16 Expert tips on improving conversion rates with email marketing

One of the favorite questions marketers discuss is how to increase email conversion rates. If you’re a marketer, you probably think about this, like a dozen times a day.

Naturally, improving conversion rates requires a proper email strategy. But before that, there are questions you need to answer: What kind of CTA (Call to Action) buttons should you use? What role does segmentation play? How to leverage personalization? How to write better emails? All these and more.

And yet, the answer to a question like how to increase conversion rate in email marketing can’t be a simple, one-size-fits-all type. Only expert advise

So we spoke to sixteen marketing experts to learn what works best.

Thankfully, these email marketing experts have already done the heavy lifting for you. They have run experiments, tweaked designs, changed CTAs, altered copy, worked on building experience and done pretty much everything else. Which is how they know what clicks and what doesn’t.

Here are the tips these 16 experts shared on turning your prospects into paying customers.

Campaign audience settings key to email conversions

“The element that guarantees conversion is in the email campaign’s audience targeting settings. Personalizing content for specific customer groups drives higher engagement and better ROI. That’s because proper targeting addresses consumers’ open-and-click behavior and effectively triggers an activity that leads to conversion.” says Michael Knight of Incorporation Insight.

“This also makes way for the campaign to determine sub-objectives to close in on specific customer groups’ needs. Besides, it helps with feedback management while optimizing the campaign. Consequently, you gather multiple vantage points for mapping out your business’s chances at scaling and strengthening your multi-market operations.” he explains.

Personalization that goes beyond just names

Steve Kurniawan of Nine Peaks Media is confident personalization is the best way to increase conversion rates.”Personalization is the most important factor in maximizing conversion rate.”

Kurniawan elaborates. “Of course, personalization needs to go beyond just using the recipient’s first name in the subject line. In fact, it should be about sending the right message to the right people at the right time. Hence, know your target recipient’s needs, behaviors, and pain points. Then tailor your email’s content so you are directly answering their pain points.” 

Minimalistic design prevents distractions

Cale Loken of 301 Madison Consulting believes a minimalistic design is your best best to improve conversion rates. “A minimalistically designed email has the greatest conversion rate because it lets your audience focus on your message.”

Loken recommends simplicity, “Choose a simple email newsletter design. To increase conversion and loyalty, a minimalistic design works best, because such a design eliminates any sort of distractions. I recommend using colors that are synonymous with your brand logo and designing the email accordingly. An austere design allows the users to focus on the call-to-action buttons, which inevitably leads to greater conversion rates.”

Segmentation for unique requirements

David Bitton of DoorLoop is convinced segmentation works best. “Email list segmentation is extremely beneficial in terms of conversion. That’s because each customer has unique requirements. Emailing without building customer segmentation leads to too generalized messaging.”

“Consider segmenting your audience based on location, on-site behavior, gender… There are many other factors you can use to ensure your message is tailored to your customers’ requirements and interests.” adds Bitton. “Furthermore, segmentation enables you to construct highly personalized and precisely targeted follow-up email messages, which also helps increase conversion.”

Talking about solutions

“You need to make the customers understand why your offerings would make a difference to them.” Philip Pasma of Asterisk Marketing Inc. points out, because he wants marketers to talk about solutions.

Pasma dissects further. “For that, you need to make your email compelling to them, highlighting the solution to their problems. When the reader feels your offerings is the solution they had been looking for, the possibility of the email being converted will go up exponentially.”

Timings emails to boost conversion rates

Josh Wright of CellPhoneDeal thinks timing is key. “The best way to improve your email conversion rate is to know when to send out certain information to your audience. Sending out your marketing emails at any point in time might net you a few new loyal customers, but it’s nothing like when you send out relevant content at the perfect time. ”

Wright adds, “This means you need to understand your audience’s needs, and stay up to date with the latest news. Then you may structure campaigns in a strategic way. Doing all these things will allow you to deliver messages to your audience when they’ll appreciate it most.”

Dropping subscribers who aren’t active

Robert Banks of MrStocks wants you to purge your lists. “This is to keep your open rates high. If somebody hasn’t opened your emails for six months or a year, there’s no point in having them on your list anymore.”

Banks explains his rather counter-intuitive tip. “If they are not opening your emails, Gmail, Yahoo and others are going to assume you’re a spammer. Then they’re going to start sending your emails to the spam folder. You don’t want that, so purge your list. Give them some special offer if they stay on your list and if they don’t take the offer and don’t open it then take them off your list.”

