How to Capture (and Maintain) Attention Through Emails

Email marketing, when done well, can nurture your brand’s relationship with its audience through tactful targeting. Not only that, but with the right techniques, you can promote your brand and increase sales by directly connecting with your customer (who signed up to support you in the first place)!

Email marketing encompasses everything from product announcements, launches, and sales to newsletters, storytelling, and targeted campaigns. Email serves to support existing action plans and internal goals or as an avenue for trying new tactics to engage with your audience.

Email Marketing Requires Overdue TLC

Let’s look at some data aggregated by Hubspot. (There’s more where it came from!)

- - 4 billion daily email users exist today. This number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025. (Statista, 2021)
  - More than 306 billion emails are sent and received each day. (Statista, 2021)
  - QA, A/B, and spam testing your emails lead to higher ROI. Enjoy up to a 28% higher return when you put testing to work for your email program. (Litmus, 2022)
  - The most effective strategies for email marketing campaigns are subscriber segmentation (78%), message personalization (72%), and email automation campaigns (71%). (HubSpot Blog Research, 2021)
  - 99% of email users check their inbox every day, and some of those email users check their inbox 20 times a day. 58% of those users check their email first thing in the morning (OptinMonster, 2020), and 84.3% check their emails at least once a day. (Pathwire, 2021)
  - Consumers spend an average of 10 seconds reading brand emails. (Statista, 2021)
  - 40% of consumers say they have at least 50 unread emails in their inboxes. (HubSpot, 2020)

However, 41.5% of brands say that email marketing is extremely critical to business success, compared to 78% in 2020 (Litmus, 2021) which shows that the same old email tactics won’t glean the same data they may have in the past.

Capturing Attention Is No Easy Feat

As you saw above, billions of emails go out every day. Sure, every person on the planet isn’t receiving the same magnitude of emails, but it’s safe to assume your audience is enrolled in a handful of brand email lists, and we have it on good authority that the brands may send multiple emails a day.

Email marketing is a competitive landscape full of splashy subject lines and droves of discount codes all looking to catch the customer’s eye. Sometimes, it merely comes down to being the right email at the right time and showcasing the right product to the right customer, but here are a few tactics to consider:

It Starts with the Subject Line

Utilizing tools like the Omnisend email subject line tester can help you chart your course. Here are some guidelines we keep in mind with our clients:

- - Keep subject lines to 21-40 characters. You can’t beat short and sweet!
  - Similarly, keep it to 4-6 words.
  - Use numbers where it makes sense. Recipients like to know exactly what to expect.

When using AI to test your email marketing effectiveness, keep in mind that AI is easy to finesse. At a certain point, you’ll understand what the software is looking for and nail your subject lines, but that doesn’t necessarily make your subject lines winners. Keep your brand’s identity, voice, and goals in mind. Employ strategies such as urgency, curiosity, relevance, and personalization, but also remember to maintain authenticity.

Maintaining Effectiveness Comes Next

Email marketing is all about the long haul. We can follow formulas every day, but eventually, the reader might get bored and look for something fresh and new. Yet, if you mix things up too often, your brand might lose its voice. You have to walk a fine line to maintain recipient attention and ensure effectiveness.

Keep these things in mind:

- - Be intentional. If you’re using segmented lists, ensure those segmented lists make sense. If you’re automating, ensure your messaging is evergreen. If you utilize personalization, be authentic.

- - - Keep testing the waters. What works only works for so long, so stay up to date on the trends and try new things as often as it makes sense.

- - Think about what your reader wants. Nowadays, brands will bombard inboxes with filler and fluff, so set clear subscriber expectations and respect the time your reader chooses to spend on your email. Offer the necessary context, and don’t make assumptions about what they know or want from your email marketing campaigns.

Note that we’re seeing more brands allow specific frequency opt-ins rather than making subscriptions all or nothing. This is an interesting strategy that acknowledges different wants and needs when it comes to email marketing. Person A might only be subscribed for the sales and promos, while Person B might want to stay in the know about launches and developments without having to go to social media or a website to get all the information.

Email and Email Marketing Aren’t Going Anywhere

While SMS and apps are figuring out where they fit in the B2C e-commerce space, email has managed to become a household staple without much trouble. From retail and travel to employment and more, it’s hard to get by in the 2020s without an email address, and everyone knows it.

We want to bring your email marketing hopes and dreams to life with a little push. From metrics and analytics to roadmaps and strategy, our team of top email enthusiasts is here to help you capture and maintain the attention of your subscribers while you pursue other pressing priorities for your business.

Author

Rachel Halverson

Marketing Specialist

How to Capture (and Maintain) Attention Through Emails

Email Marketing Requires Overdue TLC