Mastering the Click-Through Rate
12 Strategies for Increased Engagement in Your Email Marketing
When Engagement With Your Emails Is Your Essential Goal
by Alyssa Rice
Introduction
Click-through rates are simply the number of clicks on links in an email divided by the number of people who receive that email.
Click-through rates are important because it shows if your marketing works or it doesn’t. By analyzing this metric, you can see what appeals to your audience, and what marketing strategies generate response and engagement.
Many webmail providers like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and others pay careful attention to whether or not people engage with your email. When they see people engaging with your email and clicking on things, your newsletters get better treatment by the webmail companies.
Below are 12 things to look at when attempting to improve your click-through rates.
1) Improve Your Message Headline
After the subject line and preheader, the headline of your email is the next part of the email that is read. It is very important, but not often discussed. Make it a clickable link, and include top keywords that your subscribers are interested in. Without a good headline, your reader has little reason to continue on.
2) Use a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)
With call to actions, you want to do two things: make it easy, and make it valuable. Which one of these call-to-actions below displays ease and value?
- Learn More
- Learn How to Improve Your Bottom Line
- Learn to Improve Your Bottom Line in 5 Quick Steps
This third CTA is a tremendous improvement compared to the first CTA. Show your subscriber that whatever action they take is quick, easy, and they’ll get something out of it, and you’ll see improved clicks on your call-to-action.
3) Deploy Segmentation
Segment your list into smaller segments based on demographics, psychographics, buying behavior, or any other information that you have in your database. This strategy lets you provide targeted and relevant content to each segment, increasing the likelihood of clicks.
The more relevant you can make your email messages, the higher click-through rates you will achieve.
Need ideas on how to segment your list? Here are 30 ways.
4) Consider Gamification
Gamification is adding game elements and mechanics into non-gaming places. But it’s not just for gaming sites anymore.
What’s great about gamification is it can improve click-throughs, but it also can lead to increased sales and conversions. Here are some gamification ideas to try:
- Spinning Wheel
- Word Search
- Scratch Offs
- Slot Machine
- Quizzes
- Calculators
- Puzzles
Sure, these gamification ideas can be gimmicky. But they can work! Only you know if they are appropriate for your readership.
5) Try a Cliffhanger Technique
This is a personal favorite. We always do this. In fact, we can't imagine not doing this in an email marketing message.
The best way to make use of the cliffhanger technique is to start by telling a story, and right before you get to the climax, link out to a landing page. This technique is a great way to hold the interest of your readers and make sure they click on your “Read the rest of the story” or “Continued here” link. Simple yes, but highly effective if your lead-in is interesting!
6) Get Visual with Images Graphics and More
Plain text emails are okay, but make the extra effort and include eye-catching, dynamic visuals
GIFs are super eye-catching, but images definitely work too.
(https://www.litmus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Grammarly_GIF.gif)
Animated Gifs work well, and screen captures of videos and reels can also be irresistible to click on. Some tools to make email videos/images are:
- Canva - This is best for creating your own customized images. There isn’t much that Canva can’t do. It has a free subscription for basic needs, and a $120 annual fee for extra premium content and tools.
- Graphic River - Design elements like icons and banners can be purchased through this site.
- PlaceIt - If you want to use screenshots of your app, website, or email, this platform makes it super easy. You enter a URL into PlaceIt, and it grabs a screenshot that you can add to your emails.
7) Offer Incentives
Use incentives within your email to improve clicks. Add verbiage about clicking a link to get 50% off, or a free item with purchase or a free demo. People love free stuff. Just make sure to stay consistent with your offer and follow through. Do not overpromise.
8) Showcase Videos
Including a video thumbnail image in email improves click-through rates by 65%! (campaign monitor) That’s a big uptick.
A best practice when offering a video is including the word “Video” in the subject line or preheader. It lets people know it’s there while they are pondering their choice of opening the email.
For security reasons, email mailbox providers don’t allow video to be embedded in videos. So simply do a screen capture of your video, and link it to your video.
9) Use Emotional Persuasion
Emotional persuasion is the tactic that targets one’s emotional experience to entice them into buying or converting. Emotions rule our everyday life, so use emotions that make sense or your brand and brand story.
Learn how to use envy, guilt, fear, greed, and happiness in your email to increase click-throughs here: Emotional Persuasion: How to Use It To Your Advantage When Selling
10) Conduct Surveys
A satisfaction survey does two jobs: increases email click-through rates, and lets you know how you’re doing. If you just held a webinar, send a post-event email to attendees asking how the webinar was with a 1-5 number scale. If you just served a customer at your restaurant, ask them how their overall experience was on a number scale from 1-10. You can take them to a landing page and ask for more information.
11) Optimize Your Navigation Menu
Email navigation bars are similar in look and feel to the top navigation bars that are found on websites. Best practices are:
- Decrease the Bar Size: If you have a bunch of dropdowns on your website navigation bar, it’s probably not best to include all of those in the email. Try to scale it down to only the important dropdowns.
- Optimize for Mobile: Mobile phones are less than a quarter of the size of a desktop, so make sure the menu is the correct size and is responsive (resizes for phones, etc).
- Relate it to the CTA: You don’t want to overcrowd the email or have your navigation bar compete with your CTA. Make sure the goals match.
12) Use a Compelling Landing Page
Once your subscribers have clicked, they have now reached your landing page. Make sure your landing page is relevant to what was just communicated in your email. Nobody wants to feel like they’re being duped or lied to, so make sure everything on the landing page is honest and exactly what you promised in your email copy.
Conclusion
Email has been a reliable marketing tactic for years, but marketers need to keep evolving their content to compete and keep their click-through rates up. Simply adding just one of these strategies will grab your reader’s attention, and hopefully increase clicks and conversions.
Resources
Canva: Infographics and Customized Images
Graphic River: Icons and Banners
PlaceIt: Website, Email, App Screenshots
Place a GIF in Your Email Newsletter: https://designmodo.com/email-gif/
30 Ways to Segment Your List: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-list-segmentation
Emotional Persuasion: How to Use It To Your Advantage to Sell: Emotional Persuasion: How to Use It To Your Advantage When Selling
Net Atlantic’s Inpired Marketer AI Tool: https://www.InspiredMarketer.ai
20 Effective CTAs (Calls to Action): https://www.netatlantic.com/resources/articles/20-effective-call-to-action-phrases