Those of you who know me well, know I like to geek out when it comes to better understanding not just what we buy, but why.
And as a performance marketer, the more I’ve embraced the art and science of conversion, the better results I’ve been able to achieve.
Sometimes it’s big, sweeping changes to UI/UX that have the biggest impact; but often times, it’s a simple, subtle change that can make all the difference.
And finding those changes - and benefiting from the results - can be an immensely informative and rewarding experience for any marketer.
A Conversation on the Art & Science of Conversion
If you’re interested in gleaning insight from my own experience and perspective on the topic, this Thursday I’ve been invited to lead a webinar all about The Art & Science of Conversion. The event is being hosted by my friends at The Enrollment Management Association and you can register for free here.
Two Tips for the Road
But who am I to make you wait?
Here are two of the fastest ways to instantly improve your email open rates…
First Names in Subject Lines, Every Time.
First things first, put the first name of your email recipients in the subject field every…single…time. I get it, I hate it too, and it feels tacky, but it works. It always works.
While you should ultimately consider rewriting your email subject lines to feel more casual and candid, in the short-term a quick fix is just dropping “[First Name,]” before your current subject lines.Throw Out Your Beautifully Designed Emails
Another painful reality is that personalized, plain text emails outperform designed emails, so it’s time to get back to basics. Throw out those thoughtful, well-designed email templates and replace them with simple, personalized plain-text emails that appear to be manually written from a real person.
When combined, these two evolutions in execution will have a demonstrable impact on your email performance, with record-high open rates and engagement likely awaiting you on the other side.
Why Does it Work?
One of the things I love about conversion rate optimization is not just understanding how to improve performance, but more importantly understanding the underlying lesson in why a particular approach works.
In this case, the lesson is simple: We all get too many emails, so we subconsciously prioritize people over brands.
Another email from a brand? Swipe and delete.
An email from a real person? I may just open to take a look.
In the case of personalized, plain text emails, it’s the simple combination of a personalized subject line (e.g., “Hi [First Name], quick question”) with a personalized email (e.g., “I was just reviewing my records and saw that…”) that creates an email worthy of engagement.
Conclusion
So whether you’re looking to improve the conversion rate of your website, emails, or your overall marketing campaigns, consider joining me this Thursday for an action-packed hour of conversation all about the art and science of conversion.
And if you’ve got a tip of your own, please don’t hesitate to hit that reply or leave a comment below.
Editor’s Note
Just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for the tremendous response we’ve received to last week’s Kanahoma Casting announcement. We’re incredibly excited about bringing this new offer to market and are so grateful so many of you are interested in it as well.
We’ll be rolling out our next major announcement on March 1st, so please stay tuned for that.
- Seth
About the Author
Seth is the founder and CEO of Kanahoma, a San Diego-based education marketing agency. We offer full-service marketing support for higher education, K-12, education technology, and more.
You can learn more about Kanahoma at www.Kanahoma.com.