By Phil Norris November 28, 2023
e-mail advertising is a brilliant efficient method to nurture leads, flip them into paying prospects, and retain current prospects.
However reaching your objectives requires sending emails persistently and ceaselessly — possible no less than as soon as per week. And developing with that many e-mail advertising marketing campaign concepts is powerful.
Perhaps you’ve hit a artistic dead-end. Perhaps your earlier exercise hasn’t delivered the specified outcomes. Perhaps you’re new to e-mail and simply don’t know the place to start out.
Both manner, you’re experiencing a serious case of author’s (or emailer’s) block.
Don’t fear, as a result of we’ve rounded up 18 e-mail advertising concepts to encourage your subsequent marketing campaign, backed up with real-world examples and segmented throughout the next widespread objectives:
- Producing extra gross sales
- Rising e-mail open charges
- Getting extra clicks
- Nurturing leads
- Rising sign-ups
- Boosting buyer retention
Calm down, take a deep breath, and let’s get into it…
Purpose: Generate extra gross sales
Promote a sale
Earlier than we begin discussing promote your newest sale by means of e-mail advertising, let’s make one factor clear:
Gross sales aren’t a silver bullet.
Run too many and also you threat devaluing your model. Additionally, customers base their shopping for selections on a variety of things, not simply value. The greatest motivators are:
- Buyer scores and opinions (cited by 94% of respondents)
- Worth of product (91%)
- Free delivery (78%)
- Model choice (65%)
- Good friend/household suggestions (60%)
So there aren’t any ensures a sale will even transfer the needle.
Nevertheless, used successfully, gross sales can nonetheless be extraordinarily impactful, with a excessive proportion of customers throughout age teams saying they look forward to reductions earlier than shopping for on-line.
Now, let’s take a look at an actual gross sales promotion e-mail from inside decor model Bougié, which successfully mixed two of the highest 5 shopping for components we talked about above by:
- Providing a reduction on the product value
- Offering free delivery
After all, quite a lot of gross sales span a number of product classes (and even total web sites), slightly than specializing in a single product like in Bougié’s instance. If you happen to’re planning such a particular promotion, your greatest guess is to focus on prospects who’ve proven curiosity in a related product class.
In Bougié’s case, this might be individuals who:
- Browsed different espresso tables
- Browsed different Pitch Drop merchandise
- Browsed or lately bought different front room furnishings
Ship cart abandonment emails
An astonishing 70.19% of on-line purchasing carts find yourself being deserted. It’s a tragedy for ecommerce shops; simply consider all that misplaced income.
Nevertheless it’s not all unhealthy information, as a result of cart abandonment emails persistently see open charges of 43% or extra.
Not solely that, however these emails convert at a price of 18.64% — manner larger than the typical e-mail conversion price of round 8%.
The very best deserted cart emails include the next components:
- Order abstract
- Product pricing
- Product imagery
- Not less than one CTA to finish the transaction
Let’s take a look at an instance from menswear model Huckberry:
In addition to getting the fundamentals proper, Huckberry goes a step additional by selling “extra great things”, simply in case the recipient isn’t all for shopping for the merchandise they deserted:
Use this tactic to advocate different merchandise or classes the client has beforehand browsed, or simply to level them towards your high sellers.
Share social proof
Social proof is a large supply of shopping for inspiration. For example, three-quarters of customers “at all times” or “frequently” learn opinions when looking for companies of their space.
However social proof isn’t simply about buyer opinions. Different varieties embody:
- Testimonials
- Trade awards
- Suggestions from influencers, thought leaders, or trade publications
- Buyer success tales
- Accreditations
In our subsequent instance, furnishings model Retains Residence rounded up a few of its most glowing press protection from inside design and client overview websites:
As you may see, this e-mail additionally featured a distinguished CTA. So if the e-mail recipient is gained over by all these spectacular trade opinions, they’ll simply click on by means of and store the Retains vary.
Use shortage and urgency
Need to encourage your viewers to purchase proper now? Strive including shortage or urgency (or each) to your messaging.
