14 Powerful Tactics to Increase Your Email Click-Through Rates

Have you ever sent what you thought was a really amazing email only to find that your click-through rate was below average?

Getting high email click-through rates is really important, and not just because it’s frustrating to spend time building an email that no one clicks.

When subscribers click on links within your emails, you can send them to your blog and website content (like a product page), which ultimately brings them closer to making a buying decision. And when the time is right, you can then ask them to buy.

But before that can happen, you need to write and design emails that convince your audience to click through – which makes increasing these rates a top priority.

Are you ready to skyrocket your email click-through rates?

Here are 14 proven strategies to help you do just that.

1. Stick to one call to action

When you’re creating an email, it may be tempting to include multiple calls to action (CTA) in the hopes that your subscribers will respond to at least one of the offers in an email. After all, the more options you provide, the more likely they’ll engage with one of them, right?

Well, not exactly. In fact, this can hurt your click rates rather than help them.

Too many links can distract and overwhelm your subscribers, decreasing click-through rates in your emails. To get optimal click through rates, include one call to action in your emails to focus your subscribers on taking one action.

In fact, Whirlpool was able to increase their click through rates by 42 percent after limiting their CTA to just one.

In the email below from EOFire, there is one clear call to action and no question of what the subscriber is supposed to do – join the class.

2. Segment your emails

Different people have different interests. So do your email subscribers.

If you send the wrong people on your list an offer they’re not interested in, your click through rates will most likely plummet.

For higher click-through rates, segment your subscribers and send tailored emails based off their interests. You’ll see better click through rates when you send the right offer to the right person.

3. Create a sense of urgency

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is real, and eliciting this feeling in your subscribers can influence them to click on your calls to action right away.

If you have an offer that ends soon or a limited number of spots at a webinar, for example, you can create a sense of urgency by adding words like “now” or “today” to your emails.

We can tell you first hand that creating a sense of urgency works, because it worked on us.

We received the email below a few days ago, and it convinced us to act rather than wait. (Big props, DigitalMarketer. We’ll see you in San Diego!)

4. Personalize your emails

Have you ever received an email that didn’t apply to you at all? This kind of email may leave you feeling like a nobody on a huge list of email subscribers. And this feeling of alienation doesn’t encourage you to click.

Instead, when your subscribers receive an email for you, they should feel like you are addressing them alone. Truly personalized emails will feel like something written just for you. That kind of connection leads to higher click through rates.

Here are a few simple ways you can personalize your emails:

• Include your subscriber’s name in your email. While this technique isn’t fresh, it can be effective. Instead of adding subscribers’ names at the beginning of an email, try adding them in the middle or at the end.
• On your email sign up form, ask for information about your subscribers’ interests. Then, send segmented emails based off their responses.
• Collect your subscribers’ birth dates on your sign up form and send them a celebratory email on their birthday.

For more ideas on how to personalize your emails, check out this post on Engaging Subscribers with Contextual Emails.

5. Create mobile-optimized emails

Fifty-three percent of emails are opened on mobile devices.

And that means if your emails are difficult to read on a phone, there’s probably a huge percentage of your subscribers who aren’t getting the best experience and are most likely not clicking on your emails.

To make sure your emails are easy to read from any device, use email templates that are mobile responsive instead of mobile-friendly.

Mobile responsive emails are easier to read on both desktops and mobile devices, because text, images and buttons automatically adjust to fit the screen size. Additionally, multi-column email layouts adjust to single columns on mobile devices, and content is easy to access with both a mouse and a touchscreen.

Mobile friendly emails, on the other hand, scale down to fit the size of the screen, but don’t adjust layouts or fonts.

See how this mobile-friendly email below is difficult to read because the double-column layout makes the images, fonts and headlines too small?

Compare that to this mobile-responsive email below, where fonts and images are resized for the small screen and double columns turned to single columns:

If you’re not an email designer and have no idea how to make an email responsive, fear not! Many email service providers (like AWeber) provide mobile-responsive email templates for their customers.

6. Include colorful, clickable HTML buttons

One of the simplest ways to increase click-through rates is to ensure your subscribers know where to click. While plain text calls to action work for some people, a big button with a contrasting color immediately draws attention and can significantly improve click-through rates.

If you’re adding a button to your email, there are a few reasons why you’ll want to use an HTML button rather than an image button:

1. An HTML button can be responsive, which means it’ll resize for people on different devices.
2. Images in emails may not display for certain subscribers. And if your call to action doesn’t display as a result, click-through rates will tank.
3. Email load times will be faster with fewer images in your emails.

