Email marketing can be a complex beast! Especially when it comes to deliverability. Here are 5 actionable tips to increase engagement with your email campaigns.
One element that ISPs such as Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail now use to determine your placement in either the inbox, junk folder or neither (!) is the amount of positive (or negative) engagement that your campaigns receive.
But what is engagement? And how can you increase engagement? Of course it’s the opens and clicks you’re receiving but it also goes deeper than that looking at metrics such as whether subscribers reply to your emails, if they open and read your emails frequently, if your email has been forwarded or you have been added to a recipients address book – all positive metrics.
Negative engagement comes in the form of never interacting with your emails or deleting them without even reading them for example.
So how can you increase your positive engagement, to increase deliverability and response to your campaigns? With targeted, relevant content. Use the technology that is available to not only make your life easier, but also to boost engagement with your campaigns, reduce complaints, increase your deliverability and, most importantly, revenue!
Here are my 5 actionable tips to increase your email marketing engagement.
1. Make sure you get an explicit opt in and set expectations of the benefits of your programme and what the consumer will receive from you.
Take a look at your current database makeup and your current sign up forms. Do you have an explicit opt in from all subscribers to receive emails from you? Remember, the stronger the permission mechanism at the point of sign up, the stronger the engagement level of subscribers with your campaigns in the future will be.
2. Find out what your audience want to hear about from you – give them a choice through the use of surveys and a preference centre.
If this isn’t something you collect through your signup process, utilise a preference centre to allow subscribers to customise their email preferences such as the types of emails they receive or the frequency. Surveys can also be a great way to entice more information from your subscribers that can be used to make communications more relevant to different segments of users.
3. DELIVER WHAT THEY WANT, WHEN YOU’VE SAID YOU’RE GOING TO DELIVER IT – Be consistent!
4. Segment your database and separate those subscribers who have not interacted with your emails in the last 6 months for example. Develop a campaign designed to re-engage those users. If they don’t reengage, remove them from your regular mailings and even your list overall.
5. Use triggered emails and dynamic content to make creating unique, relevant content easier and more targeted. You can also consider other third party providers such as Triggered Emails who provide technology designed to help you create highly relevant content.
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