Shortage and urgency are comparable, however they’re not the identical:
- Urgency is about restricted time. For example, you may inform prospects they solely have 24 hours to reap the benefits of a reduction.
- Shortage is about restricted amount. For instance, you may say there are solely 50 areas accessible in your subsequent course.
In our subsequent instance, Wix created a way of urgency by making it clear the low cost was a limited-time provide, as visualized by the countdown timer beneath the introductory copy:
Wix might have made this e-mail much more impactful by combining urgency and shortage, equivalent to limiting the 50% low cost to the primary 100 prospects who signed up. That may have created an actual rush to the checkout.
Purpose: Improve e-mail opens
Cut up-test e-mail topic strains
E mail topic strains are your #1 device for reinforcing open charges, with nearly half of e-mail recipients opening emails based mostly on the topic line alone.
So should you’re making an attempt to extend e-mail opens, the topic line needs to be your first port of name. However whereas we are able to give you dozens of inspirational e-mail topic line examples, the one dependable manner to determine what works for you is to run a split-test.
That’s exactly what the oldsters at on-line advertising training firm Authority Hacker did. Throughout 78 e-mail outreach campaigns, they trialed three barely totally different topic strains:
- Query?
- Fast query?
- Query for you?
Related as these choices sound, the three top-performing campaigns when it comes to e-mail open charges all had the identical topic line:
That’s proper: between Marketing campaign A and Marketing campaign E, they managed to extend their open price by 12.5%, simply by eradicating the phrase “fast” for the topic line!
Earlier than you begin your individual topic line split-test, keep in mind to not change the opposite components that have an effect on e-mail open charges (particularly the e-mail preheader and sender identify — extra on them later). That manner, you could be positive any adjustments you see to the open price are all the way down to the topic line alone.
The e-mail preheader is a snippet of textual content that seems subsequent to or beneath an e-mail topic line, relying in your system and inbox supplier. Confusingly, it’s also referred to as the Johnson Field or preview textual content. However no matter you name it, you need to use it to extend your open price by reinforcing or increasing in your topic line messaging.
For instance, Sensi Graves Swim used the topic line to advertise limited-availability merchandise, then elevated the sensation of shortage with a preheader explaining there have been “just one or two” left in inventory:
Take a look at totally different sender names
We’ve coated topic strains and preheaders, however there’s one other — often-overlooked — factor that may have a huge impact on e-mail open charges: the e-mail sender identify.
Do you have to use your model identify, like on this instance…
…or select a private identify plus your model identify to create a extra human really feel?
There’s loads of proof to counsel small adjustments to your sender identify can yield huge impacts, with one group reporting 50% larger open charges after including an actual particular person to its sender names.
However the easy reply is: you gained’t know the best method to your model and viewers till you check it your self.
Professional tip: For greatest outcomes, check topic strains, preheaders, and sender names to seek out the mix that delivers the very best open charges.
Purpose: Get extra clicks
Construct emails round one CTA
When brainstorming e-mail advertising concepts, it’s best to determine one clear “aim” for every e-mail you ship. Use that aim to create a single CTA that prompts readers to take the specified motion.
Add conflicting calls-to-action to an e-mail and also you threat leaving folks confused — which suggests fewer clicks and conversions.
Adobe received it proper on this e-mail, which was solely geared towards driving downloads of a particular piece of content material:
The shortage of “noise” will increase the probabilities of folks clicking and downloading.
Use adverse area in e-mail design
Some emails make you’re feeling such as you’ve received a migraine.
I’m not speaking about that out-of-the-blue message out of your boss asking should you’ve received time for a “fast chat”.
As an alternative, I imply these advertising emails which can be full of totally different GIFs, colours, fonts, photographs, emojis, and different visible bells and whistles.
With regards to e-mail design, much less is extra. Create extra impactful emails by utilizing adverse area (also referred to as “white area”): empty areas in an e-mail that assist different design components to face out.
