5 Key Strategies To Include In Your EDM

An effective EDM attracts customers and potential customers to open the email, read the content, and more importantly, take actions. In this post, we’ll share 5 key strategies you should include in your EDM for it to be effective.

1. Appealing Subject Lines

An appealing or a click-worthy subject line is a must in every EDM marketing campaign as subject lines act as a gate keeper to every email. Before enticing potential customers to read the content and take the action you want them to, the subject lines need to attract their attention enough for them to voluntarily open the email or they won’t be exposed to the rest of the email content. What makes subject lines appealing? Elements of personalisation, urgency, offers and stories would pique readers’ interest and make a great subject line.

By adding a touch of personalisation such as including the customer’s name and making it relevant to the individual, you can attract them through the subject line. The same goes to offers, people love new things and experiences, and even more when they are at a discounted offer, so including offers in the subject line can entice them to read the content.

2. Clear Calls to Action

In each EDM you send out, you need to consider what you want the recipient to take away from the email and make a clear point out of it. In most cases, your EDM would aim for potential customers to take actions either to visit your website or make a purchase, so you’ll need to include clear call-to-action (CTA) for them to easily follow and take further action. It is recommended that for each email you send out, there should be only one main key point that you’re trying to make and a single action you want the customer to take as too many could confuse them and fail to effectively deliver the message.

The CTA should be presented in a clear, concise and bold way. That is, CTA buttons should be designed with a contrasting element compared to the rest of the email content, in a clear language, emphasising on strong command phrases such as “Book Now”, “Get 50% Off Now”, etc.  

3. Test the EDM

While it is important to write a good EDM for it to effectively generate leads, build relationships and ultimately increase sales, it is equally important to test each EDM before hitting the send button. Testing your EDM will help you avoid the worst outcomes before they even have a chance to happen.

An effective EDM is designed for users from all devices to be able to read and follow the content seamlessly, from mobile devices, to tablets and desktops. This design testing should check the format and images across devices and apps, if you are using an email marketing service, design testing could easily be done by clicking email preview provided by email marketing service provider. Additionally, it is essential to test every link that is included in each EDM and ensure that they are working and redirecting you to the right landing pages. The URLs should take you to the right location, otherwise your marketing campaign may not be as effective. 

 4. Monitor the Metrics

When the EDM campaign is up and running, you should take notes of each EDM’s performance. The metrics that you should look out for include open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, bounce rate, unsubscribe rate, and ROI. It is important to frequently check these rates and compare it with the expected performance to determine whether it went well and whether you are on the right track in achieving your gaols from this campaign. The more you pay attention to these metrics and data obtained from it, the more you can understand what’s working for you and what’s not. This allows you to better allocate your time and effort into working on campaigns that are more effective in the future.

Monitoring these metrics could also help you improve your EDM performance in the long run. For instance, if one EDM has a high bounce rate, you could check into it, try A/B testing method, and you’ll be able to understand which elements are not working and improve on it or choose to focus on what’s working to optimise ROI.

 5. Option to Opt-out

Growing customers on the email list is important as it enables you to reach more potential customers. However, it is also important to give customers an opt-out option for those who no longer want to receive your marketing emails. Sending EDMs to these customers is not effective because they won’t read the email content. And people who don’t want to read your email content don’t belong on your email list as they do not contribute to ROI. There is no advantage in keeping these people in the list as keeping them will only skews the email open rate down and increases the number of recipients marking your EDMs as spam email. For this reason, you should provide them the option to opt-out of EDM if they are no longer interested in getting messages from you.

If your business is currently sending out EDMs, make sure that you are implementing these 5 strategies to optimise the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. With just a little extra effort and time, your EDM could yield higher ROI and contribute more to the performance of your business.

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