Email Marketing: How to Stand Out in an Inbox

Imagine you just sent a very appealing marketing email to your target audience this morning. They open their inboxes, and like every other day, find it flooded with tens of similar ones. Odds are high that they ignore all of them. How do you ensure that your email stands out from the clutter and grabs their attention?

Despite the growth of multiple digital platforms and strategies, emails have managed to remain as one of the best digital marketing tools that can drive sales. They establish a personal and direct relationship with the target audience as you share your company updates, newsletters, or sales promotion brochures.

Email marketing services in Dubai are gaining popularity now. However, estimates suggest that globally there are 3.5 million emails sent per second every day. To craft an email that catches the eye and persuades the reader to open it, you need to develop a perfect strategy and use the right tools. As a leading digital marketing agency in Dubai with hands-on experience in providing professional email marketing services, we have shared a few tips below for crafting a perfect email. Read on.

Personalised emails always have a higher engagement. Include the recipient’s name in the greeting to build a rapport with him/her. Such targeted email campaigns increase open rates, tell your customers that you understand their individual preferences, and the email is tailor-made for them. This drives them to respond to your call to action.

While adding name of the recipient is a perfect way to initiate a direct connection with your audience, emails can be personalised in other ways also:

• Use triggered emails such as welcome notes, reminders etc.

• Sign off the email as a person, not a business. It adds a human element.

• Remember and send emails on special days and occasions such as anniversaries, birthdays, Mother’s Day etc.

• Add an informal touch to the email. Employ humour and be relevant.

Keep the content crisp and short

Concise emails increase response rates. You will lose your reader in seconds if he/she has to scroll down a lot to read your entire email. Keep it short, stick to the purpose, garner the attention in the first few words and include a clear call to action. Also, try to segment your readers according to different parameters including geographical location and browsing history, so that you send out relevant information to people rather than sending mass unrelated emails.

Pro tips:

• Use active voice

• Skip that small talk and delete fillers

• Format the content to direct your reader’s eye

• Use simple vocabulary, avoid industry jargons

Include stellar subject lines

Subject lines of your email are the first points of contact that you establish with your target audience. You cannot afford to brush them off as just random one-liners. The words you choose can either make or break your campaign. Keep them short and relevant to the subject. Your emails land in a crowded inbox and it needs to stand apart from the rest of them for the reader to click and read.

Pro tips:

• A typical inbox will display only first 5 to 6 words of your subject line. Make sure you convey the message through them.

• Create the best first impression with carefully chosen words. Use good vocabulary but avoid jargons.

• While it’s important to catch the eye, never use ALL CAPS in the subject lines. It is often the digital equivalent of yelling or shouting.

• Build curiosity on what the reader will find inside the email. And yes, ensure you don’t make false promises.

Don’t forget the smartphones

The use of smartphones is skyrocketing. Like most of us, your customer’s day could begin with checking WhatsApp messages, emails, and appointments on his/her phone. Even during the day, all of us check our phones constantly. If your emails are not mobile friendly, you miss out the opportunity to reach your target audience, no matter how effective a marketing campaign you devise.

Things to consider:

• Keep the subject short and the content crisp. Optimise the email for a few-second read.

• Think horizontal and vertical. Smartphone views can be portrait or landscape.

• Try to use a simple layout and single column template so that the text adapts to every screen size

• Keep a distinct call to action and leave clickable room

Make them visually stunning

The human brain processes visual information multiple times faster than the text. Make your email marketing campaigns more appealing by adding interesting visual elements that complement the copy. It will make you stand apart in an overcrowded inbox. You can add static images, illustrations, GIFs, or short videos and animations. An interactive element such as a flipbook can also be created depending on the content you create.

A few tips to create visually appealing emails:

• Divide your content into sections with sub-headings.

• Use colour blocking to highlight important information or images.

• Choose elegant but common fonts and typography supported by all devices.

• Emphasise call to action.

• Include white spaces to improve readability.

A stunning email marketing campaign is the best way to communicate to your target audience to generate leads, increase brand awareness and drive sales. Do not forget to test the emails before you send out the official one, for typos, bounces, and other errors.