5 quick tips to increase your email conversions

You picked an email marketing provider.
Embedded a signup form to your website.
You’re emailing your subscribers regularly.

But although your email list and lead magnet are up and running, you’re not seeing the conversions you were hoping for.

What can you do?

I’ve collected a few tips you can try to boost your email conversions if you don’t see results.

How to boost your email conversions—even if you’re new to email marketing

Try sending out your emails at different times.

There’s a particular time of day for every audience when they’re most responsive — you just need to find out what this is for your audience.

Bad news, copying your business bestie’s sending time might not be the best for your audience.

You find the best sending times for your business by running a few experiments and sending messages:

Don’t be afraid to mix it up at the beginning. You need to send out several emails at different times and track your open rates to understand what’s working and what’s not. 

• in the evenings,
• on the weekends, or
• during lunch hours when people are most likely to be looking at their emails

Over time you’ll see which times of day—and days of the week—get the most response.

Test different subject line types.

Your subject line—and preview text—is the first thing your subscribers see from your email. And let’s face it, your message competes with dozens of other emails they receive in a day. 

“[…] experts generally agree that 121 business emails are sent and received each day.”

(Source: Campaign Monitor)

Your goal should be to stand out in the inbox and prompt the reader to pick your email to read.

As most of us read emails on the go, optimizing your subject lines for mobile viewing can do wonders. This means your subject lines should be short and clear so that they don’t get cut off when viewed on a mobile email app. 

And most importantly, they should invoke your readers’ curiosity.

Take a look at your email length. 

If your emails don’t convert as you hoped for, your emails might be too long.
 
It’s just like with websites: if your copy is too long, your subscribers won’t read them. And they won’t take the action you want them to take in the end. 
 
Try writing shorter and punchier messages and place your call-to-action early in the email.

If you have a lot of things to talk about, consider breaking that up into smaller chunks. And send them in several emails over a couple of days or weeks. This tactic can be handy if you’re struggling with new topic ideas to send to your audience.

Add a sense of urgency.

If you want to increase conversions, you can add a sense of urgency. 
 
For example, when you make an offer, or you have an action you want the subscriber to take, tell them this opportunity is for a limited time only. You can use wording like “flash sale“, “24 hours only“, “valid only until Friday“, or similar.
 
But then stick to your word and don’t extend the offer with a couple of extra days or hours. Instead, run a similar promotion a few months later.

If your “limited time only 24 hours sale” actually tend to run for 3 days—and you do it several times a year—you teach your subscribers not to believe in what you say.

And yes, you probably received such emails from other marketers and businesses. But I rather trust someone who does what they say.

Segment your list—always.

Last but not least, for optimal email conversions, you have to segment your list. 

Read this blog post where I list 7 ways to segment your list further into different categories.

Segmenting is nothing more than adding them into smaller groups and then sending specific content to each group tailored to just them.

Check out your email marketing software of choice, and see what features it offers for segmenting. Use the metrics it provides to help you figure out what gets the most response.

Here you go.
You’ve learned about 5 ways to increase your email conversions.
And remember: you don’t need to implement all these suggestions at once.
Pick one and start from there.