5 Tips to Get Your Emails Read

Email marketing is a very vital tactic for businesses of all sizes – when executed correctly. In fact, it's actually the preferred way clients want you to communicate with them, with 91 percent of U.S. adults suggesting they would like to receive emails from companies they do business with. While it's a highly effective and low-cost marketing solution, many people keep making the same mistakes.

Why email marketing is a very powerful tool

It's inexpensive

Email marketing is easy, effective, and inexpensive to produce—and can give you a great return on your investment. For every dollar spent, email marketing offers a return of $44. There is simply no other marketing communication tool or tactic with this level of ROI.

It keeps contacts informed

Email is a magnificent way to stay connected with buyers, sellers, renters or FSBOs – and every contact you've accumulated in between. Frequent email communications are a great way to provide everyone in your sphere with up to date market trends, new listings, community events, business updates, homeowner tips– there are no limits with email's potential.

Made for mobile

According to the Pew Research Center, 52 percent of US cellphone owners access their emails from their phones. That number will only continue to grow as mobile becomes the dominant source for content consumption. Remember: write your copy for the smaller screen – don't give them cramps in their thumbs from scrolling so much.

5 ways to get more eyes on your emails

One of the golden rules of marketing is to pass the "Why should someone care?" test. Every piece of marketing material has to go though that screening process and answer "Why should your reader care?" about what you're sending them.

Here are five ideas that can help your emails to be welcomed, opened, and read by everyone in your database.

1. Use eye-catching visuals and video

When you get an email with enough text where there could be a comma in the word count, you can almost see your readers' eyes glazing over. Use video and images to shoulder some of the storytelling load. You have a library of images from an open house or shots from a fundraising event you recently hosted. Even something as simple as having a graphical email header and signatures to boost your personal brand adds a creative element.

Take it a step further and incorporate video into your emails. Make your emails more interactive, intimate, and creative with video storytelling.

2. Focus on your headlines

Thirty-three percent of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based on subject line alone.

With mobile evolving to be the primary medium to open and send emails, long subject headlines will be cut off from view. Keep the headline short and sweet, use concise language, action-oriented verbs with an indication on what's inside the body.

Is it compelling enough to make people want to click through? What kind of a hook do you have that reels them in? Think of yourself as a newspaper editor—would your headline be front-page worthy to sell papers?

3. Make your writing clean and concise

The trick is to use concise language to get to the point and avoid all the fluff that essentially gets skimmed over from readers. Understandably, it can be time consuming and agonizing to sit and draft new email copy. Check with your CRM provider to see if they offer professionally written emails and letters that will help you deliver the right message to your database.

4. Provide value

Emails that follow an "all about me," format are not likely to be opened and will lead to rising unsubscribes. You have to remember – why should your reader care? Give them a reason to crave your emails by providing relevant information to your target audience and provide information of value.

For example, an email that outlines "5 ways to take advantage of a hot housing market" or "10 questions to answer before buying your first home" gives the reader a reason to take interest.

5. Have a clear call-to-action

Readers want to know "What's the key point of this email and what should I do next?"

There has to be a goal behind your email, otherwise it comes across as unfocused and even pointless. Think, what emotional response am I trying to get from the reader here? Where do I want them to go from here? What do I want them to take away from this? Otherwise the reader skims over your message and thinks – now what?

Great email marketing always has a clear call to action that's around the lines of: Download this eBook, Visit our recent listings, Visit us this Saturday at the Community Centre for our BBQ fundraiser, or even Call me now to learn more about how I can help you.

It's also important to plan if this email falls into a much larger strategy, like setting up an automated drip email marketing campaign to nurture prospects along. Is it being sent to everyone in your database, or is it strategically being tweaked for the audience?

Summary

These are the types of questions to ask when implementing email marketing as a tactic. All of this starts with the behind the scenes work that a CRM does to get your ducks in a row—and to help convert your prospects.

To view the original article, visit the IXACT Contact blog.