Everyone has an email address; it's a necessary requirement if you want to have access to any social media platform or any kind of online account in general. In fact, as of 2020 there were four billion email users worldwide, according to Statista—and that number is steadily rising each year.
So what’s a business to do to compete with all the other organizations fighting for attention in customer/prospect email inboxes? Ensure you're segmenting your audiences, utilizing creative and enticing copy within the email body and subject line, optimizing for mobile, having clear and actionable calls to action, incentivize, and include engaging imagery and appealing formatting. Read on to see our detailed breakdown of how you can stand out in your customers’ and prospects' inboxes.
Segment Your Audiences
You likely have quite a few email addresses from your community members and participants—and each address belongs to someone with a varying degree of similar interests and demographics from one another. Sending out blanket emails to everyone might sound like a good idea and the easy way out, but you're missing the opportunity to connect with your members and participants on a deeper level by giving them content that's actually relevant to their wants and needs. Segment your audience by demographics, like whether or not they have kids or by age. Or get even more detailed and segment by interests, like working out or art classes.
According to HubSpot, marketers who use segmented campaigns see as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
Use Creative and Enticing Copy
Once you have your audiences segmented, you can create engaging copy that's specifically aimed toward each.
Subject Line
This is the first thing your audiences will see (aside from who the email is from), and you have to do your best to hook them the moment they read the subject line. You only have a finite number of characters to do so, which means you have to get creative.
Some of the best subject lines include emojis that are relevant to the topic at hand but don’t over do it. One or two is plenty. If you happen to be having a sale on your camps or classes, include in your subject line some emojis that make it pop. Or use all caps if you want! For example, if your organization is having an early bird special on a class, you might have a subject line that looks like this: ⭐⭐EARLY BIRD SPECIAL 20% OFF CLASSES⭐⭐ Or if you're announcing a new camp ,you could have subject line that looks like this: 📣Check out our newly added classes!
Body
Once you get your audience to open the email, you can then be a little bit more long-winded. Include pertinent information that's relevant to your audience, and have fun with it. Just remember to not bombard your audience with text and overload them with too much information. Just give them enough to be interested and eventually covert. Use language that's in your organization’s voice, and remember that to capture your audience's attention, you have to be short and sweet.
Include Calls to Action
The point in sending emails to segmented audiences is to get them to convert, which means you'll need to include calls to action throughout the email. They don’t need to be long—just a few words will do. And the best way to draw the eyes toward a CTA is to make it a button so it stands out. You can have the color of the button match the color in your organization’s logo, or just make it whatever color you like that you think will be eye-catching enough for someone to want to click. Just remember to try to make it appealing and in line with your company’s branding, as well as the overall look and feel of the email.
Incentivize
The best way to get your audience to take action is to give them incentives. If you're able to, offer family discounts, run a promo that gives a percentage off registration or offer free swag or materials when they register for a class or camp. Make sure this offer is only for those who open their emails, so there's some exclusivity to it.
Use Appealing Imagery and Formatting
Emails that don’t include eye-catching images and aren’t formatted to appeal to the reader usually get thrown in the trash pretty quickly. Of course, you don’t want to overwhelm your audience with too many images, and you don’t want to add images that aren’t relevant to the topic. You also don't want to use images that look unprofessional and unpolished. The same goes for the formatting. A simple email template should work best.
Optimize for Mobile
According to MailChimp, launching a mobile-responsive email design can increase unique mobile link clicks by 15%. In 2020, Constant Contact reported that mobile devices accounted for about 60% of email opens. If you aren’t optimizing your emails for mobile, you're missing out on some great conversion and revenue opportunities.
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If you’re ready to learn more about how you can streamline and transform your camp, connect with ACTIVE today. Our team of software specialists will help you find the best camp and class management software to manage registrations, grow your camp and provide the best possible service for campers' families—whether your program is online, in-person or a combination of both!
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