Over time it gets tougher and tougher to come up with those new ideas that will keep your email campaigns on an upwards performance. You’re not alone. And as someone clearly open to keeping well read and informed, here’s some help, just for you (ish).

One of the toughest tasks for any marketer working on a brand for a length of time, is to come up with new ideas to continue to improve performance.

Often this is where working with a consultant or agency will help, as part of their role is to supply you with recommendations to keep your email campaigns developing and maturing.

Having just completed a project to create a centralised recommendations creation process for a client, I thought I’d share 5 of my favourite and proven ideas with you.

Each are simple to execute and can be completed even if you’re in a marketing team of one.

1. Send emails when your competitors are not

Based on industry treads most emails are sent during the week - so send at the weekend.

Based on industry trend most emails are sent at the top of the hour, so send at 'odd times' e.g., 10:20.

Track your competitor emails and go 'against the grain' of their sending pattern.

Impact: REACH

2. Maximise inbox placement by asking your readers to add your send address to their contacts

Inbox placement is based on sender reputation. However, if the sending address is added to the subscribers contact list, then future emails will not be treated as spam. And for Gmail they will also appear in the primary tab. To motivate this behaviour the value needs to be promoted. This can be done as part of a welcome series message as well as in each individual send.

Impact: DELIVERABILITY

3. Minimise your copy; use headings and bullets to make the message easier to absorb

Attention spans are decreasing. How simply and succinctly can you get your message across? The less ‘thinking’ effort you ask of your readers, the more likely they are to click (and come back to open future emails.)

Impact: ENGAGEMENT

4. Add a CTA button at the top of your email

Email is most often designed to drive an action. Make it as easy as possible to complete this click or task with a primary CTA button high in the email. Perhaps in the header or within the initial intro and hero image. This avoids having to make your reader work harder, scrolling down the email to reach their first option to interact with the content (often reducing total click performance.)

Impact: CONVERSIONS

5. Move beyond open, click and unsubscribe

Use the data to develop your reporting strategy. Are you tracking subscriber volumes, subscriber engagement, device and read environment, or use of dark mode? Each element will help you maximise the impact you can have, specific to your subscribers.

Impact: REPORTING

Summary

Feeling better? Keep reading, keep learning and keep a list of all the ideas you find. Tag them by which area of your campaign they’ll boost and you’ll always have a resource list to refer back to. Or lean on your agency and/or consultant resources – that’s what we’re here for 😉

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash