Result-Oriented Email Marketing Tips for Software Development Companies

Email marketing is one of the main bases of businesses that play a crucial role in gathering customers and increasing sales. It is generally an act of sending commercial emails to a group of people for marketing purposes. It is the fastest and flexible way to reach new clients or customers for making business deals, increase traffic to a site, improve brand loyalty, etc. Email marketing is the best way to keep your audience aware and informed about your product updates and deals.

Looking for the opportunities which the others had left is the main strength of an Email Marketer. To reach the new heights of success, he/she must be in a position to think like an Email Marketing magician and should able to gather the attention of the user. Many Digital Marketers use this strategy to promote the products or services of Software development companies and maintains a potential relationship with their customers.

Here are the significant tips for email marketing that would work for them like a magic:

Table of Content

Having One CTA and Linking to it Twice!

“Having just one clear CTA per email and linking to it TWICE!

When we first started emailing those that had signed up our blog's newsletter, we found that our open rates were respectable, but our click-through rates were abysmal! For a while we couldn't work out why; and instead went ahead by actually increasing the number of links per email to a variety of different blog posts. In the end, this got us nowhere until we tried the opposite approach, having just one clear CTA per post (a certain page we wanted them to visit) and then linking to it twice per email. Once at the start as an in-text link, and one at the end as a large button. This focus allowed the quality and usefulness of each email's content to go up and also to double, if not triple, our click-through rates.”

- Cazzy Magennis, The Co-Founder & Travel Writer @ DREAM BIG, TRAVEL FAR

Using Segmentation to the List

“My biggest tip for email marketers is to use segmentation. It's amazing how effective it is, and it doesn't add much more time or effort to the process. I have a main list I'll send some offers and communications to, however I also segment my lists, Klaviyo makes this super easy with the connection to Shopify. If I'm sending out a weekend deal or 4rth of July Deal, I may hit my main list with an email like Huge Holiday Supplement Sale, however I'll also target say my pre-workout buyers with a subject line like 20% OFF Your Favorite Pre-Workouts. The open rates are substantially higher when you personalize an email to that buyers’ habits or past purchases.”

- John Frigo, Digital Marketing Lead at My Supplement Store

“The tip that's converted best for me is to segment and purge constantly. Your subscribers should never stay on one general list. They should be separated based on their interests, location, how often they engage with your content, etc. And you need to constantly prune your list because a lot of people will never open your emails. The longer you keep them on your list, the worst your conversion rate becomes. And the higher the chance that they'll just decide to tag your list as spam, which can get a strike against you with several mailing list services.

So always practice good list maintenance. I like to do it at least once a month, but I'd recommend every 2 weeks if you have a lot of subscribers.”

- Rex Freiberger, President and Managing Partner at GadgetReview

“The one thing that worked for me in email marketing is segmentation. There are many ways to do it and many more ways to segment your data. But the reason it works is it makes the content your readers are receiving relevant to their needs. Most websites, mine included, cover a range of topics. Not everyone would want to receive those. So, in order make sure people don’t unsubscribe because the content becomes no longer relevant, make sure you segment your email list.”

- Ariel Lim, Digital Marketing Consultant at Ariel Lim Consulting

“In email marketing, you need to get high open rates. Without opens, nothing else matters. You will not get clicks, replies, or anything else.

My tip to improve email marketing open rates is to analyze open rates. When I send an email to my list, I create a new segment based on those who did not open the email in the first 24 hours. Then I write a new subject line and first line of the email to entice those people to open the message. The body content of the email stays the same. This simple process generates more opens for your emails.”

-Bruce Harpham, SaaS Marketing Consultant at BruceHarpham

“My big magic email marketing tip?

Segment your subscribers!

Segmenting your subscribers into different groups and setting up customized automation sequences for various audiences lets you get super granular and speak directly to different individual groups within your wider audience pool. For example, on our site, individuals who visit a page about puppies get a different opt-in form and are put into a different group specifically for puppy owners. They then get a 5-7 custom email automation sequence with tips on how to care for puppies, before getting added to my larger, more general automation sequence about dog care.

Using more customized emails has DOUBLED my open rates and click-through rates! And good news - most email marketing software has built-in segmenting tools, so this isn't hard to set up! “

- Megan Marrs, Founder of K9 of Mine

“One thing that really worked for email marketing for us was segmenting our lists immediately during signup. When someone wants to subscribe to our mailing list, we let them choose one or more categories that they are interested in. That way, they can immediately tell us what kind of content they want to read and we don’t have to send them any spam or unwanted sales materials. It takes just a little bit more work to get this done but the results are more than worth it. All of our metrics have gone up significantly ever since we started segmenting immediately at signup.”

