Stand Out In a Cluttered Inbox

Email isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s one of the most common ways businesses communicate with past, present, and potential customers. Gathering email addresses and sending the email is easy. Getting your recipients to open the emails is the difficult part. With 319.6 billion emails sent and received each day, how do you get people to notice your emails in their cluttered inboxes? We’re not talking about your weekly or monthly newsletter. We’re talking about your everyday emails, your triggered emails, and updates you send to specific individuals. Let’s find out some ways to increase your open rates to attract new customers.

First things first, you need to know your audience. We don’t mean your target audience; you figured that out a long time ago. You need to understand what your audience thinks is important, when are they most likely to read emails, if there’s a certain tone of voice or slang that is good to use (this is a great time to A/B test!), and what makes your audience different from everyone else. Writing to your audience instead of at your audience is a great way to make your email stand out. It also helps you connect with your customer. They’re expecting the hardcore sales pitches, but that doesn’t mean you have to give that to them. Try asking them questions to start a conversation. After all, building trust is one way to attract and retain new customers.

Next, remember that quality is better than quantity. Sending fewer emails with genuine and meaningful content that’s personalized and not sales-y is much better than sending a lot of short and sweet emails. Sending personalized emails is a standard nowadays, but you want to be more personalized than just your usual Hi {First_Name}, automation. If you are reaching out to a potential client, do a little research. Are you in the same groups on social media? Did this person recently share an article that you found interesting? Have they written a blog post recently that you can comment on? These are all things that will lead to a high-quality email. Combine that with sending it at the right time, and you’re setting yourself up for email success!

Another way of increasing your chances of standing out is to offer something for free. Do you have an ebook, blog post, SOP, or other information that could help your recipient? Send it their way! This type of email is still not meant to be a sales pitch. Saying something as simple as “Hey Alex! I wanted to pass along our blog about B2B marketing during the holiday season. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Enjoy!” It’s short, sweet, to the point, and most importantly, it keeps building trust and adds value to you and your emails.

Subject lines and preview text — these bad boys are essential to a high open-rate on your emails. They need to be intriguing, personalized, and to the point. This is your first impression, and you don’t want your recipient to scroll right on past it. Add emojis, use their first name, and promise value. Once you get them in your email, make sure you deliver that promise of value. If you’re having trouble coming up with a good subject line, use one of their pain points. “Alex, how would you like more hot leads?” or “Alex, I’m giving this ebook away for free!” are good ways to personalize your subject line while enticing your reader but also keeping it short and sweet.

One of the hottest trends right now is video. There are so many programs, like Loom, that you can use to create fun, engaging videos that you can incorporate into your emails. You can save time writing out text by using video or make a video specifically for someone. Maybe you can give a little demo of what you do or just introduce yourself. Whatever you use video for, it is a great way to stand out from everyone else in the email department.

There are so many other ways to get your emails to stand out from the rest. Here are a few more tips to get people to read your emails. Make sure your email and any landing pages and content in it is mobile-friendly. Everyone is on the go, and more and more people are reading emails from their phones. Sending an email with content that doesn’t look good on a mobile device will keep your audience from reading your whole email or looking at your content. Try using interactive content in your emails. Sending gifs, animations, infographics, and quizzes are great ways to engage with your audience through email. Include customer testimonials when you can. Reviews can be what makes someone cross the threshold from wanting to buy to buying. Don’t forget A/B testing! Changing up part of your emails to see which version gets better results will help you craft an email that will make you stand out in the clutter of the inbox!

If you need help with your email or messaging campaigns. Boundless Media can help you achieve the results you’re looking for. With our team of copywriters, graphic designers, and B2B experts, we can help you develop a campaign that will benefit you and help you build trust, credibility, and most importantly, build your clientele.