You can code your own HTML button, or rely on your email service provider’s drag-and-drop editor (which will usually allow you to add customizable HTML buttons).

7. Don’t over complicate your email design

Complex isn’t always better, and this is often the case with email design. Avoid overwhelming your subscribers with an overabundance of images, icons or different fonts. Not only does this make for a disharmonious email, it’ll also take attention away from the content of your email and your call to action.

This beautiful, yet simple email from Evernote incorporates a clean font, one image that works with the content of the email and a clear call-to-action button:

8. Use action-oriented CTA copy

Your email call to action copy should encourage people to take a specific action. Instead of using a generic call to action like “click here,” use verbs that describe the action you want subscribers to take, such as:

• Shop
• Learn
• Get
• Grab
• Submit
• Send
• Start
• Try
• Reserve
• Take
• View
• See
• Watch
• Read

By doing so, you’ll frame the subscriber experience in a way that influences them to want to take action.

9. Pique their curiosity

“The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is curiosity.” – Edmund Burke

Everyone has been curious about something at one point in their lives. And when a person is curious about something, they are inclined to resolve their curiosity.

Fortunately, you can also leverage curiosity in your email copy to encourage people to click on your emails.

Birchbox, for example, does this in the email below by offering a free mystery prize with a purchase. To find out what they would get, they need to click on the call-to-action button.

Hopefully the prize is a good one, but at least it gets the click!

10. Include social proof

Believe it or not, people like to do what other people do. When they notice multiple people or a famous person doing something, they’re more likely to want to do it themselves. This is called social proof, which is a phenomenon where people are persuaded to take an action by seeing that other people have taken that action before them.

You can use social proof in your email content to encourage people to click on your calls to action. Glossier does just that in the email below. By showing off how customers use their product and sharing their success stories, they tap into the power of social proof.

11. Write engaging headlines

If you use a headline in your email content, it will be the first thing your subscriber sees when they open your message.

A good headline quickly grabs the attention of your subscriber, engages them and gets them to read the rest of your email. And when subscribers read your email content, they become more likely to take action – which makes headlines pretty darn important.

For the email below, MailCharts used the subject line “Are your subscribers annoyed?” and then followed it up with the headline “You don’t know, do you?”

By linking the headline to the subject line, it guides the subscriber to continue reading through the rest of the content. You’ll also notice MailCharts does a good job of raising curiosity, which gives readers even more of a reason to continue reading and click the call-to-action button.

12. Use video

People love to watch videos. They’re engaging, easy to follow, and often fun to watch. Plus, if people are in your videos, you can build relationships that written words often can’t.

While video doesn’t play in many inboxes, the inclusion of a thumbnail image of your video and a play button can boost click through rates tremendously. In fact, Wistia increased their email click through rates by 300 percent by incorporating videos in their emails.

Check out how we used video in the email below. The thumbnail image and play button encourage people to click and helped us get an above-average click-through rate.

Bonus tip: You can also try using GIFs in your emails to add motion to your emails and boost click-through rates.

13. Cater to what your audience likes

If one of your emails had an insanely high click through rate, it’s apparent that your subscribers liked what you did in that email. So, do it again.

Your audience should be your main barometer for what is working in your email strategy and influence the content and design elements you include.

Do you see high click through rates when you send short emails or long emails? Does your audience click more when there’s an image or video? Does a certain kind of content lead to higher clicks?

Take a look at your past emails and see which ones got the highest click through rates.

Then, repeat, repeat, repeat.

14. Feature the right images

Images in your emails can be a powerful way to grab the attention of your subscribers and convince them to click. However, you need to use the right images.

Email images should add meaning, support the content of your email or help make a relevant point. Additionally, you should use alt text in case your images don’t display.

Check out the image in MarketingProfs email below, which serves multiple purposes:

There are a few things that work well here.

1. It summarizes the content of the email briefly and immediately, giving the reader everything they need to know in the space of a few seconds.
2. It supports the content of the email and provides additional meaning.
3. It includes a call-to-action button, which encourages people to click on the email.

For the subscriber who skims or doesn’t read the email content, this image does it all. It catches their attention, tells them about the offer and gives them a place to click.

Go get yourself a sick amount of clicks

Ready to try these tactics for yourself? Test them out with your subscribers and see what tactics increase click-through rates.

Then, send engaging emails that’ll build relationships with your subscribers and possibly even turn them into customers.

Have any questions or comments about what works for you? Share them below.

The post 14 Powerful Tactics to Increase Your Email Click-Through Rates appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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