Email marketing is my favourite marketing channel because it brings in 70% of the revenue for my service-based business. When I send an email, it gets a lot more engagement and clicks than the equivalent piece of content shared on Instagram or in my Facebook group, From Spam to Wham! Email Marketing Community.
I know it works for me (any many others) and I thought it was time I backed up my enthusiasm with some stats and so I went looking around the Internet in search of the ROI figures for email marketing in 2023.
I found mixed results but one recently updated source was this article from Mailercloud that said:
“The average ROI for every $1 spent on email marketing was $42”
This is an epic result!
If some of the best email marketers out there are seeing this return on investment, I started to wonder what they are doing with their email marketing to get those results.
Luckily, I found another article that gave a round-up of email best practice that this ROI was in part attributed to. I say ‘in part’ because the list of things that successful email marketers are doing doesn’t include copywriting and email design - it is more covering the email set-up and checking process. It’s giving part of the picture which I feel is worth sharing here as we can all apply this to our own email campaigns.
What the email marketing pros are doing to get the best results possible:
Use double opt-in
This one can make a big difference to email engagement. A double opt-in is where someone opts-in once via a form on your website (clearly labelled as to what it is they are signing up to) and then they confirm that subscription by clicking a link from a confirmation email that’s sent out to them.
You might worry that asking someone to state twice that they definitely want to receive your emails is going to make it harder to grow your list as some people might not bother to go that extra step.
That’s kind of the point though! If a subscriber can’t be bothered to confirm that they definitely want your emails, how engaged do you think they are going to be once you start sending to them?
A double opt-ion gets you a higher return because folks are SURE they want to hear from you.
You can increase the likelihood of getting those confirmation emails acted upon by offering something of value and of interest to your audience. Just offering a vague promise of a ‘monthly newsletter’ isn’t compelling enough.
2. Do A/B (or split) tests
An A/B test is where you send two different emails out to a portion of your mailing list (say 15%) and the one which gets the most opens or clicks (depending on what you are testing) is sent to the remainder of the list.
Conducting an A/B test only really works if your list is a decent size - say over 1000. The bigger the test audience, the more significant the result.
I recommend testing the subject line for starters as increasing your open rate is the sensible place to start. Once you’ve figured out what works, you can go on to A/B test the content of the email for clicks.
Like all good experiments, only change one variable at a time! Don’t test subject line and email content in the same campaign or you won’t know for sure what worked.
If you want more detail on running an A/B test for your subject lines, check out my blog How to A/B test your marketing email subject lines.
3. Use animated GIFs
Animated GIFs are a relative newcomer to email marketing. They’re having a resurgence of late thanks to instant messenger apps and it makes sense that this translates over to email.
If you aren’t sure what an animated GIF is, it’s not technically a video - it’s a moving picture.
I’m an advocate for the plain text email (scrap the pretty formatting, headers and footers) and animated GIFs are the perfect way to bring a pop of colour and movement to a page of words. Similar to emojis, they’re a great way to draw the eye towards a call to action in an email and to convey emotion - often humour - or bring a bit of charm to your message.
You can make your own GIFs and source ready-made ones from a site like Giphy. If you’re using a ready-made GIF, make sure you have permission to use it in your campaign.
You’ll need to insert the source code of the GIF animation in the HTML version of your email marketing message. If that sounds too technical, don’t worry! I’m going to write a blog about how to do it so stay tuned (you could subscribe to The Cheer List as I’ll email that blog out once it’s live).
4. Be thorough with your analytics
Your email provider will give you at least the basic open, click, bounce and unsubscribe rates for every email you send. You should record those stats for every send and compare past campaigns to learn what works best for you.
However, the pros are doing more than just recording the basic email performance stats. They are looking at what happens after a click. You’ll need Google Analytics set up on your site to do this.
Start looking at the recipient’s journey on your website after they click through. Google Analytics can show you the behaviour flow around your site so pay particular attention to the next page visited after the one you are sending them to from your email.
Are your subscribers taking the desired action after they click? If you have a form on your page - is it converting? If not, what can you change to make more people submit the form? If you're pushing a product with your email, an obvious metric to measure is sales.
5. Use an extensive pre-send checklist
This is more than simply giving your email a proofread. It pays to take the time to follow a checklist for each email send. Not only will this give you confidence that everything is as it should be when you press send, our email marketing pros reported a higher ROI when everything was made sure to be correct.
Here’s what you need to be checking before every email send:
Subject line - not just spelling. Really examine it and be critical. Is this wording going to get people to open the email?
Preview text - same as above.
Footer text and links - The footer often gets overlooked. When was the last time you updated the content? Check it’s still accurate and check the links all work.
From address - Don’t send your email from The Marketing Team. Send it from a name and make sure that the reply mailbox is one that is accessed regularly.
Plain text version - when you build a HTML email, most email providers create a plain text version which is used in the event that HTML is blocked by the recipient. This is different to the ‘plain text’ that I refer to when I’m talking about sending emails without images. There is still HTML applied to these emails to set the font, bold text, bullet points etc. If you’ve ever used the Notepad app on your computer, that is what plain text looks like. Ugly! Yet functional. You should check the auto-generated plain text copy of your email and make sure it is legible. You can tweak it before sending.
Any personalisation is working - If you are using First Name (or any other personalisation) send a test email and run it through the testing mechanism in your email software to make sure it is pulling through the correct information.
What the email looks like in different email clients and on mobile - Always send yourself a test email and check it on your laptop and phone. Send it to different types of email clients (Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail etc) and make sure it looks nice on all.
Unsubscribe link - You have to have this in your email by law and you should be sure it is visible and working correctly.
Social icon links - periodically check that these still work. If you’ve changed any of your social media handles, the links will need updating. It’s an easy one to miss if you’re using a template.
Conclusion
Email can deliver one of the best ROIs out of all elements of the marketing mix. There’s a few things that pro email marketers do to ensure they get the highest return possible.
Strong copywriting and having a compelling offer go a very long way, but in this blog I outline some of the more practical things that marketers need to do and check over for every email campaign.
To re-cap, these things are as follows:
Use a double opt-in for new subscribers
Carry out A/B (or split) tests
Try animated GIFs in your email body
Be thorough with your post-send analytics
Check lots of stuff before you press send! Use a checklist.