This instance from Codecademy is an train in e-mail design restraint, with the wealth of adverse area naturally drawing your eye towards the provide and the CTA button:
Professional tip: Undecided the place to start out with e-mail design? Don’t fear, as a result of AWeber has a library of 600+ customizable e-mail templates to encourage your subsequent marketing campaign.
Describe how your product will change the reader’s life
In a world that’s obsessive about audio and visible content material, it’s simple to miss the significance of e-mail copywriting.
However the phrases in your emails play a key position in serving to would-be prospects image what their lives can be like after shopping for your services or products. Which, in flip, makes them extra prone to click on by means of to be taught extra.
SectionSchool makes use of this tactic in our subsequent instance:
The e-mail copy encourages readers to think about themselves after three months of studying with Part and spells out the advantages they’ll anticipate. It’s precisely the kind of messaging that might resonate with somebody all for self-improvement.
Professional tip: As a common rule, your e-mail copy ought to include a number of “you” and “your”, and never a lot “we” or “our”. Keep in mind, it’s all concerning the buyer, not you.
Purpose: Nurture leads
Present customized product suggestions
Shopper expectations round personalization are rising, with 73% of respondents to a 2022 survey anticipating manufacturers to grasp their distinctive wants and expectations, up from 66% in 2020.
Which implies one of the efficient e-mail advertising concepts for nurturing leads is to supply customized product suggestions.
Baggage and equipment model Bellroy evidently understands this. On this e-mail, it rounded up a bunch of related merchandise based mostly on the recipient’s looking and shopping for habits:
Importantly, Bellroy made it clear that these weren’t generic suggestions by utilizing phrases like:
- Only for you
- Customized to your tastes
- Your picks
- Hand-picked
As a result of why go to all the difficulty of offering dynamic product suggestions should you’re not going to inform folks about it?
Share related content material
E mail personalization isn’t nearly introducing your viewers to merchandise they could love. It’s additionally about pointing them within the course of content material they’ll discover attention-grabbing or helpful (or, ideally, each).
For instance, think about you’re an HR supervisor trying to get extra worth out of your group’s studying and growth spend.
Throughout your analysis, you join Filtered’s e-mail record, however you’re not fairly able to request a product demo.
Then you definately obtain this e-mail:
There’s likelihood you’d be part of the webinar to be taught extra. Which, in flip, makes it extra possible that Filtered will probably be entrance of thoughts once you’re prepared to purchase.
Have fun milestones
Milestones are a tailored alternative to nurture leads (and perhaps persuade them to buy one thing). There are numerous forms of milestones, together with:
- Buyer / lead birthdays
- Firm birthdays
- Anniversaries since a particular person motion (equivalent to subscribing to your publication)
Our subsequent instance, from language studying platform Busuu, demonstrates how milestone emails can be utilized to encourage a result in improve from a freemium product to a paid account:
Busuu basically makes use of the three-month “anniversary” as an excuse to supply an enormous low cost off its premium plans.
Purpose: Improve sign-ups
Ship referral emails
If I let you know to purchase one thing, you’ll in all probability suppose: “Why ought to I take heed to this man? I don’t even know him. And the way did he get my cellphone quantity?”
But when your mother or your accomplice or your greatest buddy recommends a services or products, there’s a good likelihood you’ll pay attention. In truth, customers belief referrals greater than some other channel:
- Referrals (trusted by 40% of respondents)
- TV adverts (31%)
- Influencer suggestions (1%)
For that motive, referral emails are one of the efficient methods to extend sign-ups for a web based course, occasion, or webinar. But when they’re going to ship the specified outcomes, you want to give you incentives for each the referrer and the particular person they’re referring, identical to on-line coaching firm GeeksforGeeks.
The model constructed a easy however efficient referral scheme that rewarded each events:
- The referred buyer received a ten% low cost on any GeeksforGeeks course
- The referrer earned a 5% fee on the sale
That’s an actual win-win.
Tease new course content material
Simply as an ecommerce firm may launch a brand new product to spice up gross sales, on-line course sellers can drive sign-ups by introducing and selling new course content material.
