How to boost engagement with your email subscribers
Struggling to get your email subscribers to engage?
Feeling like email marketing doesn’t work for you?
Read on for my top content and list strategies
to boost your email marketing success, from
keeping a healthy list and segmenting your audience
to writing compelling subject lines and CTAs that
actually inspire action. Tap into the insane power
of email marketing with just a few simple switches.
Let’s start off with your…
EMAIL LIST STRATEGY
Clean your list
They say if you love someone, set them free. Apply this principle to your email subscribers.
Reach out to subscribers who haven't opened your emails in 3+ months with a special campaign designed to re-engage them.
Prune your inactive subscribers whose email addresses hard bounce or, after trying a re-engagement campaign, still aren’t showing interest.
Always ensure you honor requests to unsubscribe.
Rinse and repeat. Perform this cleaning routine at least once a quarter to keep your email list in tip-top shape.
“Wait, you mean you want me to DELETE subscribers?! I’m trying to GROW my list, not shrink it!”
Though it may hurt to see your number of subscribers dwindle, a smaller, engaged list is far more valuable than a vanity metric. It’s kind of like how you have to trim your hair’s dead ends to keep it growing longer and healthier.
Segment your list
Email segmentation is the next level up for anyone with their email game down pat. In a perfect world, your email messages should not be one-size-fits-all.
Remember that every single subscriber is a real person. They’re diverse! They’re interested in your product or service for different reasons and probably even have different reasons for being on your list. They definitely are in different spots of the customer journey, so start there when customizing your emails.
Chiseling out more targeted messages will increase your conversions. For example, how you talk to a new, lukewarm customer should be very different from how you talk to a long-time repeat fan.
Use tags
Tags are a handy little tool that helps customize your messaging even further. You can tag a subscriber with as many tags as you want covering a variety of characteristics, such as their location, or self-selected features, such as when you check for the kinds of emails you want to receive.
For example, let’s say you want to send a Fourth of July discount code to US subscribers who haven’t purchased from your company in the last 90 days. You would create a segment composed of customers with the relevant location and engagement tags.
Now, let’s talk about your…
EMAIL CONTENT STRATEGY
The most important parts of your email to get right are the bookends — the subject line and the Call to Action (CTA).
Ace your subject line
A subject line is a first impression. If you do nothing else, make sure you ace this part of your email. A good subject line is a balance of engaging and informative. Ethically engaging email subjects have a sparkle of personality and give context so readers know if they’re interested in the content or not.
DON’T write: “[Your company name] Monthly Newsletter”
It’s informative, but it’s not engaging.
DON’T write: “Im literally freaking out !!”
It’s enticing, but it’s not informative.
DO hit a happy medium: “Add the biggest, baddest sale of the year to your calendar”
It’s clear what you can expect to learn from opening the email (details about an upcoming sale) and it’s also engaging with its play on words.
Check out my post on writing ethically engaging subject lines.
Inspire with your Call to Action
Your email body text provides information. But what do you want your reader to do with that info? It’s not enough to share words. You have to inspire action for them to take the next step in the customer journey.
Make sure your CTA is verb-oriented, specific and logical.
Always start your CTA with an action word, such as join, learn, explore, sign up, etc.
If you’re asking people to like your social media post, ask yourself WHY. Will that lead to the outcome you want? If you want to build a loyal following, your CTA could be to subscribe to your newsletter. If you’re looking for engagement, consider asking people to save the post, tag a friend, or comment below (with a very specific prompt).
Make sure your CTA stands out from the rest of the email!
It’s commonly found at the end of the message, but you can also consider putting it at the top of your email for maximum visibility. You can use A/B testing to play around with placing the CTA button in different spots and see which version gets the most clicks. More on that below.
Maximize the benefits of A/B testing
A/B testing is an email copywriter’s favorite experiment — it’s the absolute best and easiest way to get quick data on your email performance. Not sure which subject line to use? Why not try both? Have a couple of great ideas for your CTA? Test them out on your list. Check the statistics, and you’ll be surprised by how skewed your results can be towards one option. This tells you what your audience likes and helps you make even better future campaigns.
Implementing these simple switches will make an immediate impact. But email marketing is always evolving, so continue fine-tuning until your audience genuinely looks forward to seeing your name in their inbox.
Schedule a free consultation to discuss how I can help make email marketing work for your small business.