What did one email say to the another? Let’s go interactive!
Well since the emails asked for it, we had to oblige!
Did you know that between 2014 and 2018 the average office worker received about 90 emails a day and sent around 40 business emails daily? How can you ensure that your email stands out amidst such heavy competition?
The answer is- you guessed it– going interactive. Interactive elements improve the open and response rate of your emails drastically. In fact, including interactive element is the second most popular interactive email trends of 2019.
Curious about HOW to make your emails interactive? Don’t you fret! Here are some tips to sail you through it. 🙂
1. Real-Time Marketing
Real-time marketing is the ability to engage with prospects and clients instantly on the basis of real-time information. Real Time marketing increases the engagement rate of emails. In fact, E-mail rates highest among channels for real-time personalization marketing, with 80 percent of marketers finding it very important. It allows marketers to customize their messages to a specific context. This leads to considerable improvements in brand perception and revenue. However, before we dive deeper, we want you to have a look at something:
Now that’s what we call real-time weather report. 😀
Obvious benefits of real-time marketing include personalized and relevant customer interactions. Moreover, it is highly targeted, relevant and of course, timely!
Take this for example. In 2015, marketers at the men’s fashion brand, Allen Edmonds experimented with real-time marketing. They sent weather-targeted emails. They sent rain gear to the subscribers who lived in warmer areas whereas they sent warm winter shoes to people living in colder areas. Want to know the result of this strategy? They had a 300% increase in CTR.
Most importantly, real-time marketing allows you to stand out. Most marketing emails include visuals and dynamic elements. Real-time marketing gives your customers a chance to say, ‘woah I have never seen that before!’
And isn’t that what all marketers strive to achieve?
2. Interactive Content
Personalization is a HUGE part of an interactive email. It’s all been said and done- personalize the name, location, and company of the client. But what if you could personalize the value you add to their business? If you can provide the prospect/client with specifically tailored content and make sure its time efficient- you have already won half of the game! Interactive content helps you do just that!
Suppose you are a car dealer. To make your email interactive, you can embed a an interactive quiz like this one:
Or suppose you own a company that sells financial services. A calculator like this might not be a bad idea:
Interactive content requires the active participation of your subscribers. Moreover, it increases your email conversion rate drastically. How? Well, quizzes and calculators collect a lot of valuable and additional information from the customer. For instance, have a look at the car quiz above. The subscribers will have to disclose their budget and personal preference to find their ideal car. This information can then be used to build a detailed buyer persona and hence, a more personalized email.
The subscribers get instant results for their queries and you get more sales. It a win-win for all!
Pro Tip: Have a look at this article to know about the best brands using interactive marketing.
3. Adding Unique Experiences
A while back, we were discussing the average marketer’s pursuit for the ‘wow’ effect. Adding unique experiences to your email yields the same result.
Delighting the customers has become the top priority now. All the latest business models (Ahem, Flywheel) are putting the customer at the center and making them the main driver of business growth. Putting this practice to use in marketing emails is just as important.
There are many ways you can include quirky and witty elements into your emails. You can embed cards that reveal information on happening of a certain action. Some examples are- scratch cards, zip cards, peel cards, slide cards and many more.
Gwynnie Bee put the practice of scratch cards to good use. Their subscribers could “scratch off” each area to reveal prizes or discount.
Research shows that 205 billion emails are sent per day. Unique experiences like scratch cards can help you cut through that noise. And moreover,
This could be fun, don’t you think?
4. Include Videos
According to a study by Martech Advisor, you can increase the CTR of your emails by 300% by including a video.
Videos are significant for your marketing emails because they draw the attention of the customers. Most viewers skim through marketing emails so videos the customers to retain that information later. Furthermore, it is time-saving for the sender as well as the subscribers. Videos go viral quickly and have a higher shareability. Are these reasons enough to include videos in your emails? ‘Cz we can go on all day! (unlike those videos which we suggest you keep short. :D)
You can include promotional, how-to and product related videos in your emails. However, make sure your videos aren’t on autoplay. That tends to irritate the customers.
It is also possible that some of your subscribers may not be able to view your video. To counter this problem you can create a “fallback image”. This is a static image that users will see if they can’t view the video. Most importantly, send content that your subscribers want to see. This can be a software tutorial, customer service explanations, or even customer testimonials.
Just have a look at this amazing example by Sally Hogshead:
So, what do you say? Ready to videofy your emails?
5. Include Menus
Marketers are always looking for ways to include as much information possible in their emails. You don’t want your email to be cluttered but at the same time, you want it to be detailed and comprehensive. Quite a conundrum hun?
Thankfully, including menus in emails solves that problem right away. A lot of marketers link their emails to their landing page. However, most subscribers cannot be bothered to click on it. Having menus in emails allows your customer/prospects to easily navigate through various options right in the email. Moreover, emails with navigation improve the UI aspect of the email. In fact, these emails become mailable microsites. Most importantly, having menus in your emails will boost its’ CTR.
Let us show you an example:
This interactive email by REI sums up our point exactly. They created a minimally designed email. The navigation menu is hidden here and the user may interact with it to redirect to the required page.
Conclusion
We know we know- we just gave you truckloads of ideas! The good news is that there are loads of tools in the market that can help you do that!
Outgrow, for one, can help you with all your interactive email needs with their quizzes, calculators, polls, and chatbots. Sounds like a one-stop solution, doesn’t it?
Do you think there are any other interactive elements that we missed here? Let us know in the comments below.
****This is a guest post from Etee Dubey. Etee is a full-time Content and Outreach Specialist at Outgrow and a part-time dreamer. In her free time, she catches up with her reading and explains the meaning of her eccentric name to the people around her.****
