When it comes to marketing tactics and lead nurturing, we all know that email is one of the most powerful tools you can use.

But if your inbox is anything like ours, it’s overflowing with emails that you hardly even open if it isn’t urgent. Odds are, your target audience is the same way when it comes to emails. So, what’s the secret to increasing not only your open rate but your conversion rate as well?

Tips On How to Increase Your Email Conversion Rate

Luckily for you, we’ve put together a list of tips that, once implemented, will help you get noticed and boost your email conversion rates significantly.

Make Emails Mobile Friendly

What do your emails look like on mobile? Have you checked that they are formatted for mobile devices? One of your biggest let-downs could be incorrect formatting.

There’s nothing worse than opening an email on your phone only to be greeted by a giant banner stretching out the text in an email that you have to scroll across to read or, worse, can’t read at all.

With a large and growing number of emails being opened on mobile devices, don’t alienate customers with emails that are not mobile friendly.

Re-Evaluate Your Mailing Lists

Segmenting is the magical word.  When was the last time you re-evaluated the segmentation of your mailing lists? Targeting the right people with the right campaign is one of the biggest steps you can take toward increasing your email conversion rate.

The more specific your segmenting, the more accurately you can target your audience. Go through their information and purchase history and re-evaluate your mailing lists to make sure your segmenting is still accurate. People change. Keep up with them, and they’ll thank you through their loyalty.

Customize, Customize, Customize

We can’t stress this enough. If you have great segmenting, you can run incredibly targeted campaigns that are customized for each of your clients. Run custom-email-exclusive sales for a specific segment, send recommendations based on previous purchases, automatically address each email to the client by name — there are so many options of customizations.

The more you know about your clients, the more you can customize. The math is simple = the more customized each email is to the targeted segment, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Double Opt-In

It might sound simple, but the double opt-in is one of the surest ways to not only improve your engagement but also get more accurate data. By asking users to confirm their email, you’re ensuring the people on your mailing list are, in fact, people, and eliminating any typos or mistakes that might be losing you valuable customers. It doesn’t take much effort to do, and the rewards are unquestionable—set up the double opt-in.

Employ Behavioral Triggers

Apart from the obvious opt-in, there is an infinite number of behavioral cues you can use to enhance your email marketing strategy. Behavioral cues can be anything simple, like page visits, purchases, number of page views, form submissions, or abandonment of a cart to more complex observations like purchases of the same item twice, multiple visits to the same product page, multiple visits to product pages of the same theme, actions taken within a certain timeframe of other actions, etc. Know your client’s behavior and use it to enhance their experience with you.

Address Abandoned Shopping Carts

The abandoned shopping cart is a major opportunity to use an email for conversion and even upsell. Okay, so someone wasn’t that eager on those new boots they put in their cart—you can turn this to your advantage.

Use the abandoned shopping cart information to create a suggested bundle or sale for your potential customer. Why not show them similar styles? Different colors? A sale that makes them just a little bit cheaper? Any one of these emails has a high chance of turning your potential clients into actual ones.

Establish Your Client Lifecycle

What are the typical stages your clients go through? Having a guide you can place customers on can be hugely beneficial in helping you create the right email marketing campaigns and targeting them at the right people.

Having an established client lifecycle also helps you understand your clients better, allowing you to retain their loyalty by being familiar with their journey.

Clear, Direct Titles

To get anyone to click on an email sent by you, you need to convince them with the title why they should. Keep titles of emails clear and concise. You want them to be easy to read and communicate the content of your emails.

Is it 20 percent off winter stocks? Be specific. Say 20 percent off winter stocks, and stay away from vague titles like “Discounts for Some Styles.” Your title is what will determine whether your email is opened or not — make it meaningful.

Nurture Your Leads

Leads don’t turn into sales without proper care and attention, so you should always have a plan for handling leads. Set up a journey to take them through.

You can start by introducing them to your brand and leaving some basic contact details. Follow up a day or two later with a short history of your business, what it stands for and why they should choose you instead of someone else. A couple of days after that follow up with evidence of the solution your business provides (make sure to include social media reviews and links). Finish a week after they have joined with a promotional offer as thanks for joining.

Take your leads on a journey, and they will become loyal clients.

Engage with Your Content

So, your emails are being opened, but you have low conversion rates. It’s probably your content. If your emails sound generic and lack personality, chances are nobody will want to read them.

To make your emails engaging, make sure you’re using your “brand voice”– whatever that may be.

If your target audience is serious, include interesting information. If you’re going for a light and funky feel, use some humor. Whatever it is, make sure it’s memorable and engaging. Your customers will appreciate it.

