It’s 2022 and we all know that as far as Return on Investment goes, bulk Email Marketing is more effective, customer focussed and cheaper than any other marketing channels out there. At the end of 2021, it has been estimated that email generates $38 for every $1 spent—an astounding 3800% ROI. Social media comes in at a distant second place with an estimated average ROI of 28%.

In order to get email marketing to work for you, you need to make sure that it’s easy for your customers to click through on your emails and turn those mailers into sales.

We’ve spoken before about some specifics, like improving your calls-to-action and personalising your email campaigns, but there’s no real one-size-fits-all solution. Every company and industry will vary slightly. But, if you understand the essentials of campaigns with high conversion rates, you’ll be able to optimise your own email campaigns with ease.

So, how do you get your campaigns to convert?

The 3 Principles of High-Conversion Email Design:

1 – Your email campaign should inspire a person to action

2 – Your email campaign should reduce apprehension towards taking action

3 – Your email campaign should make it easy to convert

How to apply these principles to your campaign

1 – Your email campaign should inspire a person to action

Using your design, images and copy, you should give your subscribers ample motivation to click through on your campaign and follow the conversion action you’ve laid out for them.

To do this, you need to create a desire for your product or service in your reader. Desire comes in two parts: individual incentive and social norms.

Individual incentive is the idea that people are motivated to do something for one of two reasons: either to gain pleasure or avoid pain. To inspire this individual incentive, position your product in a way that either shows your readers the major benefits that they will gain from using your products or services or shows them the hassles that they will avoid or the problems that your products or services will alleviate.

Social norms comes into play when we consider the consequences of our individual incentive. When we decide to take an action, we’re also thinking about how this action will make us look in terms of the rest of society. Is it “normal” in our social group to take these actions? And what will others think about us?

Successfully creating a desire for your product or service will mean satisfying both of those criteria. Show how your product benefits them, or reduces their stresses, as well as comfort them that following your call-to-action is an acceptable, normal behaviour. Instead of focussing on the features of your product, try writing copy that is centred on the benefits instead.

2 – Your email campaign should reduce apprehension towards taking action

Now that your customer understands how perfect your product or service will be for them, they might still have some apprehension towards following through with your call to action.

Several things could be going through your reader’s mind. Is this offer worth my time and money? Is this the right choice for me? Is this company reliable, and will you deliver on the promises you’ve made?

In order to assuage these fears, try and understand your reader’s point of view, understand where these anxieties are coming from, and think of how to reduce those feelings.

A good way to help your customers with their doubts is by including testimonials from other happy customers. Make sure your testimonials are trustworthy by not only including a quote, but also including the person’s name, company, position at the company and, if you can swing it, a photo helps as well.

3 – Your email campaign should make it easy to convert

Once you’ve talked up the benefits of your product and reduced any fears around using it, the last thing to do is make it as easy as possible for your customers to follow through on the action that you want them to.

This starts within your email design with your buttons. If you hyperlink text, customers are far less likely to click it. If you use a button, it’s more obvious to your customers that they should do something with it. Drawing the eye in with a highly noticeable button will increase your click-through rate.

Another factor that will help your conversions is by removing clutter. If your email is too long, stuffed full of too much information, or has a busy design, customers won’t have the patience to sift through everything to find your call-to-action. Cut down the fluff and make it clear what you would like your readers to do.

Removing the hurdles in your customer’s experience will help them immensely, you’d be surprised by how impatient some customers can be. Test your campaign thoroughly with different people and watch how they interact, to see if there are any stumbling blocks you may not be aware of.

Wrap-up

Once you’ve applied these three principles, go through this final checklist:

• Have I done everything I can to motivate my customers to take action?
• Have I reduced any possible concerns about taking action?
• Have I made it as easy as possible to take action?

If you can answer yes to those three questions, you’re ready to send your email campaign and watch your conversions grow.