How Email Marketers Can Enhance User Experience

Many marketers are surprised that despite having been around for a very long time, emails haven’t yet died the death they were supposed to long back. In fact, email continues to thrive in an environment that has seen a number of digital communication channels opening up. The return on investment is far superior to any other mode of communication, and it is no surprise that email continues to grow at a very healthy clip with spending on email marketing projected to grow to $3.07 billion in 2019, up $1 billion from its 2014 level.

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The use of emails has multiple advantages; they can be quickly composed, are extremely effective as they can take recipients directly to the customer’s website, and are also quite easy to monitor. The major concern with email communication is to get recipients to click and open the emails. A number of issues are involved such as the timing, subject line, nature of devices, and user context in deciding how well communication with customers can be executed and how good the user experience is. While undoubtedly, user experience promotes better communication, it is all the more vital since it is considered to be an important part of the overall brand experience. Some top user experience factors that you should keep in mind while optimizing your email marketing:

The Subject Line Creates the First Impression

Whether an email communication will be successful can be largely attributed to how effective the subject line is. The first 40 characters of the subject line should be able to persuade the customer to click and open the email. This can either be done by summarizing the content that is of value to the customer, by teasing his curiosity, promising him a freebie or a good deal or a limited period advantage, etc. Marketers should first figure out what stance they intend to take and then execute it in the briefest manner so that even customers in a rush or those who are accessing their inboxes on mobile devices can easily read the emails. It is important for the subject line not to have elements that cannot be easily understood by customers; these include symbols, abbreviations or cryptic characters that provoke customers to skip or even delete the emails. Since the subject line is the starting point of the user experience, it is very important to get it right.

Segmentation

Sending emails to customers without bothering to segment them according to their interests is a mistake that many marketers employing bulk email marketing services Mumbai make. Segmentation allows email marketers to enhance user experience because with the content being relevant, recipients find the contents to be valuable. Along with content, it is often very useful to vary the language, style, and layout of the emails to provide extra appeal to the target audience.

Personalization

Though a lot of marketing experts advocate personalizing the email with the name of the subscriber right on the subject line, research has in fact revealed that it might not go down very well with the recipients taking offense with a perceived unwarranted invasion of their privacy. However, the practice needs to be evaluated from the point of the prevalent attitude of customers in the sector.

Automation

When you have a large number of user segments, it can be impossible to manage your email lists without automation. When a campaign is automated, you can very easily deliver appropriate content to segmented users with relatively simple programming. The superior level of customized content enhances the customer experience considerably and has a positive effect on the brand experience too.

Optimize Content for Mobile Devices

Around 66% of the emails are now accessed by customers on their mobile devices, and email marketers should take care that the emails are optimized for easy reading on the smaller screen of the smartphones. They need to take into account the length of the subject line, use images that load faster, as well as content that is composed of fonts and character size that assist easy reading. Also embedded links in the email must be allowed to be clicked easily.

Solicited Action

Every email marketer needs to decide the purpose of sending the email. In case, the intent is to promote sales, then the emails need to incorporate a prominent Call-to-Action button; make sure that these CTAs are text links, not graphics that might not display properly across devices.

Conclusion

It is thus evident that emails need to be much more than just carriers of information or promotional matter. A well-designed email campaign provides lots of opportunities for improvement of the user experience. Considerations that need to be taken into account are the purpose of sending the mail, the profile of the recipients, content customization, and the desired action by readers.