How to Get Your Consumers to Open, Engage & Convert with Promotional Emails
Promotional emails are used by businesses worldwide to connect with consumers. As you read this blog post, you can probably even list at least a few brands that you receive daily emails from. With an influx of promotional emails in your inbox, how can companies optimize their offerings to move consumers through the buyer’s journey?
Well, every promotional email sent has three goals.
By following some of these pro tips, promotional email professionals can achieve these goals while driving business sales.
Promotional Email Goal #1: Open
Getting your recipient to open a promotional email is all about the subject line. Be sure to keep it catchy and witty, while mirroring your brand language. Including phrases like “Surprise Inside…” or “Don’t Miss Out…” will pique your viewer’s interest.
Additionally, it’s 2016! Your audience expects you to personalize their individual emails. Try including their name, most recent purchase, or town in the subject line of your next promotional email. Seeing something relevant to them will be eye-catching and attention-grabbing. Send them a “Happy Birthday” email, or a “Happy Subscription Anniversary” email. You have the raw data – use it to your advantage!
Finally, be brief. It’s only the subject line – don’t give away all of your secrets! Keeping your subject line below 50 characters will ensure that the entire subject fits within the constraints of most email inboxes, while still getting your point across.
Promotional Email Goal #2: Engage
Now that your recipient has opened your promotional email, it’s time to engage your audience. Engagement is all about the content provided.
When it comes to content, keep it simple. Remember, it’s a promotional email, not a New York Times bestseller. Language should be simple and straightforward, and length should be short enough to keep the reader’s attention.
When writing text, it’s important to break it up into short paragraphs, and use bullets, numbering, headlines, and white space as necessary. This will help direct the reader’s attention and increase the readability of the promotional email.
Next, show, don’t tell. Including media such as pictures, videos, gifs, links and infographics is both captivating and aesthetically appealing. You can engage your audience by giving them something to watch, click on, or interact with. Showing your audience builds credibility and trustworthiness.
Lastly, engage with your customers by providing some type of call to action, such as a button titled “Check Out our Summer Collection” with a link to this season’s newest pieces, or “View Tour Dates” with a link to a ticket sales website. A strong CTA leads to the third goal of every promotional email – convert.
Promotional Email Goal #3: Convert
A strong and specific CTA is the most important part of the conversion process. Tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do and provide them with the necessary tools to become customers. Keeping your CTA above the fold will also increase clicks.
When creating your call to action, consider providing unique coupon codes within your promotional emails. This will allow you to analyze the results of your email campaign. Unique coupon codes will tell you exactly which customers were carried through the buyer’s journey and conversion process because of your promotional email, and provide insight as to how to target those customers going forward.
Somewhere in your promotional email, include social sharing links. This will enable your customers to become brand ambassadors by sharing their positive experiences with friends.
Finally, create a sense of urgency. Avoid having your email sit in your recipient’s inbox, where they may plan to make a purchase later, or revisit the email another time. Try providing a gift with purchase for the first 100 purchases made, or a 25% discount for purchases made within the next two hours. Including some type of timeline will keep your email at the front of your recipient’s mind.
Put Your Knowledge to the Test
So there you have it – a few pro tips for promotional email professionals. Implement as many of these tips as you can each time you send a promotional email, and always analyze your results. See what works for your business and what doesn’t by A/B testing individual elements.
Optimize the success of your email campaigns by driving your consumers through the buyer’s journey, and always remember to focus on the three main goals of every promotional email: open, engage, convert.
