Email as a Digital Marketing Powerhouse

It might be surprising to know that of all the online applications that do battle for people’s attention — that beguile with memes, videos, discussions, and the promise of a future date — email still remains the most frequently used platform in the world. How can this be, when we hear so much about the proliferation of stolen work time due to social media, or when the 24-hour news cycle provides headlines and punditry designed to pull focus and stoke an emotional response? 

The truth is that email users are increasing exponentially year over year, and while there are outliers that will resist its importance or function in their lives, there are far fewer documentaries and think-pieces about the pervasiveness of email and its negative effects on today’s youth, as with social media. In the end, the usefulness of email to conduct business and communicate (as well as its limited social functionality) means that it will always have a place in people’s lives.

Gravitate One Perfects Email Marketing

With its place in society assured, Utah marketing firms like Gravitate One make use of it as an integral part of their clients’ digital marketing suite. But what does it take to create the perfect campaign? Below are tips that the professionals follow to ensure that your business is sending emails that aren’t just full of compelling content but that drive a high margin of opens and clicks.

1. Building a Great Recipient List

The best way for your emails to create a dialogue with your audience is to first and foremost avoid the “gotcha!” method of marketing; that is, to avoid invading your recipients’ inbox without their knowledge in order to lure or confuse them. The best method of getting sales from an email is to remain honest, promote good content, and have a compelling Call to Action. People rarely make purchases from an email out of the blue.

Instead, Gravitate One will: 

  • Create a form on your website for customers to subscribe to an email
  • Build lists from previous clients and your business network
  • Run re-subscription campaigns on old lists to give people a chance to restate their interest in receiving emails
  • Utilize social media to drive people to a landing page where they will sign up

2. Creating Relevant Content

Once the recipients’ list has been compiled, the task of creating compelling content is before you. This is the most important part of creating a great email campaign, as it will draw in your audience and keep your business squarely planted in their minds. Great content is a mixture of a few things, all working in concert to get the reader to scroll through the whole message and ultimately click on the external links. 

Strong content means:

  • Good writing that is interesting and intelligible
  • A decent number of pictures (without seeming busy)
  • Paragraphs limited to two or three sentences
  • A clickable link at least every other paragraph and on every picture

3. Inspired Design

Of course, content is only one part of what will keep an audience engaged; the other part is a visually interesting page. Most Utah marketing firms will have a graphic design team that will help ensure that the content is well situated on the page and justified properly with the other creative assets. 

Good design has:

  • A visual identity that exists in the same family as with the other emails your company has sent out
  • A clean look that avoids the “pop-up frenzy” aesthetic of clickable ads
  • A design that clearly leads to a particular focus point, like a Subscribe or Shop Now button. (You should know where the email is taking you without having to read anything)
  • A unified tone that isn’t too loud and isn’t too dull. Design must always be intentional

4. Making it Clickable

Once this winning email has been created and the recipients have all been selected, the goal is to send out the email with as good a shot at being clicked on as you can. This means writing an interesting subject line and email preview (where available), utilizing the recipient’s name with purpose, and sending it out at the right time of day. 

Emails have a greater chance of being opened if they:

  • Are sent out in the mid-afternoon, preferably on a Tuesday or Thursday. This is when most people, statistically, check their email
  • The subject is short and compelling. There’s a difference between being interesting and simply being clickbait (clickbait promises much but delivers little)
  • The email preview is succinct but comprehensive
  • Emails aren’t drowned out by other emails from the same company, cannibalizing one another’s clicks