Topic:

effective email writing

6 Tips and Trends to Improve Your Emails and Make Them Work

3 min read

Emailing leads and clients remains an effective strategy that keeps sales coming for many businesses. Find out how you can improve your emails to help you reach your sales goals.

Have you ever gotten an email that made you click on a link or even buy a product? Read a catchy subject line that made you curious and read the rest of the email? A persuasive photo of a product? Discounts, opportunities, and marketing offers you don’t want to miss? There’s a reason why businesses still use email despite it being labeled as “outdated” as it remains potent and effective.

In 2019, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) found that email marketing can give you an average return of £42 ($57) for every dollar spent. This is supported by a June 2020 survey conducted by Ugam, which saw 51% of marketers reporting an increase in email marketing spending.

Email users also continue to grow each year. In 2019, there were around 3.9 billion email users globally (Statista), a number forecast to grow to 4.48 billion by 2024. With all these numbers, it’s safe to say that email marketing remains a top marketing strategy that companies and entrepreneurs can use to grow their business.

So how can you improve your emails and make them work? Check out these 6 tips and trends for email marketing in 2021.

6 Email Marketing Tips and Trends in 2021

Here are the top email marketing tips and trends in 2021:

1. Emails Promoting “Essential” Products 

According to Omnisend, click rates were observed to have decreased in general in 2020. The economy is a major factor to blame, which shaped the consumer market’s preference for need-based shopping. However, poor CTAs and bad marketing copies are also partly to blame.

That’s why the preference for “essentials” like fitness equipment and healthcare products has been on the rise. And emails framing their products and services as “essential” during the pandemic will likely see an increase in click rates. 

2. Interactive Content is the Way to Go

When sending out messages, always remember that your target audience is potentially exposed to millions of information every day. This is why the average customer attention span has been found to last up to 8 seconds— increasing the chances of your emails getting ignored.

Digital marketers found that making your content interactive can address this problem. By including infographics, videos, polls, calculators, and quizzes, readers are able to “interact” with you until they click your CTA button.

3. Small Businesses Will Benefit the Most from Email Marketing

Businesses, especially small businesses, have experienced difficulty getting in-store traffic during the pandemic. That’s why many have moved their businesses online.

And to keep customers and leads engaged, businesses have been using email, which serves as a powerful tool (sometimes, at no cost) to reach out to a large audience quickly and effectively, informing them of the latest and most needed products and services during the crisis.

4. More Secure Features Appreciated (e.g. BIMI)

Google announced back in 2020 about its support for Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) in Gmail. Here, once an authenticated email passes all anti-abuse checks, a logo will be displayed in the Gmail User Interface.

BIMI will help combat phishing attempts in email. Once a recipient sees that an email is BIMI-compliant, it makes it easier for them to trust the email content, as well as the brand.

5. Personalized Emails Will Stand Out

Personalization is an important strategy in marketing— especially email marketing. Because leads and customers have been desensitized by irrelevant emails sent in bulk by businesses, personalized emails that feel like they’re tailor-made for the recipient are more likely to stand out.

Putting a personal touch in your email helps improve your click-through rate (CTR). You can do this by putting in the name of the recipient. Or even by customizing the CTA button according to the buyer persona of the recipient.

Businesses should also only send relevant content to target readers. And they can do this by conducting email segmentation, which is by grouping recipients together according to their commonalities (e.g. gender, age, industry, location, etc.)

6. Many Businesses are Starting to Use Email Automation Tools

The pandemic sparked the drive for businesses to use sales and marketing tools that are capable of automating email marketing.

Many of these tools allow you to automate the sending of emails based on your desired schedule, meaning that the software can send your emails for you to target readers automatically as if you have an extra secretary at the office.

Email automation tools also often have built-in analytics that lets you gain an insight as to how many customers saw the email, clicked them, or even how much of your sales came from these emails. 

Marketing automation has been observed to help drive a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead costs. Overall, 74% of marketing users report that “time saved” was its largest benefit, plus 76% of companies claiming a return on their investment within the first year.

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Connect with Leads: How to do Email Marketing

3 min read

The first e-mail was sent around the 1970s. The E-mail was invented to expedite the communication process and get a word around without being bound to physical limitations. Before e-mail was invented, the flow of information was very slow and sluggish. Messages took time to be delivered and they can be costly too! Messages were very limited due to the physical constraints of paper and ink, and technology like fax, charge customers per letter.

Fast forward 50 years, e-mail is now being used as a platform for promoting products and services. It is widely used by people all over the world and is also largely contributory to the success of thousands of businesses worldwide. It gave birth to new sales and marketing techniques and has made it possible for consumers worldwide to be notified of new products and services and promotional materials as well.

This article will focus on guiding you on connecting with potential customers (otherwise known as leads) through the power of e-mail. This process of establishing long-term, profitable relationships with customers through e-mail is called e-mail marketing. And there are tools available to make it easier for you to implement your e-mail marketing plan.

So let’s break down the concepts first.

What is e-mail marketing?

