Have you looked at your email clicks and open rates lately? With today’s technology and available data, there is nowhere to hide. If you’re sending boring and generic content with bad email lists, it will negatively impact your email clicks, bounce rate and spam complaints. The good news is that you have control over changing your email fortunes.

While you can look at industry benchmarks to see how you compare to others, this information can vary depending on the source. It does make it rather challenging to find the most accurate (and relevant) data. However, there is plenty of valuable information out there, you just need to know where to look.

How To Get More Email Clicks

Email marketing done right is a beautiful thing, not to mention a powerful way to inform, delight and drive customer engagement. With the right content and strategy, you can drive leads straight toward a Call-to-Action.

The secret is to avoid making customers feel you are just cluttering their inbox with nonsense, ‘spammy’ salesy-type emails. If you want to avoid the Spam folder and ESPs blocking you due to a poor sender score, follow the tactics below.

Related: ‘5 Ways To Check Sending Reputation’

Clean Your Email Lists

Lead generation is undoubtedly a challenge for many businesses and while rely on buying lists, it’s not a recommended practice. Too many of these companies promise the world only to deliver outdated email address filled with spam traps. If you have purchased lists, at least make sure you use a good email validation system. It will help remove bad contacts from while boosting your overall performance.

Even if you don’t buy email lists, your data could become outdated as people move jobs or change email addresses. In both scenarios, scrubbing your email lists will improve email engagement and deliverability. You need to regularly verify whether your leads are valid which helps you avoid mailbox providers filtering you out.

Related: ‘5 Email Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid’

Optimise And Test Email Content

After sorting out your email lists, the next step is to create quality email content that drives intent. Doing so will increase the likelihood of subscribers taking action whether they’re asked to like, share or make a purchase. To find out what content works for you, analyse your metrics from the last six months looking at the following:

• Which content received the highest levels of engagement?
• Compare responses between transactional emails, marketing offers and newsletter type emails
• If you are sending offers and newsletters, which had the highest open rates and email clicks?
• Based on your metrics, does your audience prefer short messages or longer content?

To find the winning formula, you have to compare your emails against one another. Remember, any small tweak can end up with better results but you must first pay attention to what your subscribers like or want.

Perform AB Testing

Running AB tests on your emails will help you optimise content, CTAs or find the right balance between how many emails you send when you send them and how often. There are countless resources and studies online but they may not always apply to your business. Follow some of the guidelines but be smart and do your own AB testing. It’s the only way to determine what does and doesn’t work for your brand.

At the same time, look at your competitors and see what’s working for them and what to avoid. See how often they send emails and set up your email marketing strategy accordingly. The most important aspect of successful email marketing is that every email you send should have a purpose. This relates directly to email clicks, opens and conversion rates.

How To Create Better Content For More Email Clicks

One of the many email content tips is to write conversationally (not formally), almost like writing to a friend. Put effort into the subject line by making it intriguing but also informal. Remember, most people won’t spend longer than 5 seconds looking at your email so you need to grab their attention immediately. It’s important to create catchy subject lines but be careful they don’t look like clickbait!

A great way to improve engagement is to ask your audience what type of content they want. On initial sign-up, or as a follow-up campaign, ask your subscribers questions like:

• Would you like to receive updates from us?
• How often would you like to receive updates? Weekly or Monthly?
• What would you like to know more about, Social media marketing, Mobile Marketing, SEO and PPC or Marketing Automation?
• What type of content interests you the most? Text, Blogs, Videos, infographics or eBooks?

Implement Email Scoring

If you are still struggling to get better responses, you should consider using an email scoring system. It examines every email address in your database and assigns a score to each person. The system will use email user activity to predict how likely someone is of engaging with your messages.

A low score indicates that the email address is inactive and unlikely to react while a higher score means a greater likelihood of engaging. This means you can place more focus on those particular contacts and re-engage with them using targeted campaigns.

Recommended: ‘Re-Engagement Tactics To Boost Your Brand’

Compelling Email Marketing Statistics

Before we get carried away, let’s put a pin it for now and look at some interesting data from reputable sources. These include Smart Insights, the UK Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and Litmus Email Analytics.

• On average, the global open rate varies from 14.79% (Constant Contact) to 21.33 % (MailChimp)
• The average click-through rate is between 2.98% (Get Response) and 6.99% (Constant Contact)
• Gmail has the biggest market share of 30% as of September 2019
• The DMA found better delivery rates, open rates and an increase in email clicks, proving that email marketing is more widely used than before

How Do Your Email Clicks Measure Up?

Many marketers will agree that their engagement rates need to improve and while it’s not rocket science, it does require some patience, finesse and effort. If your email clicks are less than impressive, make a change and improve them by using the not-so-secret tips we’ve revealed in this article.

If you need help creating winning email marketing campaigns, WSI can help. We specialise in email marketing, social media, SEO, PPC, web development and marketing automation among others. Visit our website or call us on 01453 542761 to discuss all of your requirements.