E-mail Marketing Tips, Part IV

Get More Clicks

Newsletters Should Encourage Clicks

In the world of Internet e-mail marketing, the more clicks the better. Clicks mean your message is getting across, and someone is interested in finding out more. Once someone opens your newsletter, the next step is for them to dig deeper and follow your call to action. This means they will ultimately click on the links in your newsletter and end up on your website's homepage—or, in Internet marketing terminology, end up being “captured.” If they buy, fill out your subscription invitation, or in some other way fulfill the purpose of your newsletter campaign, they are then “converted.”

A “click” is the act of someone responding to a link. The “click through rate” (commonly referred to as CTR) and how it is determined depends on whether your e-mail is text only, HTML only, or a combination of both. By using a combination of both, you can make sure your message is attractive graphically and also accessible to those recipients whose e-mail may not handle HTML messages—a customer with a portable device, for instance. Also, e-mails designed with HTML have more sophisticated tracking abilities.

The formula for an HTML, or text and HTML, click through rate is—

(total # of clicks / total # of newsletters sent)*100

For example, if you send out 500 newsletters and of those that open the e-mail, 75 people actually go to the next step and click on the link or links in the open newsletter itself, then your click through rate is 15%.

(75 clicks / 500 newsletters)*100=15%

Ways to Get More Clicks

By increasing the number of clicks, you can improve your chances of getting conversions. In the book Sign Me Up! written by Matt Blumberg, Tami Monahan Forman, and Stephanie A. Miller, the following suggestions are offered to improve your click rate. (See pp. 37, 39)

Keep Actionable Items in View: The field of view varies depending on the browser in which your e-mail is opened. On top of that, people naturally ready from the top left, downward and across the middle, to the bottom right of the screen. Therefore, if you want to catch your reader's attention, the call to action should be in that field of view. If it is at the bottom of your newsletter and the viewer must scroll down to see it, the chances are they won't do it, and your opened newsletter will lose its value. To help in the design of your newsletter, Google recently released a tool called the “Browser Size Tool.” This tool will allow you to compare how different browsers will display your content. It will be the subject of a future article from HIT Web Design, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can read about the tool at Browser Size.

Offer Other Avenues to Convert: Suppose someone reads your newsletter, but then can't get back to the computer to act on it. To help in this situation, give your subscriber some other way to contact you. For example, offer a toll-free number, a fax number, or a physical address to visit . Also, prominently provide a memorable e-mail address so that if your subscriber is on an airplane or somewhere that they can compose an e-mail on a portable device, they can take advantage of your offer.

Use Some Marketing Savvy: Do some marketing research on your target market, and make offers accordingly. Take into account buyer preferences, expressed interests, as well as lifestyle, behavior, income, and other demographic information. You might also consider breaking up your campaign by geographical area.

Give Stuff Away: Let's face it, everyone loves to get stuff for free. As the authors of Sign Me Up! put it, “Tell your readers about something they can't resist and require that they come to your site to retrieve it. Maybe it's a coupon, music download, cool game, or a hot new screen saver. Whatever it is, let them know why they must have it and why they need to click through to get it.”

Provide Mini Reviews of Other Content on Your Site: One way to get people to your site is to give a glimpse of what it has to offer in the newsletter, a teaser, so to speak, so that the interest of the reader is piqued and they want to see more. One idea is to write a newsletter about a particular subject, and then have that story link to your website for more information.

The clicked through rate for your e-mail campaign is a critical metric that translates into results. Careful attention to increasing your clicks will ultimately net higher fulfillment of your website's purpose.

HIT Web Design offers an effective tool to create and manage e-mail newsletter campaigns called Stay-N-Touch. For more information, see Stay-N-Touch.

• Newsletters Should Prominently Display Calls to Action for Optimal Click Rates

• Increasing Your Click Rate Translates into More Conversions

• Giving Alternative Ways to Act On Your Call to Action Helps Boost Conversions

• Use HIT Web Design's Stay-N-Touch marketing tool to create effective newsletter campaigns.