12 Ways to Instantly Improve Email Conversion Rates

Maximize Your Marketing: Elevate Your Email Strategy with 12 Essential Optimization Techniques

February 19, 2024

How Can You Instantly Improve Your Email Conversion Rates in 12 Steps?

Quick Answer:

To boost Email Conversion Rates, segment lists, personalize content, ensure mobile optimization, craft compelling subject lines, use clear CTAs, automate emails, use proven email types, engage readers, direct actions clearly, balance sending frequency, clean your list, and consistently test and optimize. These strategies enhance effectiveness and ROI.

Quick Overview

Introduction to Email Marketing

Understanding Email Conversion Rate

12 Data-Backed Ways to Improve Your Email Conversion Rate

1.Incorporate Segmentation

2.Personalize Your Emails

3.Optimize Emails for Mobile

4.Improve Your Subject Lines

5.Include a Call-to-Action

6.Automate Your Emails

7.Utilize Proven Email Types

8.Engage Your Readers

9.Consider the Exit Plan

10.Balance Your Sending Frequency

11.Clean Your Email List

12.Test and Optimize

Conclusion

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In the age of social media and [influencer marketing], you might think emails are on their way out. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

With an ROI of 3,500%, emails are a low-cost, high-return option for landing leads, nurturing prospects, and closing deals. As a result, they continue to be a top choice for marketers around the world. 

In fact, 89% of marketers agree that email is their primary method for lead generation. It’s why 333 billion emails are sent every single day, and experts predict that number will continue to increase to 375 billion by 2025. 

However, you can’t just blindly shoot emails into the ether and hope for the best. If you want the best results, you have to optimize your emails for conversions. Here’s how. 

What is an Email Conversion Rate? 

Before we jump into how to improve your email conversion rate, let’s get clear on some definitions.

An email conversion happens when an email recipient takes a desired action. For example, you might want your subscribers to click a certain link, sign up for a demo, or email back. Any time the recipient does that desired action, it’s a conversion.

A conversion rate is simply the percentage of recipients who take a desired action. You can figure out your conversion rate for a given email with a simple formula:

number of conversions ÷ total number of emails sent = conversion rate 

So, for example, let’s say you send an email to 1,000 recipients with the goal of getting them to click a link inside of the email. Then, let’s say 200 of them did. You would divide 200 by 1,000 to get a conversion rate of 20%. 

Pretty simple, right? Ultimately, you want to create emails that produce the highest conversion rate possible. Thankfully, there are several ways to maximize your chances and optimize for conversions.   

12 Data-Backed Ways to Raise Your Email Conversions

Here are 12 top ways (backed by data) to improve your email conversion rate.  

1. Incorporate Segmentation 

Segmentation is the process of breaking your customers or prospects into smaller, better-defined groups (aka segments). For example, you can break them up by demographic characteristics (age, gender, income, etc.), purchase history (# of purchases), contact type (lead, hot prospect, customer, etc.), or something else.

When you segment your email lists, it’s easier to write emails that will work for them. Think about it; you don’t talk to your best friend the same way you do your grandma. In the same way, you don’t want to talk to your new leads the same way you do your loyal customers. 

Email list segmentation ultimately allows for better, targeted promotions. And the results speak for themselves. 

Segmented email campaigns have 50% higher click-through-rates than general, untargeted campaigns. Additionally, segmented campaigns produce 760% more revenue than unsegmented campaigns! 

2. Personalize, personalize, personalize  

These days, 71% of consumers want (and expect) highly personalized marketing. In fact, emails with personalization in the subject line have 50% higher open rates than those without personalization. 

Personalization is taking segmentation to the next step. It’s about providing in-depth details about your recipient in the content or only sending hyper-relevant emails to your subscribers. 

For example, let’s say you’re emailing a millennial boutique owner named Jessica. Which of the two emails do you think is more likely to convert? 

  • Option A: 

Dear Sir or Madam,

Are you interested in having an app built for your business? Please email me for more details. 

  • Option B: 

Hey Jessica,

Owning a boutique can be tough. I’d love to help you make your customer outreach easier with a custom-built app. Is that something you might be interested in? Let me know! 

The second one is obviously much better because it’s highly personalized. It mentions the recipient by name, talks about her business, and speaks to her in the casual and upfront tone millennials prefer. 

With features like dynamic creation in most bulk email senders, you can automatically swap personal details in an email, allowing you to include things like the recipient’s name, interests, or purchase history in multiple emails at once. 

3. Optimize Your Emails for Mobile 

A whopping 81% of emails are viewed via a smartphone. Additionally, 42.4% of people will delete an email without reading it if it isn’t mobile-optimized. As a result, you’ll want to ensure your emails are optimized for mobile devices. 

Here are some things to check before hitting send: 

  • Opt for a single-column layout. 
  • Use smaller images to shorten the load time. 
  • Write short, succinct copy with bigger fonts for easy reading.
  • Use CTAs instead of embedded links to make it easier to click on mobile. 

4. Polish Up the Subject Lines 

Your subject line may be one of the most important parts of increasing email conversion rates because 64% of people will decide whether to open an email based on the subject line alone. 

Additionally, nearly 70% of people will mark an email as spam simply based on the subject line. No pressure, right?  

