You’ve got mail! It’s not just a great movie (this is not up for debate). It’s also a common theme among, well, all of us. Our inboxes receive a dozen, or more, emails a day. And if you’re a marketer, entrepreneur, or business owner, you probably send quite a few emails a day! HubSpot reports that 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. And as we shift to a more permanent digital atmosphere, we expect email communication to ramp up even more.
So, maybe you’re thinking: ODEA, you don’t have to tell me how important email marketing is, let’s get to the good stuff. First, we love your enthusiasm! Keep reading for an email marketing vocab refresher and a few email marketing tips that go along with each to spiff up your game.
Open sesame
Let’s start with your email open rate, which is just what it sounds like. Your open rate tells you the percentage of people that opened the email you sent. For comparison, the marketing industry had an average open rate of 11.03% in 2020.
Tip: Want to make it impossible for receivers to pass up your email when scrolling through their inbox? Start with an awesome, eye-catching subject line. Think of a subject line as a first impression. You always want to make a great first impression! Do that by personalizing your subject line either with the receiver’s name or teasing the content you know they’re interested in. Make it stand out with a line that piques the receiver’s curiosity so that they can’t resist learning more.
Click here
Next up, your email click-through rate (CTR). Again, it’s exactly what the name says! The CTR is the number of clicks a specific link or call-to-action (CTA) receives. When it comes to your CTR, the higher the better! To put it into perspective, marketing professionals were able to achieve an average CTR of 9.54% last year.
Tip: So, how do you give your email a better chance of having a higher click-through rate? We’re seeing more users open email (and do everything else!) on mobile instead of desktop. As you design your email, make sure it’s mobile-friendly. This means clear, easy-to-spot CTA’s. Think big, bold buttons or hyperlinked text with a different color or bold font. Optimizing for mobile gives your email the best chance at a great CTR.
Let’s bounce
Even though it’s our least favorite (probably yours too!), we have to talk about email bounce rate. This is the number of emails that were unable to be delivered. It’s the worst, right!? Undeliverable emails can happen for several reasons. Maybe there’s a typo in the email address or the email address no longer exists. In 2020, the marketing, advertising, and public relations industries collectively achieved a 9.63% average bounce rate.
Tip: The easiest way to keep your bounce rate low is to make sure you update your email marketing list frequently. Take a good look at your list and check for misspellings or format errors. Know that a contact is no longer at a company? Delete that old email address! Giving your email list a good scrub (even just once per year) ensures your contacts are active and your emails don’t bounce.
Bonus Tip: Your email marketing list is the key to protecting your sender reputation! And we’ve got a blog all about how to protect your sender reputation, check it out!
We’re feeling refreshed
As many of us spend more time online, it’s no surprise that email engagement rates are up. So, take advantage of this time and wow your consumers with emails they can’t resist. Whether you learned something new or your brain just needed a little refresher, we hope these email marketing tips are helpful in improving your email marketing skills. If you’ve got a tip or two that works for you, share it with us at [email protected].