Veronica Green-Gott — May 16, 2019 — May 16, 2019
Are you struggling with low click-through rates? Low open rates? Writing and sending a great marketing email is trickier than it looks. There’s a lot that goes into a marketing email that may be of little consequence for personal emails. For example, how much time do you spend on a subject line to a close friend? Probably not much. But in a marketing email, your subject line matters—a lot.
When it comes to email for AV integrators, it can be difficult to know how to improve or where to start. Luckily, I have the answer for you: start here. Keep reading below to learn five ways you can optimize your marketing emails.
Subject Line
As the prevalence of mobile devices in the workplace continues to increase, subject lines become trickier. Take a look back at your previous email sends. How many characters is your average subject line? If your subject line goes over 50 characters, it’s too long.
While the exact number of characters that do show up on mobile devices varies per device, the majority of mobile devices will show under 50 characters. There are some exceptions to the rule. For example, an Android phone in portrait mode will only show roughly 30 characters while an iPhone in landscape mode displays 64 characters.
Before you launch your email out to the entirety of your send list, send several test emails to one or two staff members. Have them open the emails on both their phone and desktop to ensure that the subject line can be read either way. A subject line that is too long won’t perform as well when it comes to email for AV integrators. Most readers prefer a subject line that is short, concise, and engaging. Keep records of your past email send and note what length of subject line performed optimally.
Send Time
Do you have a system for when you send your emails? Or do you just hit send as soon as you’ve finished it?
Unlike personal emails, the time of day and day of the week when you send your email for AV integrators matters. There are some standards across industries. For example, Friday is the worst day to send emails. Workers are too focused on making it through the day and heading home to have much patience for marketing emails. However, the best time to send your email can vary based on your industry and specific contacts.
If your list is compiled mostly of lawyers who work long hours, you may be able to get away with sending an email later in the day. But if you focus on your average 9 to 5 employee, you’d do best to send it in the morning. There have been numerous studies focused on the best time to send emails. While some studies are contradictory, most agree that the best time to send emails is on a Tuesday morning between 8 am and noon.
Email Lists
How do you organize your email lists? Or, a more accurate question, do you organize your email lists? Are they segmented? Do you know who you’re speaking to? Where they’re located?
Segmenting your lists can be key to great email for AV integrators. After all, if you’re hosting a small event, you don’t want to invite people who live across the country. They most likely won’t be able to come and now you’re coming across as spammy. If you segment your email lists by geographic location, current customers, past customers, and potential leads, you can more effectively speak to each audience.
By crafting content, subject lines, and offers specific to a certain segment of your audience, you can increase your email metrics and avoid spamming your contacts’ inboxes with content that doesn’t apply to them.
Personalization Tokens
Have you ever received a marketing email that is addressed to you? This is done via personalization tokens. These tokens can be used to greet you with your first name, even though the email was sent out to hundreds of people.
Personalization tokens are a great way to increase your click-through rate and open rate when it comes to email for AV integrators. People are much more likely to click through a link if its specific to their company. They’re also more likely to open an email if their name is in the subject line. For example, personalized email messages have been shown to improve click-through rates by an average of 14 percent and conversions by 10 percent.
While personalization tokens are great, they need to be used correctly and sparingly. If you use your customer’s first name in every subject line, it loses its intrigue. It can also come across as creepy if used the wrong way. Make sure that you have a friendly and general default inserted in the place of the personalization token in case one of your contacts is missing the first name.
Include Great Content
This may be the hardest part of great email for AV integrators. How do you include great content? Your content should be based around your list audience. What would they find helpful and relevant?
If you’re creating an email to send to customers or potential leads, you may want to include a helpful blog post full of AV tips. If your list is segmented by industry, you may want to include news related to that industry. At the end of the day, the best content is relevant content that provides value to your audience.
Keep your paragraphs short, your formatting neat and highlight the key takeaway. If you’re sending out a blog post, don’t include the entire blog post in the email. Instead, include the key takeaways in the body and link to the rest of the blog. At the end of your email, always include a call-to-action to sign up for a call or schedule a meeting with your salesperson.
Get Better Email Marketing for Your AV Integration Firm
Great email for AV integrators is hard to create. There’s a lot to consider and a lot of data to collect. Just because you use your own email for work purposes every day does not mean that you can send a killer marketing email.
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