E-mail marketing is the art and science of sending curated content to target readers for the purpose of establishing profitable relationships with these readers over time. This content can be crafted for brand awareness, lead generation, or even sales generation.

E-mail marketing is as simple as sending a curated email with the goal of having the recipient open the email and buy something from you. Email marketing keeps your potential and existing customers engaged––new products, promotional activities, and other things from your business to encourage purchase behavior.

Notice those spammy messages you are getting that often include “X amount % discount on X item?” Most of them are designed to entice the buyer to click on the message, check what product is on sale, and get the product delivered to them as soon as possible. Most companies can only achieve this if they can successfully convince buyers that now is the time to get this product or you will save a huge amount of money if you buy this product now. 

The greatest challenge to those behind the launch of an e-mail marketing campaign is standing out from potentially hundreds of e-mails that a target reader is getting every day. 

How do you craft an enticing subject line? 

How do you design the e-mail that makes the reader read more? 

What should be your Call to Action (CTA) so that the reader will do what you want them to do? 

These are only a few of the hundreds of really important questions and challenges that e-mail marketers have to answer and address. So how should you launch your e-mail marketing campaign? What are some of the strategies that you should follow to increase the chances of its success? 

Connect with your leads: How to launch your e-mail marketing campaign

1. SUBJECT LINE: Craft an irresistible subject line and preview text for your target market

Ever read a subject line so punchy you just had to click on it and see what the email is about? The art of creating irresistible subject lines and preview texts requires a lot of creativity – and careful assessment to check whether something is working or not.

Companies like BuzzFeed, for example, take this to heart. By writing excellent subject lines, your target readers have a higher chance of opening your email and actually reading it. This leads to higher chances of sales conversion happening, thus growing your business.

Examples of good subject lines:

Free *insert item* Alert!

*Don’t Open This E-mail!*

Hot Freebie Alert! Giveaways You Can Get This Week!

This is the Best *Insert Subject* You’ll Ever See

2.BUYER PERSONA: Segment your customers according to criteria

Just like the real world, not all customers are the same. Your target customers have varying degrees of interaction with you and they have varying preferences as well. 

Some customers would love to open an email of yours if it’s about discounts. Others may not fall for the same trap but would love to check new items that they might need. These differences are difficult to identify and monitor. And often you will need a tool for this. 

Some CRM programs are designed to track and monitor customer behavior when it comes to emails. Getting data and information regarding your potential and existing customers using CRM tools can help you craft a better marketing strategy. It becomes more responsive to real-world behavior and becomes more measurable as a result. Speaking of tools…

3. TOOLS: Use CRM tools that make it easy for you to do e-mail marketing

Customer Relationship Management or CRM is an approach to managing potential and existing customer relationships with the goal of improving customer retention and boosting sales. 

CRM software often have multiple tools that give you greater flexibility to perform the tasks needed to satisfy your customer requirements. As a centralized platform, the software can allow syncing of mobile phones, calendars, in-app reporting tools, and other tools needed for customer interaction.

This interconnection removes duplicate data and allows real-time updating of data, making data entry accurate, secure, and convenient for you. And when you got all of these tools synced together, it allows you to send the right message to your customers at the right time – creating a timely response to each of your customer’s interactions with your system.

Knowing what to do with the right tools allows you to adjust and adapt to changing customer preferences. It also allows you to keep your e-mail marketing campaign updated and working. If you launch the appropriate action towards the right customer, it only increases the chances of sales conversion happening which helps your business in the long run. Only a good, working CRM can show you real-time data about your customers so make sure to find this feature in your CRM.

4. MAKE IT EXCITING: Include Interactive Content in Your E-mail

Capturing the attention of your recipient within the first eight seconds is crucial. With the exposure to millions of information every day, it comes as no surprise that the average customer attention span only lasts until 8 seconds.

To get your recipients’ attention and ensure it will last, make your content interactive. Include Infographics, videos, surveys, polls, quizzes, calculators, and images so you can sustain your readers’ attention until they reach your CTA button.

Interactive content can break the monotone that is usually associated with e-mails. When your newsletter gives a breath of fresh air, it will surely stand out in your recipient’s inbox and may even encourage your target reader to open your e-mails in the future.

Conclusion

So that is how you connect with your leads through e-mail marketing. Remember that not all leads are the same, so you have to know who you are dealing with, who you want to deal with, how to deal with them in the easiest and most accurate way possible, and how to keep them engaged so your sales will skyrocket in no time.

5 Quintessential Email Phrases You Need to Know

4 min read

It takes experience and expertise to know the composition of an effective email. It is difficult to figure out how to craft that email that makes recipients open it, click on links, and make actual purchases on the website your email provided.

But here, we make it easy for you. We have collected hundreds of emails that convert from email marketers around the world and we have summed it up to five. Here are the 5 quintessential email phrases you need to know:


1. “Thank you for [insert action]”

A lot of the phrases here are framed positively. This means that instead of apologizing to your clients, you can phrase them positively as an act of gratitude. For example, if a project’s submission was delayed and caused inconvenience to your client, instead of saying “I’m sorry for the delayed submission” you can instead replace it with “Thank you for your patience.”