- Dennis Vu, the CEO and Co-founder of Ringblaze

Use Subscriber's First Name in the Subject Line of their Email

“I’ve drawn on my 15-year experience to equip people to live on purpose. Part of that equipping is professional development, where I coach creatives and entrepreneurs in the digital space!

*The number one tip I tell my coaching clients is to use their subscriber's first name in the subject line of their email. *Using this tactic not only increases open and click-thru rates significantly but personalizes your brands message in a unique way. This can be implemented by utilizing the dynamic data or merge tags within your subject line.”

- Jenny Randle, a Speaker, Author and Ministry Founder of Freedom Creatives

Customize Your Emails Based on Demographics

“ As one who utilizes email marketing strategies, here is my one tip for email marketing:

Customize your emails based on demographics. Personalization is more than just using the receiver's name. You would talk differently to someone younger than someone who's older. If you're selling products, you also have a different strategy when you market it to men and women. Go the extra mile and personalize your emails to the person or business you're talking to. This would really speak to your reader in a certain way that truly relates to them. As for your business, it would appear that you are extra attentive to your customer's interests and personality, which are obvious brownie points. I hope this helps.”

- Tom Spicky, Digital marketing expert and founder of Tom Spicky

“Altering our sender name to personalize it for each narrow vertical demographic we serve with email marketing was highly effective for us, and helped to reduce the degree to which our content was funneled to spam or junk mail folders, and increased our email opening rates. This is something that needs to be handled with care, as sometimes a generic or corporate title will disincentivize opening for some audiences, while for others, a first name/last name approach with an unknown name will itself result in the content being ignored as assumed spam or even phishing.

Knowing your audience demographics and targeting them appropriately is the key to this, and a one size fits all approach definitely does not serve this well.”

- Polly Kay, Senior Marketing Manager at English Blinds

Use Personalization Feature to Add in Recipient’s First Name

“I have built my online business through the strategic use of email marketing. As a handmade seller who sells most often at art and craft fairs, I have had the ability to grow a very warm audience by collecting signups at in-person events, where the subscribers have met me and many times have purchased from me.

The one tip that seems to work like magic every time: using the personalization feature to add in the recipient's first name. Writing the email to ONE person makes the communication much more intimate, and adding in that first name takes it to the next level. I always see much higher open and click-through rates when I use this feature.”

- LucyKelly, an Artist/owner at bel monili & Bloom by bel monili

Giving Viewers the Content They Actually Want

“Email marketing is an excellent way to keep your brand at the forefront of people’s minds - but when done sloppily, they can come off as aggressive, annoying, or downright obnoxious. The key to a successful email marketing campaign is giving people content they actually want. Brandcave did a study on the email marketing performance of a $200M private company to find out what type of email campaigns were the most successful. In the end, we found that the campaigns with the highest open rates included:

25-26% open rate: Trending industry-specific topics

25-26% open rate: Company announcement (“Letter from CEO…”)

20-22% open rate: New marketing items perform well IF the item is mentioned (“New Podcast”, “New Brochures”, “New Drop-in Spec-Sheet”)

17%-19% open rate: “How to” emails generally perform poorly (“How to Reduce Infiltration”, “How to Create a Desalination Pipeline System”)

We’ve found that our email campaigns tend to be the most successful when we have an enticing subject line, a well-designed template, and content that is fun to consume. Of course, not every brand is a ‘‘fun’ brand, but any organization can send engaging content. Even something simple, like adding multimedia content such as a video, gif, or a well-chosen image, can dramatically increase an email’s click-through-rate, especially when that content is useful to the viewer.”

- Holly Winters from BrandCave

“Mailing lists are a great channel for attracting new sales and growing an audience that's engaging and active. One of the best tips for being as efficient and as successful as possible in creating great mails and engaging your readers is - to be mindful of time. In other words, make sure you know when it's best to address your readers, and when they would prefer not to be disturbed. Segment your readers by the time zone, and the time they're most active, and order your postings and mailings around those times. You'll increase the chance of people actually reading and engaging with your content, but you will also increase the chance of a follow up contact and a possible sale.”

-Bryan Stoddard, passionate Home Designer from Homewares Insider

“One tip for email marketing: Weave a story. Nobody likes to read text full of jargon and laden with insider industry words that feels completely dead and emotionless. Remember the person reading the email is a human being and nothing sparks interest and curiosity so much as a good story. Try to create a compelling narrative around the product or service that your business is selling. Writing a well thought-out email woven around a story of what you're offering will have a tremendous impact on the readers.”

-Noman Nalkhande from WP Adventure

“Keep it SUPER simple, like just heading, a mini-description, and C2A. That's it. I've seen this working numerous times and have won valuable client tbh.”

