There are a lot of metrics that marketers use to track the success of their emails, but two of the most important ones are undoubtedly email engagement and subscribers.

In fact, 78% of marketers have seen notable increases in engagement over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, McKinsey finds that email is 40 times more effective than common social media marketing channels like Facebook and Twitter. The numbers don’t lie: the more engagement and subscribers you have, the more positive conversions you’re going to get as a result. And in this blog post, we’ll share some useful tips for increasing both.

Boost Email Engagement

An email is only as valuable as the engagement that it fosters. So how do you ramp that engagement up? Start with the tips below.

Know who your target audience members are. Throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks isn’t a good approach to email marketing. Just as you need to have well thought out customer personas for other marketing efforts, you need to know exactly who you’re trying to connect with through your emails, as well as their needs, interests, and pain points.

Bring sales and marketing together. We’re better when we work together. Host brainstorming sessions with both your sales and marketing teams onboard to narrow in on the sorts of information your prospects require and are drawn to.

Create high-quality content based on your brainstorming. Once you know who you’re trying to reach and what you’re trying to say, you can get to work creating content that does just that. This content should be as high quality as possible, meaning it should be original, well written, and interesting to read.

Know where your prospects are in their journey. Segmentation is crucial for engagement. You need to be sure that you’re sending out the right content to the right people for conversions, and to do that, you need to know where your recipients are in their journey. Marketing automation can help, as can a well-integrated CRM.

Don’t be stuffy. It’s possible to be authoritative and engaging. Aim for a personable, light-hearted tone, building up integrity through your message, your customer service, and the quality of your product or service — not through a bland or boring tone.

Look at what your competitors are doing. Subscribe to emails from competing brands and take note of what they’re doing to drive engagement. You can learn a lot from seeing what’s working for others in your industry.

Get creative with copy. Mix it up! Experiment with your copy and try out different formats, like interactive content and images.

Get More Subscribers

More subscribers are always a good thing, but you’re going to have to grow that contact list organically if you want it to count. Here’s how.

Use pop-ups. Create pop-ups on key landing pages on your site that entice visitors to subscribe to your newsletter. If the subscription box is just sitting all the way at the bottom of your homepage it’s likely not going to get nearly as much traction.

Consistently create high-quality, valuable content. If a prospect likes what you have to say on other channels, they’ll probably be interested in seeing what you have to say in your emails as well. To pique that level of interest, make interesting, engaging content a priority — not just in your emails but on your site, social, and ads.

Become a guest contributor. Position yourself as an industry leader and reach a wider pool of potential subscribers by guest posting on the sites of reputable publications. While it might be tempting to keep all of your great ideas to yourself, there’s a lot of utility in diversifying your outreach in this way, and guest posting should definitely be a regular part of your blogging strategy.

Create gated content. Do some original reporting, write an action-driven ebook, and produce enticing offers, then gate them so that interested parties must subscribe to your emails in order to gain access. If you’re producing gated content worth an email address, you’ll have no trouble racking them up.

Hold co-branded webinars. Partner up with other brands to host webinars that allow you to tap into each other’s networks, and make sure to encourage email subscriptions before, during, and after it airs. If webinars aren’t your thing, host co-branded Facebook Live broadcasts, or go in on an Instagram giveaway together.

There is always more you can be doing to increase engagement and subscribers for your email marketing. See what works best for your brand and your audience, and don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and get creative. There’s a lot of competition out there, and you’ll need to stand out if you want to come out on top.

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by Benchmark Team