When most people see email ads pop up in their inboxes, they typically tend to either skim them in a few-second scroll or simply delete them without so much as a second glance.

As the sender, this creates a specific challenge when trying to boost brand exposure or sell your service: How can you devise mass emails that snag the recipients’ attention before they get dismissed?

Thankfully, like most marketing tactics, email campaigns are salvageable if you simply step back and tweak your strategy. These tips can help you better use them to direct prospects down the lead funnel, ultimately turning strangers into loyal patrons.

Find your target

When planning email campaigns, you may feel a certain temptation to take the shotgun approach. Surely, the more people you launch them toward, the better your odds that something will stick, right? However, just as a male senior citizen may likely have little interest in emails about what’s new at Sephora, sending emails to incompatible clients will ultimately yield underwhelming results. To increase your ROI, you need to build an engaged subscriber list based on your target demographic. Naturally, the first step toward doing so is identifying your ideal customer. Who has a particular need for the product or service you sell? In which groups (e.g., age, education level, geographic location, line of work) would you categorize them?

Even if your product or service does have universal appeal, you should still avoid conducting email blasts with no specific audience. Instead, isolate a share of the public that would align with your organization’s unique brand identity. For instance, if your primary offering is bottled water, target fitness fanatics or avid travelers who tend to buy it more frequently. These hyperrelevant groups may be more likely to not only read your emails but also follow links to your website and browse your products.

Collect suitable contacts

Once you know exactly who you intend to reach, you need to obtain subscribers. An effective means of doing so is filing addresses from warm leads in your CRM. Anytime your salespeople reach out to someone who engaged with your social media or requested a sample of your products, they should ask for an email address—particularly if that prospect is an appropriate fit for your brand.

Adding a lead-generation tool to your website can also help you acquire a lucrative contact list. Offer site visitors white papers, product guides, or other items of value in exchange for their email addresses. Because these leads are already engaging with your website and potentially interested in what you sell, they’re the perfect recipients of your future messaging.

To take a lot of the hassle out of emailing these contacts, enroll in an email marketing automation service. A platform such as Mailchimp, Omnisend, or Brevo can easily send, track, and follow up on emails to contacts from your CRM, helping you gauge their effectiveness and make adjustments where needed.

Sell with subject lines

If you’ve ever ignored an email notification—which you surely have—then you know these messages have a few seconds at most to capture attention before being deleted or forgotten. To engage more recipients, you must sell your organization in a five-to-seven-word subject line; that’s even less forgiving than the classic sixty-second elevator pitch.

Email subject lines must quickly convince your audience that you have something useful to offer. Draw their eyes with attention-grabbing verbiage such as “Alert,” “Free,” or “Urgent,” and sell your product or service with unique language. (After all, who’s to say that a direct competitor isn’t emailing your prospects too?) You’ll also earn bonus points for featuring emojis, which stand out with their colorful shapes and conversational tone.

Additionally, don’t forget the value of a nice hook. Consider these sample subject lines:

• We have a new line of steel fasteners in stock
• These groundbreaking fasteners are going fast!

Notice how the former is blandly straightforward and informative, while the latter poses a mystery the email body will answer. (What makes the fasteners “groundbreaking”? Are they currently available?) Such intrigue will entice recipients to open the email for more details, at which point they’ve taken the bait—now it’s up to the email’s content to reel them in.

Write skillful copy

To help convert prospects, you need to create email copy that is compelling from beginning to end while also including necessary information. Your emails should always contain:

• An opening summary
• A brief greeting
• Body text that communicates the intent of the email, like sharing press coverage or industry news
• Details about what you sell (with embedded links)
• A call to action
• Appealing imagery
• Share buttons
• Your contact details

Moreover, ensure that your email copy follows good SEO practices: include well-written yet digestible prose with relevant keywords and multiple subheads. At the same time, keep your emails brief, between 50 and 125 words; your contacts likely don’t have time to read a full article. If you’re discussing intricate topics, you can always link to a blog on your website that dives deeper.

Ultimately, each email should do more than just sell your product—it should also be conversational, informative, and entertaining to read. If you can pull that off, readers may actually grow to look forward to receiving your letters.

Segment your emails

According to 2023 HubSpot research, segmented emails earn 30 percent more opens and 50 percent more click-throughs, so if you haven’t already, initiate a drip campaign. This strategy involves sending unique messages to leads based on their position in the funnel. For instance, send separate emails to welcome and onboard new contacts, follow up with those who shopped but didn’t purchase (“You have great taste”), check in with leads that have cooled (“We miss you!”), thank converted leads for their purchases, and offer back-end customer support (“Rate your experience”). Such emails will feel personalized to the recipient, making them more eager to read your communication and click embedded links.

Analyze their activity

Email campaigns don’t end when you hit Send—you must also periodically review how subscribers are interacting with your messaging. Many email automation platforms, along with services like Google Analytics, can provide this valuable data. Crucial metrics to review include open rates, click-through rates (the percentage of readers who follow an email link), and conversion rates (what share goes on to make a purchase).

By analyzing this data, you can closely monitor the success of your email campaigns. Should you find that certain correspondences underperform, make continuous adjustments to them until the analytics tick in your favor. With enough diligence, you’re bound to identify a successful strategy that attracts more leads, holds their attention, and converts them into satisfied customers.

TAKE ACTION:
Work with an email automation service to design engaging campaigns, and apply these tips to send higher-conversion messages.