Why is the click-through rate (CTR) such an
important metric in email marketing? It is the best answer to how the readers interact with your content. Some marketers cheer when they see a big number of openings (the percentage of people who got your email and opened it). However, this can be a premature joy. Number of people just open the email absentmindedly on their phone or the email’s subject catches their attention but the contents don’t.
The closely watched click-through rate can tell you a lot more about the efficiency of your newsletter. It is a percentage ratio between the overall number of views of your email and the number of click-throughs. And they are particularly important. That is why no one is happy when CTR doesn’t rise, or worse – when it falls. One of the common causes is when the newsletter is created ‘‘about us for us‘‘ instead of focusing on what kind of content the readers want to have in their email boxes. Unattractive newsletter isn’t effective – it doesn’t generate visit rate, contacts nor sells your services and products.
How to gain the reader’s attention and make them go to your web? These are some of the most common mistakes that make your newsletter fail and lower the click-through rate.
Forcing things a bit too much
Without looking at the field of business, there is a one sure way of scaring away your audience and losing newsletter subscribers. It’s enough to send an email that doesn’t contain nothing but propagation of your services and products.
When creating a concept remember that no one likes a hard ‘‘massage‘‘ of sales. Create a simple target for yourself: Be useful and helpful to your subscribers.
A tuned-up style of communication, useful tips and a thought-out content – that is the right way. You are building trust in your recipients and that can change them into your customers.
There is no humanity involved
People are quite picky nowadays and their inbox is usually filled with newsletter. If they see the email they got is impersonal and just wants to reach the highest number of people, it doesn’t have a big chance of catching their attention. They will most likely ignore it or move it straight to the bin.
The least you can do to prevent this is to send newsletter from a real person with a real email address and forget anonymous addresses such as info@firmax.com. People want to communicate with people not with robots or vending machines.
The trust of your audience is gained through newsletter that has a soul. Newsletter that gives away the feeling of being written by a person. While planning your content strategy you don’t have to always use the tried-and-true methods. You can let go a bit and make a joke or write a personal note or an experience.
Use the power of stories and tell your own.
That is what the people want – for you to be authentic. Then you can happily watch their increasing interest, a higher rate of click-throughs and maybe even a kind personal response.
Underestimating personalization
As mentioned before, the best kind of communication is the one between real people. Especially if we’re talking about newsletter. Your main goal is to give the reader a feeling of the content being tailored to their needs specifically. The first step is to address the reader by their name.
That alone is not enough though. It is important to use all the possibilities of marketing automatization and create intelligent content.
Focus on the business of a concrete user or the field they work in, you can also try to target their interests. The more information you have about your subscribers the more advanced can the personalization of your content be.
Tailored content is always a positive step towards the reader, it lets them know you care about them.
Ignoring mobile phones!
This isn’t news exactly, but it still needs to be mentioned. We can back this up with a statistic. According to a recent report by the company HubSpot about the email marketing status in 2020, 46% emails were opened on a mobile device. That is almost a half! This presents a major part of your potential audience and so it is important to use tools that create responsive emails.
If you use Quanda as your email marketing software, you don’t have to worry - you can check the preview of newsletter for both computer and mobile devices before distribution. If you don’t have this option, send yourself a test email at least and make sure the newsletter content looks good and is readable on your mobile phone.
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A waterfall of words
You sure have a lot of useful information that you want to share with your subscribers. However, you have to remember that a long text can discourage your readers.
Readers only "scan" your content
You can prepare interesting marketing statements but it is important to remember that readers only ‘‘scan‘‘ your content which means they tend to notice titles, images, banners, links.
The text itself is the last things they go through if it catches their interest.
8 seconds. That is the time the average person can stay focused on your email.
Studies from Microsoft showed that the average person stays focused on your email only for 8 seconds (which is definitely not enough for them to read a whole essay).
What to take from this information about newsletter?
Less is sometimes more. Take every word into consideration so that the subscriber doesn’t lose interest before they get to the substantial information. It is wise to split the text content into smaller parts that the reader can focus on longer than on one long individual text. Information should be easier to absorb from smaller fragments of text.
Forgetting the influence of images
We touched on the dividing of texts, now we cannot forget about images. Even though we have to keep the company’s style and tonality of communication, we don’t have to limit ourselves to pictures from photobank. It might be the easiest way but it shouldn’t be the only way to visually enhance the newsletter.
Authentic photos or original illustrations can be more eye-catching. Try to use team photos, caricatures, don’t be afraid to use gifs for the right audiences and so on. Your newsletter will then stand out in the sea of uninteresting, easy to overlook competition.
Confusing the readers
This is a valid problem – as soon as the person doesn’t know how to orient themselves on the page, they get confused and unsure and leave the page. It is the same with newsletter.
One of the best ways to improve the click-through rate is to present a clear next step.
In this case it means to make sure it is clear what the reader should click on. Look at every email and see if it works that way. It would be a shame to lose a person who wanted to have a look at your web, even if it was just one.
It is also very important to present the reason why the reader should click the call to action or the hypertext link. Tell them clearly what will happen and what can they expect if they choose to do so.
It doesn’t matter if you’re selling cars, properties or counselling services. Every topic of your newsletter raises new questions and you can gain plus points if you present the reader with useful links to other content where they can find the answers. For example, where they can find the optimal property damage liability for their car, what is the next step in their education or tips for improvements that your products offer.
Not testing the new subscribers
You chose a nice template, created interesting content and expected a rising click-through rate. However, didn’t you forget to try out what people react to in your newsletter?
If you have a low click-through rate, try to test your links. Even this small thing can have a big impact. Are you using the common buttons with CTA (Call to Action) to attract people to your web? Try to use a variant which will have the access to the web through an anchor text (hypertext link) instead. And vice versa – if you are using text links, change them to CTA buttons.
You might find out that the majority of people react to the other variant. In this case, there is no common result, every audience is different but it is important to test out all the possibilities and implement the best ones.
You can use the A/B testing function in Quanda that will choose a random sample of recipients and give you a clear indicator of which variant is more successful and subsequently send the best version of your email automatically.
Source: quanda.cz, impactbnd.com
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Good luck!
Denisa Kmeťová
Compeny magazines & content creation
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