Thanks to Glen Bell from Robinson Ryan who drew my attention to this webinar on email marketing.
It analyses 9.5 billion emails to analyse ‘Click Through Results’ (CTR) and unsubscribes from MailChimp.
He summarises the main points from the webinar as:
- Send emails at 6am on Saturday (Tuesday is terrible you will max your unsubscribes)
- Increase the number of links (if you have a site you want your readers to visit then provide lots of links to it throughout the email)
- Test that your email can be easily read on a smart phone
- Serialise your emails (e.g. February 2011 newsletter)
- Use a celebrity sender (e.g. the CEO, not their assistant)
- Avoid words in the subject line like discount
- Offer exclusivity (special rewards for subscribers to the newsletter)
- Have great content (readers will then archive you in their inbox for later reference)
- Focus on your newest subscribers, they are your best opportunity for click throughs