In our subsequent instance, the Content material Advertising and marketing Institute teased its new content material advertising certification, created in partnership with the American Advertising and marketing Affiliation:
Don’t fear should you don’t fancy studying all that replicate, as a result of it principally says: this new course is launching quickly, signal as much as get notified when it drops.
Purpose: Increase buyer retention
Run win-back campaigns
Between 2013 and 2022, the typical ecommerce buyer acquisition value rose by a staggering 222%, so retaining prospects has by no means been extra essential.
Which brings us neatly to win-back campaigns. Often known as re-engagement or reactivation campaigns, they may also help you retain maintain of leads or prospects who’ve stopped participating together with your emails or shopping for your merchandise.
There are numerous forms of win-back campaigns, however one of the impactful is the last-chance e-mail, which principally forces prospects to choose again into your advertising record. In the event that they don’t, they’ll be unsubscribed, in order that they’ll cease spoiling your e-mail engagement metrics.
Let’s take a look at a last-chance e-mail instance from non permanent tattoo model Tattly:
Certain, this feels form of counterintuitive: why would you encourage subscribers to depart your advertising record?
However when somebody chooses to remain subscribed, that’s a transparent signal they’re all for what it’s important to say. And keep in mind: it’s higher to have a smaller pool of engaged prospects than a large record full of people that barely keep in mind your identify.
Reiterate your worth proposition
The purchasers you’re making an attempt to retain appreciated you sufficient to purchase from one as soon as upon a time. With a delicate reminder of why you’re so superb, they could be persuaded to do it once more.
Magnificence model AILLEA exhibits us what that reminder may appear to be:
First up, this e-mail reiterates the model’s worth proposition, which is all about serving to prospects develop a extra sustainable, eco-friendly magnificence routine.
AILLEA goes on to ask the recipient two questions which can be instantly associated to its worth proposition:
By doing this, it subtly encourages the recipient to contemplate why they could need to store with AILLEA. This messaging is supported by CTAs that immediate prospects to browse the model’s collections.
It’s all about persuading folks to take one other take a look at the AILLEA retailer, the place they’ll hopefully discover one thing they love.
Ask for suggestions
There are two methods to determine why a buyer has stopped participating together with your emails, utilizing your product, or shopping for from you:
- Seek the advice of a soothsayer
- Ask them
Personally, I want choice #2.
Asking for buyer suggestions has a pair massive advantages for manufacturers:
- Prospects like being requested for suggestions (supplied you act on it). 4 in 5 customers say they really feel extra loyal to manufacturers that reply to and resolve their complaints.
- Even when a buyer leaves, you may be taught from their expertise. Discover out what put them off about your product or advertising — and repair it.
Right here’s a textbook buyer survey e-mail instance from dairy model Tillamook:
Tillamook will get three issues proper on this e-mail:
- It tells the recipient what’s anticipated of them (i.e. answering three questions)
- It clearly states the aim of the survey (discovering out if recipients discover the model’s emails helpful and attention-grabbing)
- It guarantees some kind of profit (utilizing the suggestions to ship higher content material)
Follow this formulation to get extra responses out of your suggestions emails.
Profitable e-mail advertising requires the non-public contact
Whether or not you’re encouraging a brand new e-mail subscriber to make their first buy, asking current prospects to advocate you to their family and friends, or making an attempt to cease a beforehand loyal buyer from leaving, one factor applies:
You stand a much better likelihood of success should you converse to folks as people.
What are their ache factors? What do they like about your product? What would persuade them to carry out the specified motion proper now?
That kind of customized messaging is unimaginable to ship with out the best e-mail advertising platform.
With AWeber, you need to use tags and customized fields to create dynamic segments that replace mechanically based mostly on particular person buyer actions like:
- Searching a product web page
- Making a purchase order
- Opening a particular e-mail
That manner, you may ship the best e-mail content material to the best particular person precisely after they want it, which may enhance your profitability and gross sales.
See for your self by signing up for a free AWeber account.
Get began right here!
