When it comes to email marketing there’s one metric that matters more than any other – conversion rate.
You may have a great open and click-through rate but if people aren’t buying then it means nothing. But it can often feel difficult to move the dial on conversion – after all, how can you make people buy things? Well, you can’t. But you can certainly make it very tempting…
Here we’ll take you through five principles that will help you get more people taking action when your campaigns appear in their inbox.
This isn’t rocket science but getting these right will add points to your conversion rate and pounds on your bottom line…
Be clear and concise
Emails are scanned not read, so don’t bombard the customer with lots of copy. Make it clear what you’re trying to say. Every email you send should have one goal – a call-to-action. Make the call-to-action prominent and obvious. We’d suggest not going over 200 words of copy in the typical sales email to make it easy to read. And avoid offering multiple messages or calls-to-action in one email – it confuses the audience and splits your web traffic.
Reassure them
One of the major reasons people don’t like purchasing online is fear (Smart Insights, 2014). They’re worried about the security of your site, how they’d return the goods if they don’t like them or how reliable your delivery service is. It’s important you reassure them about all of these factors. Consider talking about how you cover all of these areas in your email template – the security of your site, your no-hassle returns policy and quick, guaranteed delivery. You don’t need to go into detail – just some simple icons and statements should be enough.
Tell them what others think
People trust what other customers think far more than they trust what marketers tell them. In fact customer reviews are cited as a major influence on purchasing decisions (MarketingLand, 2013). Display customer ratings and reviews proudly on your emails. Don’t just show a star rating though – show them exactly what your customers say. Reassure them that the comment is genuine and recent by including the first name of the reviewer and the date it was written.
Make it quick and simple
Always link your call-to-action to the quickest route to conversion. This might be a product page, request for contact or by pre-populating their basket to include the items you want them to purchase. Don’t make the customer work hard by asking them to search around your site for what they want. Make sure your checkout process is quick and simple – offer a guest checkout and convenient, fast payment methods such as Paypal.
Get your timing right
You can perfect your message and segmentation but if your email lands at the wrong time then you can forget the click and convert. And we’re not talking about the best time of day to send broadcast emails – we’re talking about sending emails so they’re sent at the right time for each individual customer. PureTargeting allows you to send automated communications as and when people leave your site, abandon a purchase or browse content – giving you the ability to offer that little extra nudge towards conversion at exactly the right time.
So there you have it – five simple methods to improve your conversion rate. If you want to learn more, we’ve written a more in depth blog post on further tactics that improve conversion rates.
None of these will be taxing for you to implement, but if you’re getting them wrong, they could be the reason why you’re finding it difficult to improve conversion.
For more advice, tips and email marketing methods speak to your Account Manager – they’ll always be happy to help.
