How Can Email Marketing Drive Website Traffic?

Email marketing is undoubtedly a valuable tool for business growth, but developing an effective email marketing strategy that yields the desired results requires careful planning and execution.

In this blog post, we’ll go over some of the key elements of email marketing that are integral to driving web traffic.

To drive traffic, you need to make sure you are able to get email subscribers genuinely interested in your dynamic content. This drives more traffic to your landing pages, which ultimately means you are driving traffic to your website.

From there onwards, it's all about whether you provide a positive user experience and are able to drive conversions. Emails play the part of lead generation and lead nurturing through valuable content while landing pages convert email traffic into customers.

We’ll explore tactics like crafting interesting subject lines, segmenting your audience strategically, and creating personalized messages and content designed to capture attention—everything from why it matters to how it works so you have all the information necessary to boost your web traffic.

Let's get started.

Also Read: Email Marketing Optimization Techniques: The Key to Maximize Revenue

Here are some ways to increase your click-through rate and get more traffic on landing pages.

Understand your marketing requirements and preferences

Proper marketing planning that aligns with your specific needs and preferences is the first step to achieving a successful email marketing campaign.

Emails should be drafted with a unique purpose and need, defining each email type's distinct marketing approach. According to Experian, personalized promotional emails tend to have a 29% higher unique open rate and a 41% higher unique click rate.

Businesses can deploy various strategies based on their goals when implementing email marketing campaigns. For instance, a welcome email, which aims to establish a positive first impression, should have a different style and tone than an abandoned cart email, which seeks to re-engage customers and encourage them to complete their purchase.

By tailoring each email to its intended purpose, businesses can increase their chances of achieving business goals through their email marketing efforts.

Build a strong email list

It is important to ensure that the emails sent by your brand are welcomed and not marked as spam. According to a study by Return Path, 45% of all emails sent are marked as spam. To achieve a high deliverability rate and engage with your audience, you need to develop an email list organically.

This means that the contacts in your email list should have given their voluntary consent to receive your emails. In fact, according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into effect in 2018, businesses are required to obtain explicit consent from individuals before sending them marketing emails.

Moreover, segmenting the contacts into groups based on their interests, location preferences, and previous purchase history is advisable. By doing so, you can ensure that your emails are targeted and relevant to the individual recipient, increasing the possibility of engagement and greater performance.

Remember, building a loyal customer base through organic email list development can go a long way in establishing your brand's credibility and long-term success.

Personalization

A survey in 2016 showed that personalized emails had a clickthrough rate of 18.8% compared to 13.1% for non-personalized emails. Personalization techniques have evolved from simply addressing customers by their first name to providing tailored content and product recommendations based on customer history.

A recent research report discovered that emails that advertised a reduction in price for previously viewed products had a clickthrough rate of 8.8%. Additionally, greeting customers on a special occasion, such as a birthday, can increase the likelihood of a customer feeling valued and retained in the long term—a bit of special treatment can lead to loyal customers. 

A case study conducted by a leading retail brand found that personalized birthday emails resulted in a 481% higher transaction rate and a 342% increase in revenue per email compared to standard promotional emails.

It's never been easier to personalize your email messages – why not try it and see the results yourself?

Crafting compelling email content

In order to make effective email marketing campaigns, you need to create content that is engaging and informative and provides value to the reader. Here are a few tips for writing a better email.

1. Compelling subject line:

The email's subject line will make or break your email campaign. You need to ensure that the subject line is short, creative, and attention-grabbing.

It should reflect the content of the email and provide the reader with a reason to open the email. You can add humor to your subject lines, pose them as a question, or highlight the key benefits the subscriber will get by opening your email.

2. Clear and concise content:

After a reader has opened your email, the next step is quickly providing them with valuable information.

Keep the text concise by limiting the text to 20 lines and including relevant images to help the content stand out. The content must not have fluff and must give concrete, actionable information.

Sending short, relevant emails is likely to keep more subscribers engaged opposed to long, irrelevant emails that will likely make them lose interest and affect the open rate of future campaigns.

3. Call to action:

All email content must have a clear call to action (CTA). The CTA should be visible and placed above the fold area to increase the chances of a response.

If the purpose of the email is to provide information, the CTA can be to visit your website or download a white paper. If the purpose is to sell a product or service, the CTA can be to Buy Now or Add to Cart.

You need to be clear about the action you want the reader to take in order to capture leads and drive conversions.

4. Thank your readers:

Lastly, it is essential to show your readers that you appreciate them taking the time to read your email. A simple thank you at the end of the email can go a long way in building a connection with your audience.

This can help you achieve long term success.

Right email frequency

When it comes to email marketing, there's no doubt that consistency is key. But how do you strike the perfect balance between staying top-of-mind and overwhelming your subscribers? With so many emails flooding our inboxes daily, it's important to ensure your messages are relevant and timely.

According to a study by Mailchimp, the average open rate for email campaigns across industries is around 21.33%. This means that roughly 1 in 5 subscribers will open your email.

Therefore, it's crucial to make each email count. Sending excessive emails can be counterproductive - instead of engaging your audience, you might just end up turning them off.

Research by MarketingSherpa found that 69% of subscribers reported unsubscribing from a company's email list due to receiving too many emails. Therefore, it's important to strike a balance that keeps your subscribers engaged without overwhelming them.

One approach to determining the right email frequency is to segment your audience based on their preferences and behaviors. For example, if you have a segment of highly engaged subscribers who frequently interact with your emails and make purchases, you can consider sending them more frequent updates and promotions.

