Five must-have tips for emails that get opened

Despite the growth of social, video, and other digital marketing channels, more than 59 percent of businesses still identify email as the most effective marketing channel for their brand.¹ The necessity of email marketing is only expected to increase as distrust in social media grows and buyers demand more personal, authentic, 1:1 connections. While it may seem simple to craft and send a basic email pitching your product or service, ensuring your email actually gets opened and read is a whole different ballgame. The typical B2B buyer is bombarded with hundreds of emails in their inbox every day, making it difficult to actually stand out against the noise and capture their attention enough to get them clicking. There are, however, some proven tactics that can help boost your open rates and improve the success of your campaigns.

1. Understand your audience: Having an in-depth understanding and knowledge of your audience is one of the best ways to fine-tune your email marketing for optimal results. Being able to relate to your subscribers in specific, tangible ways will set your business—and your emails—apart in your prospect’s overcrowded inbox. Take some time to think about your customer base and identify: What are their needs? What are their biggest pain points? What are industry trends affecting their business goals? Then identify how your product or service can address those areas, specifically. Your emails should talk to the ways you can solve their specific problems and the benefits they can gain—not just plugging your product.

2. Leverage segmentation: One size does not fit all when it comes to email marketing, which is why it helps to break your audience down into smaller, differentiated groups in order to be effective. By segmenting your campaigns into more targeted groupings, you can ensure you’re sending the most relevant content to each recipient. Your segments can be based on demographics, location, purchase history, position in the sales funnel, etc., with messaging or offers based on what those individuals would care most about. Marketers who use segmented campaigns have noted as much as a 760 percent increase in revenue.²

3. Make it personal: Buyer expectations have evolved rapidly in the last few years, driving increasing demand for personalized, hyper-relevant engagements from the brands they do business with. Adding personalized details to your emails not only helps to strengthen your relationship and loyalty with customers, personalized emails have 2.5 times higher click-through rates and are 6 times more likely to drive a conversion.³ Today, personalization is about more than just adding the recipient’s name to the email. You can use past engagements or interests to make personalized product or service recommendations, reach out to recognize an anniversary of their relationship with your brand, or other efforts that engage them on an individual level.

4. Implement A/B testing: Testing different variations on subject lines, messaging, or other approaches can allow you to get a good idea of what’s working and what’s not with your audience. Brands that incorporate A/B testing in their emails generate an ROI of 48:1.⁴ A good A/B test can save you both time and effort while streamlining your campaigns, helping you hone in on the best messaging, send times, offers, and more.

5. Simplify with automation: Today there are many email marketing automation tools that can help take a lot of the manual burden off your hands and increase the success of your campaigns. In fact, 41 percent of marketers recognize that using automation increases their marketing ROI.⁵ These tools can help you set up a predetermined stream of emails to your customers, manage segmented lists, and even establish auto-generated emails that can be sent based on behavioral triggers (such as a welcome email when signing up for a mailing list, or a thank you/confirmation email after they’ve submitted a request for a demo).

Need help jump-starting your email campaigns? Connect with Cadence Preferred today to see how we can help!