Email marketing is one of the most effective ways of engaging with potential and continuing customers. However, you must handle your strategy effectively if you want to receive high engagement. 

If you want to increase email engagement and see a higher return on investment, keep reading on to learn the tips to take to give your messaging the boost it needs. 

What is Email Engagement?

Email engagement is the interactions measured when an email is sent. These interactions are segmented into email engagement metrics such as; open rate, click-through rate, subscribes and unsubscribes, and conversion rate.

Tracking these metrics can help you to gain a better understanding of if your email marketing is effective.

If your email marketing isn’t working or meeting the targets you set, there are proven ways of increasing your email engagement stats.

10 Ways To Improve Your Email Engagement 

1. Always send a new customer a welcome email

The first email you send to a new customer should be a welcome email. It’s been found that 50% of new customers will open a welcome email, making it more effective than a regular newsletter.

The key here is to get the message right. The email sent should feature the discount code that new subscribers have been promised in return for signing up, alongside a captivating image whilst keeping everything else simple. Unnecessary jargon will likely turn them away.

2.  Utilise your subject lines

How you approach your subject line is crucial, with 47% of email recipients opening emails based on this alone. 

And I hear you ask what makes a great subject line?

Well, the best way is to play on natural human tendencies such as:

• FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
• Curiosity
• Humour

3. Pay close attention to the pre-header text

The pre-header text (otherwise known as preview text) is the snippet of text that follows the email subject line when a subscriber views your email in their inbox. 

It’s important to pay close attention to the pre-header text as this provides subscribers with insight into what it encloses and gives them more reason to open the email.

The snippet acts as a vital make or break to your email performance. But, the message has to fit within limited character spacing to succeed – 50-130 characters to be exact, & even less for mobile screens.

 Keep your message short, snappy and sweet to encourage people to open your email.

4. Make your CTAs a priority

The way you write and showcase your CTAs (calls to action) has a significant effect on your email engagement levels and click-through rate.

However, as readers are so often prompted to take action, creativity is key to avoiding being pushed aside.

As part of your strategy experiment with copy, design, placement and frequency to yield what receives the best response from your target audience. Similar to your pre-header text, keep it short but good enough that it seals the deal.

5. Keep your copy casual and fun.

When writing copy for email, you want to write as you talk. Nobody wants to read large pieces of dull, jargon text. Keep it conversational, fun and rewarding to your readers. And be very clear about the action you want your readers to take.

Use positive language – and keep your sentence structure concise. And, even use humour where appropriate; something that’ll make your reader smile on the commute home or lift their spirits. 

6. Transactional emails are important.

Behind welcome emails, transactional emails have the highest open rate of all email marketing combined (about 80-85%). But, they rarely contain no more information than the actual transaction. Meaning you have more freedom with how it’s actually delivered.

For clarity, a transactional email is one sent and received based on an action taken by a subscriber. These include: 

• Password reset
• Order confirmation
• Abandoned cart

In these scenarios, you want your customers to feel loved and rewarded. Thank them for their custom and give them a little bit of personal attention.

7. Carry out A/B testing.

Whether you are new to sending emails or have been sending newsletters for a while, you should be carrying out A/B testing. Here you can test every element of your emails, from preview texts to subject lines, to images, layout, copy and CTAs.

The more frequently you test, the better you will get to know your audience. And, the more you know them, the higher you’ll be able to keep your engagement levels.

8. Ensure your email is mobile-responsive.

The majority of your audience will open emails on their mobile phones. Meaning, if your emails aren’t mobile-friendly, a bulk of them will go to waste.

Email marketing company Mailchimp found that mobile-responsive email designs can increase your click-through rate by 15%.

As the modern world evolves and more people open and read emails on their mobile devices, it’s important to make sure your design has a better UX on mobile than it does on desktop. 

9. Personalise your emails for each recipient.

Customers love personalised experiences. In fact, emails which show personalised subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Hence why tailoring your emails to the recipient is vital. 

Not only is this type of personalised marketing a great way to re-engage users but encourages engagement within a community and social sharing, amplifying the effect of your emails.

10. Segment your email marketing

By segmenting your email list you are able to get the right message across to the right buyer at the right time in their buyer journey. And, this is incredibly important for increasing conversions.

My team at Myk Baxter Marketing can help you to break down your data and create an email strategy that suits every member of your audience. We make it easy for you to personalise emails based on your contact groups, memberships and other email properties. 

We can also deliver exceptional creatives, layouts and copy that will draw in your customers whilst paying close attention to all the little details I’ve discussed above. 

Reach out to me today to find out more about our email marketing service.

Thanks for reading,

Myk Baxter, eCommerce Consultant