Research shows that if you want to improve your subject lines, you should consider doing the following: 

  • Add personalization (first name, interests, birthday, etc.) 
  • Include a number (for 57% better open rates)
  • Add an emoji
  • Aim 61-70 characters 
  • Avoid the word “newsletter” (unless you want to decrease open rates by 18.7%)
  • Include urgency and FOMO in the subject line 
  • Add curiosity

Some specific words have been proven to improve subject line performance (this list from Opt-in Monster has some 100+ of those words). 

5. Include a Call-To-Action 

One of the biggest email faux pas is forgetting to include a call-to-action (CTA). You have to tell your recipients what action you want them to take. Don’t make them guess. 

Instead, use a clear CTA (a button if possible) to guide them where you want them to go. It’s one of the most straightforward ways to boost conversion rates quickly. In fact, including a CTA can increase your email clicks by as much as 371%

6. Automate Your Emails 

Automation allows you to send “trigger emails,” aka emails that are automatically sent the moment your customers or subscribers take an action. For example, you can trigger an email sent when someone purchases or adds something to their cart via automation. 

This is super valuable because trigger emails have eight times higher open rates than standard emails. You can also use automation to schedule your emails, saving tons of time for you and allowing you to send them at the best times. 

What are the best times to send? According to the latest research

  • Tuesdays and Thursdays are the top days for sending
  • Weekends are the worst
  • Emails sent at 11 AM and 12 AM get the best click-through-rates 

However, there are no hard-and-fast rules for send times. So, you’ll need to test several different combinations to see what works best for your [[target audience]]. 

7. Utilize Proven Email Types 

Too many people think sending cold emails and once-a-month newsletters is all it takes to be successful at email. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are several types of emails you can incorporate into your strategy, including: 

  • Cart Abandonment Emails
  • Welcome Emails
  • Promotional Emails 
  • Educational Emails
  • Nurture Emails
  • And More

And some of these emails have incredible results. For example, abandoned cart emails and emails sent right after a customer adds something to their cart have the highest conversion rates of any other email type!

Additionally. sending just three abandoned cart emails results in nearly 70% more orders than sending one single email alone. 

8. Think About Engagement

While some emails call for a simple paragraph of text, others need a bit more. Nowadays, many marketers are trying to find ways to make reading an email more engaging. 

By giving the recipient something to do, you’re inviting them to interact with your brand and creating a more memorable experience. It also dramatically increases your results. 

For example, emails with videos have 300% more click-throughs than those without. To incorporate some engagement features in your email, look into videos, surveys, social follow buttons, and more.  

9. Consider the Exit Plan 

If you’re trying to get your recipient to complete a defined end goal (like scheduling a consultation, reading a blog, or downloading your app), send them somewhere where they can take that action.

For example:

  • If you want them to schedule a consultation, make your CTA button go straight to your calendar scheduler. 
  • If you want them to read a specific blog, make the CTA button go right to the blog. 
  • If you want them to download your app, make the CTA button go right to the download page or a landing page with more information. 

In other words, don’t just have your email recipients click a link and shuffle them to your website in hopes they’ll convert. Instead, create a path directly to your desired endpoint. 

10. Send Enough, But Not Too Much 

There’s no magic number for how many times you should email your subscribers and customers. However, you want to ensure you send frequently enough to stay top of mind but not so much that they unsubscribe. 

Some studies show that 61% of people like to receive emails from the brands they love once a week. Additionally, most marketers send emails 2-3 times each month. 

Ultimately, you’ll need to do a bit of testing to figure out how often you should send emails to maximize your email conversion rate.  

11. Clean Your List

Do you know that you have an email sender reputation score? The higher your score, the more trustworthy you seem to email senders. Several things can hurt your email reputation, including:

  • Sending too many emails at one time
  • Sending too many emails that bounce back
  • Getting marked as spam too many times 
  • And more  

If your reputation gets too low, senders will automatically put your email in the junk folder or stop sending them altogether. That’s why keeping your email lists clean and updated is so important. 

Cleaning your email lists helps you maintain your sender reputation, improve bounce rates, increase deliverability, and optimize your cost. (You can check your email sender reputation here). 

12. Test, Test Some More

When it comes to email, the best way to improve your conversions is to test everything. A/B split testing is one of the best ways to do that. Split testing is when you send two emails with minor differences and compare their results. 

You only want to change one minor thing between the emails to get the best information. For example, Email A might have a different subject line than Email B. Alternatively, you might use different images in one or send them at different times. 

You can split-test several things, including:

  • Subject lines
  • Images
  • Content 
  • Length 
  • Personalization
  • Media 
  • Style
  • Call to Action (i.e., button vs. text) 

For the best results, always go into split-testing with a hypothesis and only split-test one element at a time. Each email you test will give you a little bit more information about how to maximize your campaigns for your audience. 

Start Boosting Your Email Conversions Today 

Email may feel like it’s a marketing tool of the past. However, millions of marketers are getting stellar results every day with the power of the simple email. 

As long as you’re open to tweaking and testing along the way, you can experience some amazing results, too. Start incorporating these simple methods and see how quickly your email conversion rate improves!   

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Visual Guide to Elevating Your Email Conversion Rates