-LaylaaS. Saeed, Executive Assistant at EFANI INC

“She said there is no 1 tip that works like magic, but she stated these 3 tips in order of importance so maybe you can use the first one:

Overall, being short and to the point is critical. A lot of people do not read the full email these days or will not read it if it is too long.

Also important, focus on them, not you/the company. People get tons of cold emails these days and nobody cares about what you do unless you solve a problem they have.

Lastly, from a delivery perspective, warm up your sending IP with an initial email sendout that has no links or only 1 link. Once you have this going after a couple weeks, then you can add a link or two into the email send outs.”

- Sami Koudmani, PR Manager at Mercato

Email New Subscribers within 24 Hours of Joining

“Email new subscribers within 24 hours of them joining your email list.

This can be done effortlessly by creating an automated email workflow that sends an email to new subscribers.

The first 24 hours of someone joining your email list is when your brand is most on their mind.

Send them a welcome email that gives them a good first impression, and leaves them wanting to know more about your brand, or purchase something from your website.”

-Anthony Barnard, Online Course creator at BlackBrick Training

“My one tip for email marketing that has worked 'like magic' is emailing new contacts within 24 hours. It's a very simple strategy, but it works well to keep our readers and potential clients engaged. We also see it as an opportunity to make sure we've made a great first impression by offering more information they will find helpful or interesting.”

-Kimberly Porter, CEO at Microcredit Summit

“Setting up an auto-responder email campaign that includes my highest converting affiliate links has worked like magic to set up a recurring revenue source for new subscribers I don't have to touch. Anyone who has an email list should set up and monetize an auto-responder email campaign for new subscribers.”

- Stacy Caprio from Deals Scoop

Offer Discounts on e-Commerce Platform

“For ecommerce brands the most opened email by far will be your Order Confirmation email. The first email after a sale, or newsletter sign up is an often overlooked opportunity to engage a captive audience. Use this time to cross sell, or up sell based off the original action, or item bought. A great example of this is a discount on socks offered in the confirmation email of a shoe sale.”

- Brandon Wright from ThoughtLab.

“The one thing that has always worked for me is to create value or a win-win situation. Always offer something in return when asking for anything. That creates goodwill and makes it hard for the other person to say no.”

- AbdulRehman, a Cyber Security editor at VPNRanks

Keep Your Design Clean and Straight to the Point

“A good tip for email marketing is to keep your design clean and straight to the point, especially if the email is part of a campaign to increase conversions or sales such as abandoned carts.

In our experience, improving less-than-desirable designs has skyrocketed conversion numbers. It's simple really, keep your message to the point and your target audience is less likely to get caught in the weeds with a confusing design.

- Alexia Koerkenmeier, Incharge of Email Marketing at Blue Laser Digital

Email Survey Links to Specific Audience, Requesting Help to a Project

“A great tip I have for email marketing is to consider how you can be 'real' with the person you're speaking to, especially if it's a cold email. A good example, I have an email tool I was using for cold emails, and it really wasn't performing well. For my business, I do a lot of surveys, and I decided to try the cold email sender to email survey links to a specific audience, requesting help with a project. Not only did I have a much higher response rate than anything I'd ever done sales-wise, but I also ended up with a lot of actual leads, all from people who were genuinely interested in what I had going on research and survey-wise.

My point is, that survey email was never intended to be a huge sales push, but it's actually performed that way. It's relevant to my business, people like helping each other, and it started some good conversations. However, you can make that recipe work for your own email marketing, it'll perform well for you!”

-MATTHEW SELTZER, Market Research & Strategy Consultant at S2 Research

Keep Your Email with One Link and Position Your CTA to it

We use a sales funnel model that provides free content on one end (in exchange for an email address) and drip feeds content through an email list until the customer comes to associate our brand with quality and seeks out our services.

The best tip I can give is to do exactly *one *thing with each email. One message you're getting across, one piece of content, one CTA, one link. The more you have in there, the more the message gets muddled and the more your audience gets spilt.

With links, especially, you run the risk of them clicking on a lower priority link and never converting via the link you want them to click. Keep it to just one and position your CTAs throughout the email, through text, buttons, and images. Track each individually to see what works best.

- Dan Bailey, President at WikiLawn

Include a Clear and Simple Call to Action on Click

“Include a concrete and simple ‘call to action’.

If you want to build your audience, you need to have some sort of response from people. The best strategy is to include a clear and simple call to action that people will be likely to click on. They should know very clearly where the CTA leads and it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two for people to participate. For instance, if you want additional subscribers, simplify the process so that everything can be done in just a few clicks. Or let’s say you want a donation - make sure that you set up a payment method that is secure and easy to complete. Otherwise, people won’t spend much time trying to figure out what to do and you may lose potential followers.”

