7 tips to getting your subscribers to action your emails

7 tips to getting your
subscribers to action your
emails
Kath Pay | @kathpay
eCRM & Email Marketing Consultant

©2013 Plan To Engage – all rights reserved – www.PlanToEngage.com
Your presenter – Kath Pay
• 13+ years of experience
in email marketing
• Email Marketing
Consultant, Trainer &
Speaker
• Lead trainer for Email
Marketing for
Econsultancy & the IDM
in the UK @kathpay

About Plan to Engage
• eCRM & Email Marketing
Strategy
• Email Design & Coding
• Deliverability Support
• Email Vendor Selection
• Conversion Optimisation
• Workshops & Training
Courses
www.PlanToEngage.com

For every $92 spend acquiring
customers, only $1 is spent on
conversion rate optimisation

If you don’t know where you’re
going………
how can you take your
subscriber there?

Be clear about your goals
• Do you want more subscribers?
• Do you want more online sales?
• Do you want more (qualified) leads?
• Do you want more registrations?
• Do you want more …
DEFINE YOUR CAMPAIGN (MICRO) AND
OVERALL (MACRO) EMAIL PROGRAM GOALS
UPFRONT!

…and focus on them

#2.
Carefully Craft your Subject Line

Spend 80% crafting your headline
and 20% writing the copy

Some Subject Line tips
1. Be useful and ultra specific – make sure it’s
relevant and useful for your customers
2. Be visually different – make you subject stand out
visually by trying square brackets, symbols etc
3. Use timely topics and urgency that are top of
mind, and use urgency
4. Use a call-to-action (CTA) by asking a question
5. Test your subject lines so you can repeat what
works best

Effective Subject LinesRule of 2:
Front-Load your Subject Lines

#3.
Maximise the Golden Real Estate

Which Preview Pane?
B2B - Outlook

Design for the Golden Real-Estate

Utilise the Pre-header space

Benefits are visible on an iPhone
& iPad too

Guide them – use
design, copy, imagery….

Set your subscribers a task

But don’t overwhelm them….

Leverage the Rule of 3

Rule of 2 in action
1. Heading and subhead
copy critical
• First 2-3 words most
important
• First 2 lines in a paragraph
• Make hyperlinked
2. Readers scan down the left of
an Email
3. First part of paragraph
important
• F shape eyetrack

Use Action Words

Understand the difference
between Pull & Push channel
WebEmail

Make the CTA appropriate to
where they‟re at in the buying
cycle
A B
+301%

Be specific
A B
+230%

What’s the value of a mint?
One mint with bill: tip rises 3.3%
Two mints with bill: tip rises 14%
One mint + personal mint: tip rises 23%
No mints = control

Hook them in with storytelling

A Tale of 2 Chickens

The Study
• Audience was told that plump chicken was a natural
chicken and that the skinny chicken was genetically
engineered
• Half the audience was told that natural chickens were
healthy but less tasty and that the genetically engineered
chickens were tasty
• The other half of the audience were told the opposite

The results
• Both sets expressed a preference for the natural chicken
but their justifications were different….
• The first group claimed it was because they valued health
above taste
• The second group said it was because taste was more
important.
• Neither group seemed to justify their choice based on how
they felt about the chicken's looks. They felt compelled to
justify their emotional choices with non-emotional reasons,

Engage their emotions first
• We make decisions based upon emotions
• But we try and rationalise our justification for the decision
• Therefore, engage their emotions first, then they will come
up with a rational justification to support their decision.
• Once they’ve made a decision (based upon emotion) it’s
harder for them to backpedal.
• Their thinking falls in line with their emotions.

Images can be powerful – make them count
Source: Neuromarketing

Always position towards the Call-To-Action
Source: Neuromarketing

Set a task

Provide guidance – visual clues

#7.
Test and optimise continually!

Only 42% of online retailers
perform copy optimisation

Greater ROI for those who test
Proportion of companies reporting „excellent‟ or „good‟ ROI
Over twice
as likely
(118%) to
report
“excellent” or
“good” ROI
37%
81%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Don't test RegularTest regularly
Source:
Econsultancy’s Email
Marketing Census
2012

Subject A/B test
• B had 58.9% higher open rate
• B had 279% increase in webinar registrations
A Jan 25 webinar: Webcasting High-Profile Events
B Jan 25 webinar: Enterprise Webcasting for High-Profile Events

…and another
• A increased total orders by 21%
• And revenue by 35%
• Even though A had a 10.5% lower open rate than B
• *Sent 50/50 split test over 4 weeks to abandoners.
A Reminder: Items Saved in Your Cart – Shop Now for an Extra 10% off
B Come back and Save an Extra 10%

Measure the correct metric

Questions?
Kath Pay
@kathpay
Kath@PlanToEngage.com
www.linked.com/in/kathpay

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