#1 - 35% of all business professionals access emails on a mobile device
With over a quarter of business professionals accessing their emails on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, it’s important to optimise your emails for mobile.
Most email marketing platforms provide mobile-ready templates, which make easy work of optimising your email marketing campaigns.
To optimise your emails on other email platforms, such as Outlook or Gmail, you should develop your email style including your signature, text font, and format, and conduct a test by sending it to your own email address and accessing the email via your mobile device. You can then tweak the email style if anything looks out of place or irregular, and conduct the test again until you’re happy with the result.
If you fail to fully optimise your business emails for mobile devices, it can result in a messy and incoherent message being sent to your prospects, which can make you seem unprofessional and you could miss out on new business opportunities as a result.
#2 – Emails with personalised subject lines increase open rates by 26%
The subject line is typically the first thing a recipient sees when your email lands in their inbox; and is often what encourages them to open your email. This is why it’s important to create an engaging subject line that will capture their attention.
Emails with personalised subject lines can see increases of around 26% on open rates, which is why it’s beneficial for a business to tailor their email subject lines specifically to the recipient.
By creating subject lines addressed to the recipient, it makes for a more personalised experience. The recipient will notice their name and will be more inclined to open your email.
Cold emails that do not include the recipient’s name or other forms personalisation, are a clear giveaway that you do not know the recipient, and they may be left unopened as it could be seen as spam or just that it isn’t relevant to that recipient.
Email intimacy is a valuable factor that must be considered when creating the subject line, as it will help to increase the open rate by a significant amount.
Failure to personalise and create an engaging subject line could compromise your chances of securing business opportunities. So, taking the extra step to optimise your subject line, is a small price to pay to remove one less landmine that could blow your chances of generating new business.
#3 - It only takes 3 seconds before your recipients get bored of loading times
On mobile, it only takes just over three seconds before a user gets fed up with waiting for an email to load and they are likely to delete it. This means when sending a message, it must be optimised to have a fast load time, otherwise, the recipient may end up just deleting your email before they have even had a chance to read it.
To ensure your email loads fast, you should try to limit the number of images used.
Although they create a strong visual impact, using too many images can add to the email load time. Where you are using images, ensure that they are reasonable in terms of file size, or compress larger images to save space and reduce load times.
It is also good to keep the message at a minimal length, but still including all the necessary information. This will not only help to keep load times down but will also keep the message short and sweet for the reader.
Also, it’s good practice to crop any unwanted white space, as this is not necessary for the email and can save you some load time in a few places to ensure the user will not click away.
#4 - Over half of B2B marketers prefer email for lead generation
59% of B2B marketers prefer emails for lead generation; showing email marketing is still a very effective method when it comes to generating leads.
Email marketing can help you to generate leads by delivering a relevant and personalised message directly to your prospects. You can also monitor how many click-throughs you get on a link in an email to identify prospects that have shown interest.
Email marketing is still one of the most popular methods for lead generation, and when done correctly, can be one of the most effective.
#5 - Email open rates are up, but click-through rates have reduced
Email open rates have increased by around 55% from 2010 to 2016, whereas click-through rates are down 43%. This indicates that people are being more enticed to open emails but there is not enough focus on trying to get people to click links. More marketing tactics need to be explored to try to entice people to click on links.
Although email marketers have improved in getting people to open the email through interesting subject lines and improved writing, these types of improvements need to be applied to encourage more people to click on links and follow call to actions.
This reduced click rate will also be linked to security concerns, as nowadays more people are aware of online safety and potential virus and phishing scams and will therefore think twice about opening a link.
Because of this, you need to ensure that you come across as a trusted source and remain professional with your message and design to put your recipients' minds at ease.
Without many people clicking on links within your email campaigns, it can be hard to see who has shown interest. So, it is important to get these click-through rates back up by using compelling call to actions, and persuasive writing techniques.
#6 - Two-thirds of people prefer emails that consist of several images
The majority of email users find messages that consist of multiple images, instead of one big block of text, more pleasing to the eye. Because of this, emails that include a form of image or graphic, can have a higher open rate by 26%.
When including images to your email it is important to make sure they are relevant to the subject of the email and add value to the overall message. These images can help to create a visual representation of the point you are trying to get across and help the email look more aesthetically pleasing.
An email that includes no images and lots of text can result in important points being missed or ignored, as the user may not read the full message and instead could delete it. Images will help to make the email more user friendly and easier to read.
#7 - Emails with a video can receive an increase of click-through rates by up to 96%
An initial email including a video can increase click-through rates by a staggering amount.
This statistic shows the importance of an embedded video within an email. Including an embedded video about a new product or service is the most preferred way for a user to learn about it.
By using a video, the person is more inclined to click-through, therefore showing more interest in the subject of the email. Using a video can help show to a user about a new product or service in a more engaging and fun way.
Users typically prefer videos as they are easy to view and are more engaging than large blocks of text.
#8 - 90% of marketers think email engagement is the best way to track and measure content performance
Many marketers believe the best way to measure content performance is through email engagement. Monitoring email engagement, such as open rates and click-through rates is an effective method of defining which recipients are interested in the contents of your email, and which recipients are not.
With email, you can track open rates and click-through rates to see who has viewed certain parts of your content. People who are the most interested are often the ones who have opened the email and have followed a link or call to action. Reviewing this information is very useful for understanding what works in your email and what is getting the most clicks, so you can either focus on these areas or optimise the areas that aren’t working as well.
#9 - 40% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are the most important method in their marketing strategy
Email newsletters are a great way to inform your audience of the latest updates or news about your company. They can help to advertise your business while keeping your audience informed of all related news.
With 40% of B2B marketers using this strategy, it shows this is an effective method to promote your content. Email newsletters help keep your audience connected and updated with anything new within your business.
Without updates via newsletters about your company, your audience may not have the latest news from your company and could miss information that is relevant to them.
#10 – Open and click-through rates are the worst on weekends
As expected, not too many businesses want to go through their work emails if they do not work on the weekends. Therefore, most emails sent out at that time are unlikely to be opened and could be ignored entirely, negatively impacting your engagement rates.
18% of business emails are sent on Tuesdays, as emails sent on this day often see the highest open and click-through rates.
Sending emails on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons can be less effective than emails sent Tuesday – Thursday. On Monday mornings, decision-makers are often busy setting up for the week and catching up on emails sent over the weekend; on Friday afternoons, people are starting to wind down for the weekend, and therefore will be less interested in reading through company newsletters or business emails.
Sending marketing emails on the weekend, or Monday mornings or Friday afternoons can result in lower open and click-through rates. To maximise your email marketing efficiency, you should aim to send your marketing emails and newsletters mid-morning or early-afternoon on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
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