6 Steps to Optimize Your Emails for Higher Click-Through Rates and Conversions #INBOUND2013

6 Steps to Optimize Your
Emails for Higher ClickThrough Rates and
Conversions
Sarah Goliger
@sarahbethgo
#INBOUND13

SARAH

GOLIGER
@sarahbethgo

I’ve rappelled down a 200ft
waterfall, I taught swing
dancing in college, and I
once rode a camel in the
desert.

6 Steps to Optimize Your Emails
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 

Identify Your Email Goals.
Segment Your List.
Determine What to Send.
Create Optimized Emails.
A/B Test Your Emails.
Measure Your Results.

WEAKLY DEFINED
EMAIL GOALS
•  Communicate with my audience
•  Send content and information
•  Run email promotions

WHY ARE THESE
WEAKLY DEFINED?
THEY DON’T DIRECTLY ALIGN WITH
THE GOAL OF YOUR MARKETING,
FUELING YOUR SALES TEAM WITH
HIGH-QUALITY LEADS.

STRONGLY DEFINED
EMAIL GOALSit soon
Although difficult at first,
becomes as easy as riding a
• bicycle on a sunny afternoon.
Generate more leads

•  Nurture leads to be sales-ready
•  Delight our customers

HOW TO DECIDE
ON THE RIGHT
GOALS FOR YOU
#INBOUND13

Do I have a lead volume problem?

Leads needed
per month

=

Customers to generate
per month
Lead-to-customer
conversion rate

FOCUS ON GENERATING
LEADS TO GROW YOUR
DATABASE

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
"
"
"
"

What sources are driving the majority of our leads right now?
Are we currently using email marketing as a lead generation channel?
How many leads are we driving through email marketing per month?
How many leads would we like to drive through email marketing per month?

This is your goal.

PERSPECTIVE:
Consumer/
Prospect

GOAL: Generate ____ leads from email marketing this
month to help increase lead volume.

I HAVE A
LEAD QUALITY
PROBLEM.

Do I have a lead quality problem?

Lead-to-customer
conversion rate

=

Customers to generate
per month
Leads generated
per month

FOCUS ON NURTURING
YOUR LEADS TO GET
THEM SALES-READY

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
"
"

Does our sales team feel that the leads they’re getting are low-quality?
What efforts are we currently taking to educate our leads about our product/service
before we send them to sales?

"
"

At what rate are we converting our leads into customers?
At what rate would we like to be converting our leads into customers?

This is your goal.

PERSPECTIVE:
Consumer/
Prospect

GOAL: Increase our lead-to-customer conversion rate to
____% by nurturing our leads through email marketing.

WHAT IS LIST
SEGMENTATION?

#INBOUND13

UNSEGMENTED LIST
Although difficult at first, it soon
• bicycle on a sunny afternoon. your
Send the same content to

entire list, regardless of personal
or behavioral data.

SEGMENTED LIST
Although difficult at first, it soon
• bicycle on smaller afternoon. of your
Create a sunny subgroups

list based on personal or
behavioral data.

WHY SEGMENT
YOUR LIST?

#INBOUND13

4 out of 10
subscribers reported that they’ve
marked emails as spam simply
because they were irrelevant.
MarketingSherpa, 2011

YOUR BUYERS ARE NOT
ALL THE SAME.
STOP TREATING THEM LIKE THEY ARE.

THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL
EMAIL MARKETING IS:

DELIVERING THE
RIGHT MESSAGE

TO THE RIGHT
PERSON

AT THE RIGHT
TIME

HOW DO I KNOW IF I
SHOULD BE
SEGMENTING OR NOT?

Unless you’re just getting started
& have a very small list…

YOU SHOULD
ALWAYS BE
SEGMENTING.

Segmented emails get

50%

more clicks than their
unsegmented counterparts.

HOW TO
APPROACH
SEGMENTATION
#INBOUND13

Developing Personas
This is Marketing Mary. She works at a
mid-sized business where she is
responsible for lead generation for her
sales team. Mary’s primary concerns
are staying on top of the latest
marketing techniques and proving the
ROI of her efforts to her boss.

Developing Personas
This is Owner Ollie. He runs his own
business, so he’s responsible for the
marketing, sales, finances… and
taking out the trash every now and
then. Ollie’s primary concern is
successfully growing his business with
the little time and resources he has.

