We all want a better response rate; higher open rates, more click throughs, more enquiries, more orders. There is no single magic bullet but all of the tips in this blog will nudge your response rate upwards.
Personalise, Personalise, Personalise
Your own name always jumps out of the screen at you
Split your email marketing list into two; the emails which have a contact name and the emails which do not (those Info@ and hello@ type emails).
You can use the contact names to personalise your emails. You can keep it simple by just using the name in the salutation eg Hi Robert. Or you can use the name in the body copy of the email or even in the subject line. Or insert the company name into the email. It might get your email read by more people. Give it a try and see what works for you.
Formulate a different email, one which avoids a salutation such as Hello HR Manager, for the emails without a contact name.
All Electric Marketing email lists are supplied with a contact name, so use that data to personalise and push your response rates higher.
Make Sure Your Email Reaches Your Target’s Inbox
You know that you must avoid spam filters, by not overusing links, images, trigger words, multi-coloured text. But in case you need a refresher course in how to avoid the spam box, take a look at Electric Marketing’s top tips on Email Deliverability
It features a good guide on the error codes generated by email servers which reject messages so that you can find out why your email bounced back and take action to avoid it next time round.
Keep Your Marketing Email Data Current
You can write a great email with a brilliant subject line and offer but if it is going to defunct email addresses or to the wrong people, your response rates will remain stubbornly low.
You can do the email list housekeeping yourself, removing the people who have left, pausing emails to those on long-term leave, finding out the company’s new email address format and generally following up the hard email bounce backs yourself. It is labour-intensive stuff.
Or you can ask your email data provider to update the list for you. There are a few options for updating your list, depending on how diligent you want to be and how much you want to spend on your data. Electric Marketing has a menu of data enhancement services including removing people who are known to have left, confirming email addresses which we are confident are correct and adding new contact names to your email list which fit into your target market.
Keep Adding To Your Marketing Email Data
Doing the data housekeeping is not enough to keep your response rates high. You need to add new contact names to your email marketing lists.
If you are only sending emails a few times a year, then look at buying new data and refreshing your marketing email list once a year. GDPR rules state that data must be ‘current’. It does not specify what ‘current’ means but if you last updated your list before the first wave of the pandemic, it probably is not sufficiently ‘current’.
Electric Marketing’s New Appointments series is great for ongoing marketing campaigns where you are sending out emails every month. The New Appointments lists are a subscription service offering you a new list of newly-appointed contacts every month; we are currently producing lists of newly appointed directors and managers of marketing, HR, training & learning, and new directors every month.
Be Relevant, Be Interesting, Offer Something New
Thinking of new things to say about your product and your company can be hard but it is important not to push out the same email out every month to the same old crowd. People need a reason to open your email. Finding that reason is your company’s challenge.
But if you are really stuck for ideas, using the words Free or New in the heading can work well.