Email marketing remains one of the best forms of digital outreach for new launches, announcements, and improving customer retention. Keeping businesses connected with their customer base, offering a means of segmenting users into different campaigns based on their demographic or relationship with your business, email is a valuable asset for businesses of all sizes and across industries.

One thing which unites virtually all businesses who use email is a desire to improve open and click through rates. Even businesses that specialise in digital marketing and content creation need to constantly stay ahead of trends and news if they want to retain a high click through rate - which is where this email comes in.

Here at Social Loop, email is one of the touch-points that we specialise in - supporting businesses across all industries with content creation for launches, nurture campaigns, and ongoing engagement with customers. Keep reading for more information on how it works and how to improve both your open and click through rates.

What is click through rate and why is it so important?

Your open rate and click through rate are different, but both are important if you want to develop a successful and sustainable email campaign.

Email open rates are crucial for the simple reason that if your emails are not opened by users, then everything you pack into them is rendered pointless. Typically, an email needs a compelling subject line and preview copy and needs to be sent at the right time to spark and entice engagement from users.

Once an email has been opened, the click through rate is the number of users who take action based on that email - whether it be clicking the CTA button or responding to the email. This click through rate lets you know how many users are engaging with your email content, with businesses needing to build compelling landing pages which ignite further action once the user has clicked.

In this blog post, we’re focussing on the emails themselves and what you can do to optimise both the open rate and the click through rate of each email.

How to improve email open rates

To improve your email open rates, you need to think about what users see when your email arrives in their inbox.

That means thinking about when you send emails, who you want to open them, where you want them to be, and what you want them to think.

Typically, retailers tend to send emails when they know their audience are at home scrolling, or on their daily commute. News emails are sent in the mornings, and launch emails and reminders are best sent in the evenings.

Then you need to think about the subject line and what will entice a reader into wanting to open the email and learn more. Less really is more when it comes to subject lines, so keep it snappy and be as direct yet intriguing as possible.

Tips for boosting the click through rate of your emails

Before we share some of the best ways to boost your click through rate, do you know how to calculate it?

The click through rate of your emails equals the clicks, divided by the number of emails delivered. This takes into account any bounced emails which are sent to dud inboxes, giving you an accurate representation of how many emails were clicked on per campaign.

Armed with this knowledge, you can adopt some small changes to help boost your click through rate - starting with the very action you want to encourage.

1. Focus on one CTA

You might think that if you want to increase your click through rate, you need to encourage as much and as many different activities as possible. But far from increasing the chances of a click, this will only confuse the message of your email. Rather, our advice is to pick an action and stick with it.

By all means add a clickable button to the top and bottom of the email, but make sure that you are focussing all attention on one powerful action if you want to engage users successfully.

2. Personalise emails

There is a huge amount of value behind an email which starts by greeting the recipient with their name - and it’s not that difficult to work into your campaign. Most backend email platforms make this easy with a quick formula, so that - provided your email lists are built and structured correctly - names are automatically pulled into the first line of the email with ease.

If this doesn’t work for you, you can make emails feel more personal by speaking directly to the reader via the tone you use. For example, ask direct questions which tap into the pain points your customers have.

3. Stick with a simple design

This is a big one. Not only is a simple email design crucial for quick loading, but it also makes the email easy to read and digest on any device (provided your emails are automatically mobile responsive).

Our advice is to avoid adding large images and instead stick with clear and concise copy, clicking through to a powerful and impactful landing page.

4. Make key elements stand out

This one is easy: make those clickable buttons and call to action phrases stand out - by boldening the text, making it a different colour, or placing it inside a clickable box.

5. Focus on your copy

Email is, for some of your audience, a standalone touchpoint which is unconnected with other platforms. If a user doesn’t have social media and relies on your emails for all their updates and communications from your business, the copy needs to be clear and concise, while communicating all the important messages with ease.

Good copy is integral to a successful email campaign. That means entering each email with a clear goal as to what you want to achieve, and what action you want users to take.

And top tip from us: that doesn’t mean that every email needs to be super sales-y - rather, that you need to have a goal and use clever and engaging copy to ignite interest in what you offer without going for the hard sell.

Make email marketing work for you

They say that you should write about what you know if you want to really engage an audience. Well, here at Social Loop, we know about marketing, and we know lots about how to make email marketing work for you. Get in touch with us to find out more about our expertise and how we could support your next email campaign.