Get More Clicks With a Good Call-to-Action! The call-to-action is a determining factor of your click-through rate. It is an important component of your email copy because it answers three important questions for the recipient. 3. How to take that next step. Whatever action you want your recipients to take, you can make it happen more often with a good call-to-action. Then, make sure you incorporate these 6 characteristics to get the results you’re looking for. 1. Visible – People read, react, make decisions and take action differently. Some make decisions right away (“You had me at hello.”) and some need more details (“I’m from Missouri.”). Place call-to-action links in the beginning, middle and end of the email so that recipients can click whenever they are ready. 2. Clear – Stick to simple words, short phrases, bulleted benefits and paragraphs of 1-3 short sentences. Include appropriate graphics and cut the clutter by making effective use of white space. 3. Compelling – Use action-oriented verbs and phrases: “buy now,” “call today,” “save” and so on.
The average person spends more time every day reading his email than he spends doing anything else on the web. As a matter of fact, his email often distracts him from the other tasks he needs to accomplish. With this in mind, it’s safe to say that email marketing is a very powerful tool. Today I want to share a few best practices you should keep in mind as you develop your email marketing campaign. They’ll help you to get through to your potential clients more effectively. Make sure your email isn’t spam. Everyone has some sort of spam protection software included in their email accounts these days. Your job is to learn about spam filters and the things they identify as spam so that you can avoid having your email sent straight to the junk box. For example, using the words “Free” or “Discount” in your subject line might get you flagged. Address your subscribers as individuals – not as generic groups.
There are over 30 major email clients, including Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail and Yahoo Mail, and some of them don’t support the requirements for using email with video. Traditionally, marketers would use HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language) to code HTML video directly into an email, but recipients with certain email clients aren’t able to play it. Many popular email providers will only show a fallback image, and your marketing message will be lost in the crowd. Fortunately, some of the popular services like MailChimp, Constant Contact and AWeber make it easy to share across all providers by using a screen capture image of your video and linking it to your original content on your blog, YouTube, Vimeo or similar sites. This gives the appearance there’s actually video in your email and avoids technical issues with your email provider. Instead of having to learn HTML5, there are also 3rd party services that can create a video snippet for you to include right in the body of your newsletter.
Mobile email marketing is a less expensive way for companies to advertise their services and/or products with potential and existing customers. Before digital marketing was available as an advertising tool, businesses would use direct mail in order to reach individuals about specific services and/or products they offered. However, in today’s economy companies are beginning to use mobile email marketing to advertise due to it being a more rapid, cost efficient and easier way to communicate with potential and existing customers. Digital marketing can have a positive impact, no matter what type of business it is. Basic email best practices were established to optimize email for desktop users viewing through Web browsers or email clients. However, more often than not, emails are being read using mobile devices. When doing mobile email marketing businesses must use caution when creating designs for their emails in order to decrease the chances of the email being sent to a spam folder. Therefore, it is imperative to use best practice design for your company advertising in order to ensure your customer is able to view the email in its entirety, no matter what type of device they are using to read the email. Implementing the best practice designs allows you to create an email that is compatible for viewing, even on a mobile phone or any other type of mobile devise besides using a computer. Companies reap many benefits by using mobile email as a marketing strategy in order to reach prospects and existing customers. However, the more important perks include the ability to generate repeat customers, increasing sales, and the ability to gain valuable, honest feedback from customers quickly. When using digital marketing, not only can you generate repeat customers, but you are also increasing your sales by being able to communicate with individuals on a more relevant level. Digital marketing also allows for customers to give valuable, honest feedback regarding the products and/or services used by a specific company. This feedback is also available for other potential customers to review before deciding to use a specific company or their products.