Are your marketing emails not performing quite as well as you might like in terms of click through rates and conversions? Improving email performance doesn’t have to mean completely overhauling your email templates or coming up with an entirely new email strategy. Sometimes making a few small changes can make a huge difference, particularly if they are ones that make your emails easier to read and more visually appealing.

Check out these 5 things you can do to update (and hopefully improve the performance of) your marketing emails!

1. Make sure email copy is brief, clear, and concise.

According to a study by Constant Contact emails with approximately 20 lines of text have the highest click through rates. Which makes a lot of sense when you take a step back and think about it. 20 lines is a bite sized amount that is easy for people to consume if they are simply skimming an email or reading it on their mobile devices.

To deliver your message in a way that will entice people and to do it in as few lines as possible requires that your email copy is extremely concise. Save the long format writing for a blog post or case study!

2. Experiment with images and graphics.

This is probably the easiest thing that you can do to update your marketing emails. A few well placed images, infographics or GIF’s can make a world of difference. Have some stats that you want to share? Create a visually appealing chart or infographic. Promoting a new product or service? Share some pictures!

(Note –  make sure that the images you include are optimized for mobile devices.)

3. Put things in a new order.

If your email has sections (like a newsletter or e-commerce sale promotion) change up the order of the sections. People thrive on novelty. Give them something that is different than what they are expecting and it will grab their attention.

In some cases, changing up the order of your emails can help improve your click through rate. Perhaps the link that most of your audience would click on, is buried at the bottom of the email, when it should really be at the top.

And speaking of links….

4. Update your CTA’s.

Does your email contain any links that are trying to get the email recipients to perform a specific action, like buying a product or visiting your website? If so, then you have CTA’s (or Calls to Action).

Now, what do those CTA’s look like? Are they simply hyperlinks in the text or basic buttons with vague language like “click here” or “learn more”? If you want to get more clicks on your CTA’s, liven them up! Make them visually appealing with clear, actionable language. People should want to click on the button (and they should know exactly what will happen when they do)!

5. Change up when you send emails.

Another way to try and improve the performance of your emails is by changing the day of the week or time of day that you send emails. Based on who you are and who your audience is, the best time to send emails can vary quite a bit.

So how do you find out the best time to send? There are 2 things that we recommend doing:

  1. Research, research, research. There are a plethora of articles out there about this subject. I found these two, from MailChimp and CoSchedule to be particularly insightful.
  2. Analyze YOUR OWN email data. Take a look back at your best performing emails. Is there anything that their send times had in common? If so, that might be the best time to reach your audience.

Need help with your email marketing?

MINDSCAPE has helped hundreds of clients across a variety of industries profit from their email marketing. Whether you need help with strategy, creating email templates, scheduling workflows, or just want a little support, we can help you achieve your goals. Just head over to our email marketing page to learn a little bit more about our services.