Five tips for a successful custom email

five tips for a successful custom e-mail

12/1/2020

More and more customers are taking advantage of our Custom E-Mail solution. With Athletic Business, you don't need to compromise between quality and quantity — we have both!

After working with hundreds of customers to send successful Custom E-Mails (and our own marketing emails) over the years, we want to share our top five tips to make your email get traction with our subscriber base of athletics, fitness and recreation decision-makers!

1. Subject Line, Subject Line, Subject Line!
This is your first impression and can make or break your success (the best email in the world won’t do any good if no one opens it).

We’ve found that the best subject lines offer value to the recipient, rather than just a sales message. In fact, the most successful subject lines rarely include brand or product names. Additionally, subject lines that indicate a video or include “Why” or “How” prove to perform well. Finally, research shows around 41 characters is the optimal length for a subject line, so keep it concise. Here are some examples of ways you can transform your subject line to fit these best practices:

Instead of: Discounted weight room flooring now available from Brand XYZ!
Try: How your facility can easily upgrade its weight room flooring
Instead of: Brand XYZ introduces the new ProductName123 to improve athlete performance!
Try: [Video] See the new product that your athletes will love

2. Determine Your Purpose and Audience
Everyone has a different reason for sending a Custom E-Mail — from launching a new product to driving web traffic and everything in between. Knowing exactly what your want your prospects to do will help you craft the right message and call-to-action to achieve your goals. The most successful emails have a single, clear call-to-action, and messaging that garners enough interest to take that desired action.

Also consider taking advantage of our targeting capabilities. With a segmented list, you know the exact prospects you’ll be reaching and can tailor your message to have the most impact.

3. Use of Engaging Media
As alluded to in our first tip, videos and other interactive media drive click-throughs better than anything else. Emails with a prominently displayed video will encourage the opener to click-through to view it. It is most beneficial to link to the video embedded on your website to gain valuable web traffic, rather than linking to view on a video hosting platform, such as YouTube.

Other engaging media options include whitepapers, infographics, photo galleries or customizable “build your own product” interfaces. If your goal is to drive clicks, enticing the recipient with content-rich media is a good way to do so.

4. Consider the Length
It can be tempting to put your entire sales message into the body of your marketing email; however, using your messaging as a teaser is a best practice we recommend to all customers. With the "teaser" method of messaging, your customers will be more likely to click-through to your website to learn more about your product or brand.

Keeping your message concise is especially important when you consider that roughly half of all email users will be on a mobile device, where multiple scrolls to the bottom of an email can be detrimental to success.

5. Think About Your Landing Page
You’ve piqued the curiosity of your prospect with a great subject line, you gave them just enough information to leave them wanting more, and your call-to-action inspired them to click-through. Now what?

Your landing page should be consistent with your email. If there is a disconnect between what you promised in your email and what customers find on your landing page, they're likely to leave your site right away. Furthermore, making the investment to have a mobile-friendly site can go a long way for those users who opened your email and click-through to your site on their cellphone (remember, this is about half of all email users).

Other tips or suggestions would be to have a singular focus on your page, just as your email did, and to utilize forms or other means of capturing visitor contact information.

These are just a few tips to help you make the most of your Custom E-Mail. Of course, every business has different objectives and circumstances, and we'd love to work with you on an email campaign that will help you meet your goals.