On the other hand, for a segment of less active subscribers, it might be better to reduce the frequency and focus on providing them with highly relevant content to re-engage them.

Another factor to consider is the type of content you're sending. If you're primarily sending promotional emails with discounts and offers, limiting the frequency is recommended to avoid coming across as too sales-y.

On the other hand, if you're delivering valuable educational content or industry insights, your subscribers may be more receptive to receiving emails more frequently.

Determine your key metrics

While examining the performance of your email marketing campaigns, there are several essential metrics you should be tracking. These include your open, click-through, conversion, and bounce rates.

Your open rate is the percentage of people who opened your email out of the total number of emails sent. This metric indicates the effectiveness of your subject line and sender name and can give insights into how well your email resonates with your audience.

According to a report by Campaign Monitor, the average open rate across industries is approximately 21.5 percent.

For example, if you sent out 1,000 emails and 215 were opened, your open rate would be 21.5 percent. This shows that your subject line and sender name are engaging enough to capture the attention of a significant portion of your audience.

Your click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who clicked on the links in your email. This metric shows how well the content of your email is engaging your audience.

It’s essential to track and analyze your CTR to determine which types of content and layout design work best for your audience. According to an analysis by Getresponse, the average CTR across industries is approximately 5.77%.

Conversion rate is also a key metric in determining the success of your email marketing efforts. It measures the percentage of recipients who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a webinar, after clicking on a link in your email.

Conversion rates can vary widely depending on factors like industry, target audience, and the success of your landing page. By tracking conversion rates, you can identify areas where your email campaign drives results and areas needing improvement.

For example, you run an e-commerce business, and your email campaign promotes a limited-time discount. By analyzing the conversion rate, you can assess how effective your emails are in driving actual sales.

If the conversion rate is low, you may want to optimize your email content, refine your offer, or improve the user experience on your website to increase conversions.

Your bounce rate is the percentage of emails that didn’t reach their intended audience. A high bounce rate can suggest issues with your email list quality, targeted messaging, or the email delivery process.

Identify trends

After identifying the metrics you’ll track, it’s essential to gather the data you need to analyze the value of your email marketing campaign. Email marketing software such as GoCustomer offer various analytics tools that can provide the data you need to track your metrics.

Most email marketing platforms allow you to track the performance of your email campaigns in a dashboard or summary view. This gives you a broad overview of your campaign performance.

From there, you can drill down into individual campaigns to understand how well your emails are performing and identify areas for improvement.

Interpret the data and analyze the results

Once you’ve gathered your email marketing campaign data, it’s time to analyze the results. Start by looking at your open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and bounce rates for each campaign. Look for trends, such as increased open rates or higher click-through rates.

Next, compare your campaign performance against industry benchmarks. For example, according to Hubspot, the average open rate is 24.79%, and the click-through rate is 4.19%.

If your metrics are higher than those benchmarks, you’re performing well, but if they’re lower, it’s time to optimize your email marketing strategy.

Expand your email subscriber base through numerous marketing channels

There are many channels available to promote your email newsletter, and using more than one can greatly increase the value of your messages.

Take advantage of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to reach a broader audience and share the benefits of subscribing to your emails through social media marketing.

You can also use blogs and forums to provide more detailed information about what kind of content subscribers can expect to receive. Promoting your email newsletter through multiple channels can increase visibility and ultimately grow your subscriber list.

Boost email engagement with dynamic videos

In today's digital age, we all struggle to keep up with the abundance of information thrown our way. So, how can you make sure your message stands out?

The answer lies in incorporating videos in your emails. Not only are they effective in delivering your message, but they also increase engagement rates significantly.

Research shows that simply adding the word 'video' in the subject line of an email can increase open rates by 6%.

But it's not just about adding any video. It's about making it interesting, informative, and memorable. Videos should be short, fast-loading, and mobile-friendly. So, why not spice up your content marketing strategy with creative videos?

Make sure your videos do not automatically start when the email is opened though as this may take you directly to the spam folder.

Tell a story about your product, introduce new features, share innovative ways of using your product, or talk about how your company began. Incorporating videos in your emails is the latest addition to your marketing arsenal and you don't want to miss it.

Avoid the 'no reply' trap

 When it comes to email marketing, the phrase 'no reply' is often used in place of the sender's name. While it may seem like a minor issue, using "no reply" can actually be harmful to your marketing efforts. For one thing, it means that your customers won't be able to reply to your emails or opt out of your mailing list.

Additionally, using "no reply" can make your emails appear impersonal and robotic, which can turn off potential customers. That's why using a real person's name in your email address is a good idea instead of relying on generic terms.

This will make your emails seem more inviting and personal and help you comply with CAN-SPAM(US legislation that oversees email marketers and ensures that generic terms like 'no reply' are not used). So next time you send an email, think twice before going for the "no reply" option.

More to Explore: 10 Email Marketing Blogs Every Marketer Should Follow in 2024

Bottom line

Email marketing is a popular digital marketing strategy to drive website traffic in multiple industries. As consumers increasingly rely on digital communication, incorporating email marketing into your overall marketing plan becomes important in establishing meaningful connections with your target audience.

By carefully planning, executing, and implementing successful email campaigns, you can effectively boost traffic to your website and reach your desired audience.

GoCustomer brings you even more features, such as email warm-up and an AI email writer in its special email marketing solution that puts you on the road to success.

You can enhance your email content and achieve better results.