YOUR CONTACTS ARE AT
DIFFERENT STAGES OF
THE SALES CYCLE.

Building Your Lists
Ask yourself:
• 

What criteria can I use to
define each of my segments?

• 

What data do I have to
categorize my leads?

Building Your Lists

Then:
• 

Decide how to group that data

• 

Use that criteria to build out
targeted lists

Ideas for Segmenting Your List
• 

Geography

• 

Purchase Interests

• 

Buyer Behavior

• 

Age

• 

Buying Frequency

• 

Change in Sales Cycle

• 

Gender

• 

Purchase Cycle

• 

Email Type

• 

Persona

• 

Content Topic

• 

Satisfaction Index

• 

Organization Type

• 

Content Format

• 

In-Store vs. Web Visitors

• 

Industry

• 

Interest Level

• 

Shopping Cart

• 

Job Function

• 

Education Level

• 

Seniority Level

• 

Content

• 

Form Abandonment

• 

Past Purchases

Engagement Level

• 

Usage

Abandonment

SO YOU’VE SLICED AND
DICED YOUR LIST.
NOW WHAT?

ALIGN YOUR CONTENT
WITH YOUR GOALS.

What is Content Mapping?
Content mapping is when you
target your email content to each
segment based on their goals,
needs, & interests.

MARKETING IS ABOUT CONTENT + CONTEXT.

Segmentation gives you the

CONTEXT
you need to send
the right content
to the right people.

WHAT TYPES OF
CONTENT
SHOULD I SEND?
#INBOUND13

Be Creative!
You can send:
• 

Ebooks

• 

Product updates

• 

Webinar invites

• 

Videos

• 

Blog posts

• 

Surveys

Determine what
content does best
with your audience.
•  What content topics do they prefer?
•  What content formats do they prefer?
•  What content length do they prefer?

COMPONENTS OF
AN OPTIMIZED
EMAIL
#INBOUND13

Components of an Optimized Email
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"

Subject line
Sender name
Personalization
Body copy
Image
Call-to-action
Social sharing buttons
Unsubscribe link
Mobile Optimization

1

SUBJECT LINE

WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?

You need to grab the
reader’s attention.

1

SUBJECT LINE

•  Address your readers’ concerns
•  Personalize
•  Use actionable language
•  Be explicit
•  Strive for clarity over persuasion
•  Be brief

“Ready to save time on your marketing?”
“How HubSpot’s marketing can be more efficient”
“Join us on our free SEO Experts webinar”
“[Free Ebook] How to Grow Your Business Blog”
“How to Nurture Your Leads More Effectively”
“Is your website leaking traffic?”

2

SENDER NAME

WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?

You need to
build trust.

2

SENDER NAME

•  Send emails from an actual
person
•  Sign the email from that person
•  Add the sender’s picture to the
bottom of the email
•  Experiment with different sender
names (ebook author vs. CEO)

3

PERSONALIZATION

WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?

You need to make your
emails relevant.

3

PERSONALIZATION

•  Address emails to the person’s
name
•  Include relevant demographic or
behavioral information
ü  Company name
ü  Location
ü  Role at company
ü  Pages viewed
ü  Items previously purchased

•  Be creative!

BODY COPY

4
WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?

emails concise &

compelling.

BODY COPY

4

•  Clearly convey what the offer is &
why it’s valuable
•  Use brief, compelling language
•  Use short paragraphs & bullet
points to break up text visually
•  Make it interesting
ü  Tell a story
ü  Use statistics
ü  Use strong language

IMAGE

5
WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?

emails visually

compelling.

5

IMAGE

•  Make your images relevant
•  Choose visually compelling
images to capture attention
•  Match the image with your offer

CALL-TO-ACTION

6
WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?

You want your readers to

click through
& convert.

6

CALL-TO-ACTION

•  Include a primary, focused callto-action
•  Make your CTA prominent &
visually distinctive
•  Write CTA copy that is:
ü  Clear (“download”, “register”)
ü  Urgent (“now”, “today”)
ü  Friendly (“join us”, “get your”)

•  Include multiple links & buttons

z
7

SOCIAL SHARING
WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?
You want to encourage
your readers to share.

