Everyday our inboxes get cluttered with emails from businesses, friends, coworkers and the list goes on. 122 billion emails are sent every hour, so it is very important to stand out. While everyone is doing it, emailing is an important part of selling. So how do you get your email to stand out from the crowd? We dive into the top ways in this blog post.
- Personalize your email
Remember you are talking to people, so talk to them like a person, not a robot. Even though you may be emailing thousands remember it is going to a single person’s inbox. Personalization is key and that does not mean just simply adding their name. Directing customers to products or services based on their purchase patterns is a great example of positive personalization.
- Subject lines
What does it take to create an interesting and clickable subject line? Your subject line should draw in your audience and drive them to open your email. Some good rules to live by are: keep it short, catchy, professional and imply value of the email. Also, remember to always test your subject lines, which will allow you to see what works best with your audience.
- Send your emails at the right time
Emails sent during off-peak hours have a better chance of being opened. Emails sent between 8pm to 11:59pm had an average 21.7% increase of open rates, and 17.6% increase for emails sent between 12am to 4am. You can also test different send times and days and see what works best.
- Optimize
More and more emails are being opened on mobile devices so you absolutely have to optimize your email for mobile devices. Follow the one column template, keep links in the mobile view and make sure the font is easy to read.
- Use images properly
Images are great and are worth 1,000 words, but don’t rely heavily on images. The entire email should not be composed of images and if you take the images away is the email still compelling? If not, you need to fix that. Also, always use alt text that makes sense because not all recipients receive images.
Next time you design, develop and send an email consider these 5 ways to make your email stand out. Is there anything you think we are missing? We would love to hear from you and your experiences with email!
