TRANSCRIPT:

This is Stuart Webb. Breakthrough Growth Expert, author, founder and CEO of The Complete Approach with another of my one take vlogs, all the mistakes stay in.

Despite GDPR email marketing is still an effective form of communication where you can reach out to thousands or millions of people just by clicking a few buttons.

However, according to DM News, people receive on average 157 emails per day (one of the reasons I also advocate using direct mail). Therefore, your email is fighting for attention with many other emails, which is why open rates are falling. But the good news is that there are 8 proven tactics you can use that will boost your open rates and therefore the success of your emails… 

Day and time you send the email really does matter

The typical person checks their email first thing in the morning, last thing at night and multiple times throughout the day. But there are better times to send your email. Don’t send on Monday morning. The best times to send your email is 11am to 1pm and 2.30pm to 4.30pm. It’s also worth testing weekends because email volume reduces quite considerably during the weekends. If someone doesn’t reply to your email, try sending it again early in the morning, or late at night.

 Make your email urgent

It’s not just the time of day you send the email that matters, but whether it’s urgent or not. We’re all more likely to respond to the call to action if there is a close deadline. Otherwise, you’ll read it and forget about it. 

Keep the content to the point

Irrelevant words and long introductions will just lead people to scan through and eventually give up reading the entire thing. This goes without saying, really, but in order for your email to be read by as many people as possible, keep sentences short, include subheadings, keep paragraphs to just a few lines, and include plenty of space between each paragraph. That way your email will ‘look’ easy to read and that’s what you want!

Be clear about what you’re asking for 

An email that has no call to action won’t help your business to grow. Having a goal for your reader is essential. Do you want them to meet with you? Call you? Visit a landing page? Book a meeting? Once you’ve decided on this, then you can structure the content of your email to deliver on it.

Get your subject lines right

You should spend more time composing the subject line than writing the email itself because most people decide to open an email (or not!) based on the content in the subject line. The most important thing is to make them personal and not generic. You won’t stand out against the 156 other emails they’ll receive that day if you don’t. 

How do you make them personal?

Make sure you’re sending the recipient an email they will care about and relate to. Before you hit send, ask yourself, ‘Will this person want to know this?

’The same goes for the email itself. ‘Dear sir/madam’ or ‘To whom it may concern’ makes it obvious that you’re mass-sending this email. Use the person’s name.

Don’t forget about yourself either. On the ‘from’ field, use your name and not your business name… just like you wouldn’t direct the email to the recipient’s company. 

Keep it to 75 characters or less and using a question will help to urge people to open the email. Using capitals looks like you’re trying too hard to get attention, so keep these to a minimum. When it comes to sending the next email to the recipient, change the subject line so it isn’t too similar to the previous one, or your emails become predictable and people will hit the delete key within seconds of receiving it. 

Make everything about why people should respond

Having decided on the objective of the email, your content can then focus on getting the recipient to take that desired action. This may seem like a small point, but this clarity of thinking makes it so much easier to write your email and get the results you’re seeking. 

Convey a clear call to action

It’s imperative that you tell people exactly what to do next. Your call to action should be clear and concise, include the relevant contact information (clickable link, phone number, store address etc.) and ideally include a ‘stimulator’ (deadline, time-limited offer, limited quantity etc.) so people don’t procrastinate and take action now rather than later. 

Measure results

One of the real benefits of email is that you get accurate data in terms of the results of your email. You should look at your open rates and how many people click on your links. If people aren’t opening your emails, you can try testing different subject lines and sending your emails at different times. 

In Conclusion: 

Test everything and try again! Hook your reader from the beginning to keep them until the end of the email and guide them to take action. …and don’t ever send an email without a clear call to action, otherwise, your results will be poor.

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