7

SOCIAL SHARING

•  Make it easy for readers to share
your offers with their networks
ü  Expands your reach
ü  Generates new leads

•  Pre-populate your social sharing
links with optimized copy

UNSUBSCRIBE LINK

8

WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?
You want your readers
to want to hear

from you
… and it’s illegal not to.

8

UNSUBSCRIBE LINK

•  Comply with CAN-SPAM laws
•  Don’t trick people into staying on
your list
•  Makes your open rates & CTRs
more accurate
•  If they can’t unsubscribe, they’ll
mark as SPAM

9

MOBILE-OPTIMIZED
WHY IS THIS
IMPORTANT?

You want your emails to
display nicely across all

devices.

9

MOBILE-OPTIMIZED

•  Design your emails to adapt to
whatever device your readers are on
•  Optimize for the best mobile user
experience possible
•  Don’t miss a chance to convert a
lead

WHY A/B TESTING
IS IMPORTANT

#INBOUND13

EMAIL MARKETING SHOULD NOT BE A GUESSING GAME.

A/B testing is an
email marketer’s
most powerful weapon.

HOW TO
APPROACH
A/B TESTING
#INBOUND13

Some Guiding Principles

"
"
"

Make sure you’re only testing one variable at a time.
Only run two variations at once.
Every A/B test should have a clear goal.

HOW TO SET UP
AN A/B TEST

#INBOUND13

Split your list in half
randomly & create an
email variation for each.

Variation A

Variation B

HubSpot’s A/B
testing tool
•  Choose your A/B test size
•  Winner automatically chosen
•  Select metric by which to
choose winner

How do I decide
what % to test?
•  Will largely depend on the size
of your list
•  Total list size must be >1,000
for HubSpot’s tool
•  Make sure your test sizes are
enough to yield statistical
significance

WHAT SHOULD I
A/B TEST?

#INBOUND13

72%

of email marketers are running
tests for their subject line.

SENDER NAME

10.2% Open Rate

12.7% Open Rate

SEND TIME

17.7% Open Rate

19.3% Open Rate

LANDING PAGE

49.4% Conversion Rate

51.8% Conversion Rate

OTHER IDEAS
Offer

Sender Name/Address
• 
• 
• 
• 

Topic
Format
Length/Size
Name

Landing Page
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 

Consistent vs. Changing
Person vs. Company
Category-Related Name
Familiar vs. Unfamiliar

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 

Plain Text vs. HTML
Content in Text vs. Images
Number of Calls to Action
Length of Email

Timing & Frequency

Audience

Description
Length
Image/Preview
Form Placement
Number of Form Fields
Which Form Fields
Form “Submit” Button Text

Format

Interest
Persona
Recency or Level of
Engagement
Other Demographics
Lifecycle Stage

• 
• 
• 
• 

Day of Week
Time of Day
Triggered by Behavior
Frequency

It’s not enough to just be measuring
your open rates & click-through rates.

You should be tying all of your efforts
back to your higher-level goals.

WHAT METRICS
SHOULD I TRACK?

#INBOUND13

Email Metrics to Measure

"
"
"
"
"

Click-through rate & open rate
Bounce rate
Unsubscribe rate
# new leads from email
Lead-to-customer conversion rate*

*for lead nurturing efforts

How to Think About This Data Strategically
"
"

Is my average click-through rate going up or down? Why?
Did I generate more or fewer leads from email marketing
this month? Why?

"

Did my lead-to-customer conversion rate increase or
decrease? Why?

"

What can I do to increase all of these metrics next
month?

1.

IDENTIFY STRONG GOALS. STAY FOCUSED ON THEM.

1.
2.

IDENTIFY STRONGLIST. USE YOUR DATA WISELY.
SEGMENT YOUR EMAIL GOALS.

3.

DETERMINE WHAT TO SEND. MAKE IT RELEVANT.

4.

CREATE YOUR EMAILS. OPTIMIZE EVERYTHING.

5.

ALWAYS BE A/B TESTING. LEARN WHAT WORKS.

6.

MEASURE YOUR RESULTS. ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS.

THANK YOU.

@sarahbethgo

#inbound13

6 Steps to Optimize Your Emails for Higher Click-Through Rates and Conversions #INBOUND2013

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