Welcome Email Promotions

A welcome email is a perfect place to include a small promotion. You’ve got your subscriber’s attention. They’re interested in your products or services. Giving them a little something for subscribing may be just the nudge they need to make the leap and engage in your products.

It’s also a great way to say “thank you” to someone for subscribing, which shows your brand cares about those who listen to what it has to say.

Send Reminder Emails

Your brand is great. Keep reminding your customers about it. Reminder emails are a great way to keep potential customers on track and turn them into real customers. Abandoned cart? Send a reminder it’s still there. A sale they looked at? Off goes a reminder it’s still on. An out of stock item they visited? Shoot off a reminder that it’s back in stock.

Reminder emails are a powerful tool to keep clients coming back — use them.

Do Email-Exclusive Promotions

There’s no better way to convince anyone to read your emails than including email-only promotions. These promotions are an especially powerful tool when paired with proper segmentation, customization, and behavioral triggers.

Including email-only promotions helps increase your future open rate, as well as increases your current conversion rate. A small promotion in the right place at the right time can be exactly what you need to take your email conversion rate from average to great.

Re-Engage

Engaging once isn’t enough. To keep subscribers engaged, you have to keep up with the changes in their behavior to keep material relevant and keep re-engaging. Birthdays are a great example of the opportunity for a re-engagement email. Sending a birthday email or promotion can let your subscriber know you’re still thinking of them, and they should be thinking of you, too.

Having a customer lifecycle can help you in this, as you will be able to place each customer in the cycle and know what kind of material you need to include to bring them back after periods of inactivity.

Automate

This is probably the most important tip on here. Automate everything you can. In today’s digital age, there is no way to cope with the huge amounts of data we receive without using automation.

Automating doesn’t mean you don’t care about your customers; it simply takes care of the work that will bog you down, leaving you more time to pay better quality attention to the people who deserve it — your clients.

Automation also provides you with insights into customer behaviors that you may not be able to observe and quantify on your own, allowing you to understand them better and provide them with a better experience.

Tip	Description	Benefits
Make Emails Mobile Friendly	Ensure mobile-friendly email formatting to enhance readability on mobile devices.	– Improves user experience – Reduces mobile device rendering issues
Re-Evaluate Your Mailing Lists	Regularly review and update list segmentation for more targeted campaigns.	– Delivers relevant content – Enhances subscriber engagement
Customize, Customize, Customize	Use segmentation for personalized campaigns, increasing customer connection.	– Boosts personalization – Drives stronger brand loyalty
Double Opt-In	Implement double opt-in to improve data accuracy and email deliverability.	– Ensures quality leads – Maintains sender reputation
Employ Behavioral Triggers	Utilize behavioral data for timely, relevant emails aligned with user actions.	– Increases conversion rates – Enhances subscriber engagement
Address Abandoned Shopping Carts	Create targeted emails from cart data, recovering potential lost sales.	– Recovers abandoned carts – Boosts average order value
Establish Your Client Lifecycle	Map customer journey stages for tailored email campaigns at each phase.	– Improves customer journey – Enhances engagement and conversions

Optimize Your Email Send Times

Timing is a critical factor in email marketing success. Here are some strategies to ensure your emails are sent at the right times:

• Analyze Data: Review email engagement data to identify when your subscribers are most active and responsive.
• Time Zones: Consider the time zones of your audience and schedule emails accordingly to reach them during peak hours.
• A/B Testing: Conduct A/B tests to determine which send times result in higher open and conversion rates.
• Segment by Behavior: Segment your mailing list based on subscriber behavior and preferences, sending emails at times most relevant to each segment.
• Automate Send Times: Use email marketing platforms to automate send times based on subscriber behavior, ensuring timely delivery.
• Consistency: Maintain a consistent email schedule, so subscribers know when to expect your messages.

Strategy	Description
Analyze Data	Review email engagement data to identify peak activity and responsiveness times.
Time Zones	Consider your audience’s time zones and schedule emails to reach them during peak hours.
A/B Testing	Conduct A/B tests to find send times with higher open and conversion rates.
Segment by Behavior	Segment your list based on subscriber behavior and send emails at relevant times for each group.
Automate Send Times	Use email marketing platforms to automate send times based on subscriber behavior.
Maintain Consistency	Keep a consistent email schedule to set expectations for when subscribers will receive emails.

Final Thoughts

We know you care about your customers, but it can be difficult to distinguish yourself from everyone else and show your customers why they should be with you. Email conversion rates reflect directly on this important step — the beginning of your customers’ journeys. If you follow these tips and incorporate them into your marketing strategy, you’re guaranteed to experience a boost in conversion rates. You can thank us later.

Programmers Photo via Shutterstock

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