5 Ways to Supercharge Your Emails to Drive ROI

Did you get that email?

If you are like most people – on earth – you did. It is estimated that there are currently more than 4 billion people using email  to connect with each other, making it one of the most utilized communications platforms in human history.

It is no wonder that just about every type of organization is aware that it should be using email to connect with their fans, friends and customers. Email has been around since the dawn of the Internet and has become one of the most developed and accepted ways to reach out and engage with your audience. It is also one of the highest ROI channels to invest your marketing resources into, with one study finding that for every $1 you invest in email marketing, you can expect up to a $43 average return.

Reading that may have you asking yourself, “Am I getting $43 back for every dollar I spend?” If there is any doubt, don’t stress – there are plenty of things that you can do to supercharge your email marketing and start seeing a better return. That is exactly what motivated us to create a simple-to-follow, five-step process for you to level up your email marketing. If this sounds like what you need, read on.

The five ways to level up your email marketing:

Do it by the numbers

While email is one of the oldest digital marketing channels, it is still changing pretty fast. One big development that has taken shape over the last few years is the incredible amount of data now readily available on performance. We aren’t just talking about email marketing as a whole.

There are many different platforms available to marketers that allow the tracking of email performance KPIs that include things like opens, click-throughs and more. You can use this type of data to refine your strategy.

Test and test again

Now that you are using data to guide your efforts, the next step is to get better data. The best way to get even better data is to focus on split-testing your emails. Split-testing, also known as A/B testing, is simply sending the same email out with small changes to different audiences and using the performance differences between the two to guide future refinement of the strategy. Some great email elements to split-test are:

• Subject line
• First sentence of the email body
• Your call to action (please tell us you have a call to action in your emails!)
• Images
• Emphasis
• Email copy

While these are some of the biggest changes you can test, split-testing can be done with anything that you think could make a difference in performance. Kinetic uses SharpSpring for our go-to email management solution. We find it makes it super simple to split-test for our clients and measure performance all in one easy-to-use application

Commit to showing up

One of the biggest mistakes that we see people make in their email marketing is failing to take consistent action with their email marketing efforts. Marketing automation has become quite the buzzword nowadays, and a big misconception with it is that it is some kind of “set it and forget it” opportunity. Sorry, but this is not the case.

If you are measuring your performance and split-testing, the best thing you can do is make your email marketing a consistent effort that you continue to improve and develop. Establishing a consistent schedule, along with refining your content based on your data can take it to the next level.

It’s all in the email

With so much emphasis on the powerful tools and tricks out there, it can be hard to remember what is possibly one of the most fundamental parts of a good email marketing strategy – you have to write a good email.

You can have the best tools and great data, but if you don’t focus on creating great content for your list, you will never be able to reach people and get them to take action. Be sure to use the data you are collecting to “read between the lines” and see what your audience wants. What can you tell them that they want to know? How can you help them? How can you make their day a little better? Their life a little easier? How can you show them that you care about them and make them feel like you really do?

Great content makes great emails that get opened, read and appreciated.

Paint them a picture

While you don’t need to actually paint a picture in each email (hey, that could actually be pretty cool…) there is a lot to be said for the power of a great image. If there is one thing that email marketing is not, it’s a secret. People are getting more promotions now than ever, and more and more are simply trashed immediately because they are just not interesting enough to get a first look.

One good image can set your email apart from the hundreds of others that are hitting the same inbox and going straight into the trash every day. Be sure to choose images that will resonate with your brand and message, as well as fall within your brand-style standards.

With these five methods, you are sure to take any email marketing strategy to the next level. At Kinetic, we use these same strategies to improve marketing performance for clients all the time. If you find yourself struggling with how to implement these ideas in your own marketing, don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know!