Tips for increasing the click-through rate of your enewsletter campaigns

We all know that email newsletters are a key component of any business’s sales strategy. We carefully determine our enewsletters’ design and cohesion within our other marketing collaterals; however, what we may not consider are the finer details of how to make our enewsletters yield the most response. How can we increase the likelihood that our enewsletter will be opened, read, and relevant enough to our readers that they actually engage?

Links

Be mindful of including too many hyperlinks in your emails, as this acts as a trigger for many spam filters to deliver your message, not to the Inbox, but to the dreaded Junk folder.

Enewsletters that include buttons for sharing on social media have a 158% higher click-through rate vs 115% the previous year, according to a study by email marketing specialists, GetResponse. Including links for sharing your content on social media makes it easy for your readers to disseminate your information for you, broadening your reach, and increasing the likelihood of engagement.

Also, according to Dean Levitt, Chief of Culture at MadMimi Email Marketing, the first link in an email gets the most clicks in more than 90% of emails. Make it count; don’t bury the lead! What is your ultimate goal in sending this email? Ensure that that first link aligns with your goal.

Preview

Be mindful of your email’s intro. In Outlook, for example, you’re able to view the first few words of an email without clicking on it. Preview the email yourself, to ensure that what you see is engaging, and isn’t something your readers will scroll past or, worse, delete unread, such as the alt text of a header image or logo. It’s easy to personalize a greeting with any number of email merging tools; there’s no longer any excuse for generic salutations.

Previewing the email also gives you an opportunity to view the email on multiple platforms: iOS vs Android, mobile vs desktop, MAC vs PC, Google Chrome vs Safari, etc. Take the time to optimize your reader’s viewing experience and decrease the chances of them scrolling on by.

Timing

According to a compilation of data from 14 studies by email marketing experts such as MailChimp, the best days of the week on which to send emails and have them perform are, in order, Tuesday, Thursday, and Wednesday. The best times of day are somewhat surprising: The emails that receive the most clicks are sent at 10 a.m., between 8 p.m. and midnight, 2 p.m., and 6 a.m. For me, this definitely checks out: Right or wrong, I know that the last thing I do before I go to sleep is putz on my phone, checking email and socials, and it’s often the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning as well. Yes, this is poor sleep hygiene, but that’s a whole other topic. The point is that taking the time to read emails is often how we start and end the day. Experiment with A/B testing, to determine what yields the best response from your readers.

A few last things to consider when determining your company’s enewsletter strategy:

• Aim for quality, not quantity. If you’re unable to swing a quality enewsletter once a week, consider moving to a bi-weekly schedule, or even monthly. It’s better to be proud of your content than to just push something out for the sake of doing so, and it will be obvious when your content is padded with filler. Consider outsourcing this if need be, to someone whose sole responsibility is to create compelling content for your customers, based on your direction.
• Create an editorial calendar: Include a list of previous topics, so you can see what you’ve already covered, and ideas for future topics. Assign accountability for each issue, and determine the resources and reference material necessary for fulfillment each month.
• Ensure your email campaigns are in compliance with anti-spam legislation, such as GDPR and CASL, and include your company’s contact info and an option to unsubscribe. Yes, that is required.

While there’s no “secret sauce” to ensure your email campaign will accomplish your goals 100% of the time, keeping these suggestions in mind will help your odds!