Positive phrasing has worked a lot of wonders in the marketing industry. It has a powerful impact on the way customers perceive signals in stressful situations. It makes them more receptive of the message than defensive which should be your primary goal in the first place.

Starting your messages with “thank you” also creates a sense of connection between you and your customers. And it makes customers feel more appreciated than dismissed.


2. “Please feel free to [insert action]”

This is another example of positive phrasing where the words “please feel free” gives a sense of freedom to your customers instead of the more authoritative “let me know.” At this point, you may want your customers to provide important information or clarification. When there is a degree of comfort and freedom, customers tend to be more open about their questions which you can address right away.

Throughout the buyer’s journey, customers will inevitably come across something confusing to them. You want to get this feedback as this is crucial. Their questions are something that you can use to provide information right at the start of the buyer’s journey for future customers to avoid asking the same questions. These smoothen out the process of conversion– making your leads make their first purchase the soonest time possible.


3. “We understand that [insert action]”

This is a phrase that you use when going over something that the customer has done or has complained about. For example, if the customer complains about the quality of the product, you can include the phrase “We understand that the quality of the product did not meet your standards” or if you want to use positive phrasing, “We understand that you expected more from the product and we appreciate this feedback.”

By including this phrase, you are giving off the impression that you empathize, that you feel the same level of inconvenience or discomfort that the customer is experiencing and you want to correct that. Customers appreciate this. They feel like there is a sense of sincerity from the business to keep them and given the right conditions, this helps them stay loyal all throughout.


4. “We’d be happy to [insert action]”

This phrase breaks barriers and can instantly bridge people together. Sending an impression to your customers that offering them help will not cause you any inconvenience and will even excite you makes them feel warmly accommodated. Including the phrase “we’d be happy to help you” or “we’d be happy to fix this for you” instantly consolidates goodwill among your loyal customers.


5. “..you..”

Probably the one word that makes things less formal and more personal, using the word “you” helps give a sense of identity and familiarity to the recipient of the email. By including “you” in the email, the recipient automatically acknowledges that he is indeed the recipient of the message and any action implicitly or explicitly stated in the email will eventually affect the recipient.


The word “you” also makes the recipient more receptive to the message. It also makes them less defensive and more open about the content of the message.


So these are the five quintessential email phrases and words that you should know when sending emails to your customers.

For more email strategies, check out what is in store for you below:


1. Craft a subject line and preview text that your target readers won’t be able to resist

Ever read a subject line so punchy you just had to click on it and see what the email is about? The art of creating irresistible subject lines and preview texts requires a lot of creativity – and careful assessment to check whether something is working or not.

By writing excellent subject lines, your target readers have a higher chance of opening your email and actually reading it. This leads to higher chances of sales conversion happening, thus growing your business.

Examples of good subject lines:

Free *insert item* Alert!

*Don’t Open This E-mail!*

Hot Freebie Alert! Giveaways You Can Get This Week!

This is the Best *Insert Subject* You’ll Ever See


2. Know what to do with the right person

Not all customers are made the same. Your target customers have varying degrees of interaction with you (and they have varied preferences as well). 

Some customers would love to open an email of yours if it’s about discounts. Others may not fall for the same trap but would love to check new items that they might need. These differences are difficult to identify and monitor. And often you will need a tool for this like a CRM system.


3. Use the right tools for your e-mail marketing campaign

Tools that are designed to help you launch your e-mail marketing campaign may help you during the implementation period. Most of these tools offer automation options that allow you to send e-mails based on your desired schedule. These tools also often have built-in analytics that reports how many customers saw the e-mail, ignored them, or clicked on them, and how much of your sales actually come from these e-mails. Using the right tools help you take off a heavier workload for your sales and marketing teams. They also improve efficiency in work processes.


4. Personalize Your E-mail and Make a Segmented E-mail List

To improve your CTR, put a personal touch in your message and personalize your email. You can start off by just putting in the name of the recipient. To further personalize your email, you can even customize the CTA button according to the buyer persona of the recipient.

You can engage them according to their age, gender, job title, and other relevant information about your recipients like location and interests. For example, if the customer is still a student, get a CTA button that is relevant to a student’s needs. If a customer is a professional, say an engineer, get a CTA button that engineers would be enticed to click.

A segmented e-mail list is also important for a successful e-mail marketing campaign. Segmentation is the process of grouping recipients together according to commonalities. Overall, a segmented e-mail list allows you to craft a message that is specific and relevant to a particular segment.


5. Include interactive content in your e-mail

Capturing the attention of your recipient within the first eight seconds is crucial. With the exposure to millions of information every day, it comes as no surprise that the average customer attention span only lasts until 8 seconds.

To get your recipients’ attention and ensure it will last, make your content interactive. Include Infographics, videos, surveys, polls, quizzes, calculators, and images so you can sustain your readers’ attention until they reach your CTA button.

Conclusion

So these are the five quintessential email phrases and words that you should know when sending an email plus general strategies that you can use to improve your email marketing campaign. Now start planning on making that email marketing campaign for your business.