Personalization for specific audience needs

“The feature that converts the highest number of our audience members into paying customers is personalization.” Teri Shern of Conex Boxes, who is convinced personalization is the answer, points out.

But it must be more than rudimentary, says Shern. “Not just their name at the top of the email… I mean creating content for specific audience member needs. For example, we’ll send out a different emailer to our agricultural audience than those that we send to our audience who are simply looking for storage in their backyards. That helps them see how your product can benefit them on an individual level.”

Customer experience as a crucial factor in conversion

Eran Galperin of Gymdesk stresses on customer experience. “Customer experience right from the get-go is crucial. Customers need to be engaged from the first touchpoint.”

Galperin also reminds marketers about responsive designs. “Optimize your email for mobile devices, since a huge percentage of consumers are using mobile devices to access email throughout the day. Making things easier for users is important, and that’s where conversion begins.”

Tracking multiple indicators to increase conversion rates

Jeff Mains of Champion Leadership Group LLC wants marketers to take a comprehensive view, “Take note of other metrics as well. Before focusing on boosting conversion rates, you should monitor indicators that show whether or not your emails are being delivered and opened.”

Mains continues, “If your emails aren’t being delivered, for instance, you may have invalid email addresses on your list. Mop up your email list first. If your open rates are poor, it’s possible that your subject lines aren’t compelling enough to get customers to read your email.”

Values as the drivers of growth

“Something I’ve learned over my time as a business owner is that people buy based on values.” Daivat Dholakia of Essenvia says, because he believes values might hold the key. “Your images and quotes matter too: Include people of color and queer couples in your campaigns, and participate in social justice movements like Black Lives Matter.”

Compelling storytelling turns the tide

“The overload of short-form digital marketing has made consumers numb … However, narrative marketing has engagement rates of up to ten times longer.” says Woody Sears of Hearhere , who bats for storytelling.

“Email marketing that focuses on the stories of a business, whether it be about customer journeys, employee experiences, or simple human interests pieces, connect to the consumer on an emotional level…. Such emails can lead to a far greater conversion rate than simply promoting a product or service.” Sears concludes.

Understanding audience browsing habits

Matt Lally of Matty Ads is a strong believer of finding out and adjusting based on how your subscribers read emails and browse. “One huge gap in most companies e-mail marketing programs is not building a dark mode experience.”

Lally reasons “More and more users are switching their browser settings to dark mode and e-mail marketers have not adjusted for this change. A great user experience is what converts users through e-mail marketing. Developers and designers should be building a UX experience for both non-dark mode and dark mode. That’s how you’ll better compete in the 2022 email arms race!”

The good old, unbeatable CTA button

Elyse Flynn Meyer of Prism Global Marketing Solutions has a simple, clear reasoning. “A call-to-action button is essential to improve your conversion rate.”

Meyer asserts nothing beats a great CTA button. “It allows the audience to focus on the goal of the email. That means your audience has clear direction on the next steps. The button visually drives them to the action you want them to take.”

Researching to know them better

“Email marketing that produces the highest conversion rates come from companies that know their audience.” Andre Kazimierski of Improovy offers. “Because they know who they’re marketing to, they’re able to personalize the campaigns to suit their consumers.”

Kazimierski stresses on researching your audience. “If you want to create effective emails, research your target audience and find out about their mindset, interests, needs, and preferences. These will allow you to personalize emails to your ideal audience.”

Customer testimonials as a gold mine for conversion

Mark Valderrama of Aquarium Store Depot believes testimonials can prove to be a gamechanger. “You should definitely consider including customer testimonials if you want to increase your trust with your readers.”

Valderrama connects the dots. “Including trust signals in your emails and landing pages shows the lead that you’re trustworthy. This allows them to feel more confident in their decision to convert. Testimonials are a wonderful approach to generate social proof.”

“That’s because an overwhelming majority of individuals read reviews before submitting information.” he further explains. “Besides reviews, you may also use statistics to show how your products are used. Numbers can help you build your industry authority and create a bandwagon effect.”

Over to you now

There’s no need to be overwhelmed after reading so many tips to increase conversions rates in email marketing. It’d be a good idea to begin small by implementing only one idea and see how it impacts your results.

Once you have some email metrics that tell you how things went, you may to move to the next idea. And the next. And so on. The point is to make a small start and aim for incremental changes.

We’d love to hear your experiences! Why not share them in the comments section below?