your business, sign up for my free 5-day email course to help you get started.
If you need someone to help you decide, set up your ESP and write a welcome sequence, try my "done for you" email service - if you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll get 50% off.
1. Clean your list regularly
Cleaning your email list regularly by removing inactive and bounced email addresses is crucial to maintaining a healthy one.
Not only will that improve deliverability, but it will also increase the opening rate.
The number of subscribers is what I call “vanity metrics”; it’s much more critical to have engaged subscribers who care about your emails.
You should occasionally perform “the big cut”—remove inactive accounts that actively ignore you and your business.
PRO TIP:
If you’re not fond of reducing your list so drastically, you can send something I call the “Is it time to say goodbye?” campaign, asking them to unsubscribe if they don’t want to continue receiving your emails.
That sequence can also be great for re-activating them with a special VIP offer.
Also, you can set up automation so that after x weeks or months of inactivity and a re-engagement campaign sent without result, you automatically unsubscribe inactive users.
p.s. If you need help with automation, contact me at angelina@marketingfairy.com.au. The first piece of advice is free :)
2. Segment Your List
I know that Substack doesn’t have this feature (yet), but I’m positive it will have it sometime in the future.
Segmenting your email list based on preferences, behaviour, and demographics allows you to send targeted and relevant emails that resonate with specific segments.
This helps increase open rates and conversions.
Consider segmenting based on the following:
Interest in products and offers.
Demographics such as age, gender, and location.
Preferences such as email frequency and content type.
Different behaviours: purchase history, engagement or website activity.
Use surveys to find out more about your prospective customers.
Import these as custom fields, then segment your contacts based on their interests.
That will reduce your unsubscribe rate as people will get content that is just relevant to them.
For example, at my 9 to 5, we have a few different products, so I have a custom field product and occasionally send emails to a specific audience interested in that product.
Win-win.
PRO tip:
If your email marketing allows, use custom fields instead of tagging to segment your customers.
It gives you much more flexibility with the personalisation of the message.
Also, occasionally audit all your segments and tags and clean them up.
3. Personalise emails
Personalizing email addresses to recipients by name and tailoring content to their interests can significantly boost open and click-through rates.
Doing so shows your customers that you value and understand them.
Here are some tips to help you personalise your emails:
Use the recipient’s name in the subject line and opening greeting.
Segment your email list based on customer behaviour and preferences.
Use dynamic content to personalize the body of the email based on the recipient’s behaviour, preferences, and location.
Offer personalized product recommendations based on the recipient’s purchase history or browsing behaviour. For example, the Active Campaign I’m using can personalise content for each EDM you send (but it’s costly).
Use triggered emails to send personalized messages based on specific actions or events, such as abandoned cart reminders or birthday greetings. It can also be when your subscriber visits a particular page on your website (Active Campaign and Hubspot have that feature).
PRO TIP: if you have an e-commerce business, an abandoned cart email is necessary.
With this sequence, you cannot miss increasing your conversion rate: Active Campaign, the tool I use for my 9-to-5 job, reported that its users recovered $10.5 million during Black Friday just with an abandoned card sequence.
4. Write Compelling Email Subject Lines
David Ogilvy said five times more people will read your headline/subject line than your body copy.
So, if your subject line is not great, your email will never be opened.
But how?
Use questions. Our brain loves questions.
Use emojis. If you use them consistently and deliver quality content, people will recognise your email in the sea of clutter in their inbox and open it.
Urgency. It’s always good to try; we all have FOMO (fear of missing out). But be careful; false urgency is a fake and unethical practice.
A/B test your subject lines to find what works best for your audience.
Keep the subject short and sweet; aim for 6–10 words.
Use action words to create a sense of urgency.
Personalise the subject line with the recipient’s name or location.
Use odd numbers or statistics to make your email stand out.
Use humour or creativity to make your email memorable.
PRO TIP:
I use the Co-Schedule Headline Analyser to check whether your subject lines are good.
When analysing, choose email as a type of content.
This tool is excellent for fine-tuning your subject lines or creating new ones based on the keywords.
5. Find Your Own Best Sending Time
There is no ultimate best time to send your email.
Despite all the recommendations, you must experiment with sending times based on your audience preferences, time zones, and business nature.
Here are some general recommendations (but you need to find your own sweet spot.)
Send emails on Tuesdays between 9:01 a.m. and 12 p.m. EST for the highest engagement.
Avoid sending emails after 6 p.m. EST, as they get the lowest engagement.
Segment your audience and tailor your send times based on user behaviour and demographics.
Consider the nature of your business and when your target audience is most likely to check their emails.
Always test and analyze the results to determine the best sending times for your audience.
PRO TIP:
Some email tools, such as Mailchimp, have delayed sending based on timezone. This was useful for my 9–5 work as we cover Australia, so there are three hours between the East and West Coasts.
p.s. Some gurus will say email open rates are not significant.
I disagree.
If you have 1000 people on your list, a 23% opening rate and a 49% rate can make a big difference in your income.
But the trend is the more subscribers you have, the opening rate tends to go down (unless you clean your list from inactive subscribers religiously).
Screenshot of my recent active campaign reports (my 9 to 5 job).
TL: DR
Here are some tips to improve your email open rates immediately:
Personalize your subject line to capture your reader’s attention.
Keep your subject line short and sweet to avoid getting cut off.
Use action-oriented language to entice the reader to open the email.
Include a clear and concise preview text to give your reader a glimpse of what’s inside.
Segment your email list to send targeted content to your subscribers.
A/B Test your email subject lines to see what works best for your audience.
6. My best tips
1: The most essential part of your subject line is your name.
If you regularly deliver valuable content, people get to know and like you and will open your emails, no matter the subject line.
2: Don’t spam people!
Everyone hates spammers.
Don’t be the one.
I always use a two-fold filter when I send emails:
Would I like to get this and
Do I believe my audience would like to get this…
After all, you are just one unsubscribe link away from losing them.
To better understand spammers, Please look at one of the funniest TED videos I’ve ever seen.
It tells so much about spammers :) Please, don’t be one.
I’ve been using email marketing since 2010, reaching more than 100,000 people with my emails. I’m proficient in Active Campaign, MailChimp, and Convert Kit. I can help you avoid the mistakes I made when I built an email list of 3000 people but failed to monetize it.
I’m considering creating an offer for people who need help setting up their marketing segmentation and automation. If you need help with it, sign up for the waiting list here:
p.s. If you want to start your email marketing for free but feel overwhelmed or stuck somewhere, register today for my FREE 5-day email course and learn how to start email marketing quickly and on a budget.
Great advice - This video is sooo funny!