- Aleksandar Hrubenja, Co-Founder of ModernGentlemen

Create Customized CTA Buttons Optimized for Mobile

“One of the most effective tips for email marketing is this: create customized CTA (call to action) buttons that are optimized for mobile, and be sure to place them above the fold in your message. This is important for two reasons; first, a vast majority (many estimates show over 50%) of email is being opened on mobile platforms, and second, mobile browsing requires a lot of scrolling. By placing your interactive (clickable) elements (call to action button, hyperlinked images, text link, etc.) near the top of the email, you're more likely to get engagement. Bonus tip; add alt text to your CTA buttons to ensure they are readable should the image get blocked by the recipient’s email provider. This simple trick has helped our clients realize meaningful increases in both click through rate and conversions.”

-Tyson Bell, Co-Founder of Octiv Digital

Make Easy and Clear Communication and Get to the Point Right Away

“One email marketing tip that has always worked well for me in past campaigns: make the value of your communication clear, easy to understand, and easy to act on.

When writing the subject line, tell people why you are reaching out in an actionable way. What benefit will your reader get from opening up the email? When writing the actual email copy, keep it short, succinct and get to the point right away. Illustrate what positive personal or business outcome they can receive by engaging with you. Tell the prospect what action you want them to take. Provide a call-to-action: a link, scheduling option, or call back number - but make it clear what action you want them to take.

On top of all this, be persistent. It often takes several touchpoints in an email marketing campaign to grab someone's attention. If they haven't opted out, there is still a chance they may be the perfect candidate for your product or service.”

- ColtonDe Vos, Marketing and Communications Specialist at Resolute Technology Solutions

Use Emojis with Good Subject Line

“My #1 trick to get more email open rates is to use emojis in the subject line.

Because we are all bombarded with dozens of emails every day, you need to stand out if you want to get eyeballs on your emails. Emojis are hard to miss in an inbox, and will just about guarantee the recipient will see the subject line.”

- Nicolas Fradet, CRO consultant at nicolasfradet.com

“One tip that has worked for me is crafting a good subject title for my emails. The subject title is the first thing that your consumers see. It needs to be powerful, catchy and yet not spammy-looking. It is pretty tough to get it right from the get go so you might need rounds of testing and tweaks in between to get the perfect title.”

- Albert Reyes, Founder of Home Living Lab

“Using Emoji in the subject line is one magical tip. Through this, you can give a positive response to the customer or target audience. Emojis are fun and effective ways to communicate which attract and grab the reader's attention.”

- Ali Ubaid Rajput from Decrum

“90% of your effort should aim at writing the perfect subject line. If people don't open your email, your content doesn't matter at all.

For your subject line, play around with emojis, numbers, and emotional words, do A/B testing, and find out what works best for your audience.”

- Eulises DavidFlores, Content Manager at Titioma

“Email marketing is a marketing strategy that deals with sending emails to potential customers to promote awareness of your product and continuously keeping them updated for future content. As a relationship expert, email marketing has been useful to me due to the fact that it helps me communicate with my customers in isolation and give them advice that is applicable to each one of them.

Here is my best tip for email marketing:

Powerful Subject Lines.

Subject lines are the first thing that audiences will notice and having a powerful subject line will drive them to read your content. Formulate irresistible subject lines that will stand out on your potential audience’s inbox as it will encourage them to respond to your emails. Keep your audiences interested and create a subject line that will complement their taste on a particular subject. Don’t exaggerate subject lines since it will affect the overall appearance of your email’s content and it will lead to unsubscription.”

- Sonya Schwartz, Founder @ Her Norm

Using Tactic “Oops! Email” in the Subject Line Get Great Open Rates

“One of my favorite tactics for email is the oops! email. People, unfortunately, love to relish in other's mistakes so emails with an Oops subject line get great open rates.

You can use this tactic if you've made an error (e.g., broken link, wrong promo code) or you can also just use it with a marketing spin – for example, Oops! we ordered too many speakers and need to liquidate now!”

-Antonella Pisani, CEO at Eyeful Media LLC

“Email marketing has been a part of our marketing strategy since our business runs through the Internet. It’s one of the effective ways to gain traffic to my business and today that almost all businesses are switching to this online marketing, many companies also trying this Email marketing. Based on my experience, the best tip on Email marketing by using power words in your subject line. Words like % off, freebie, get this now, last chance of purchasing, etc… This is the most and best technique to engage your target customer to open your email. Thus, making your marketing successful.”

-John Howard, CEO @ COUPON LAWN

Perfect Your Headlines and Your Headline Writing Skills

“I have a hard time choosing just one email marketing tip because there are so many pieces that go together to make a good email marketing campaign so I'll share two that really improved my success rate:

1) Perfect your headlines and your headline writing skills. You greatly improve your open rate by really working out the best possible headlines. Use headlines that pique people's curiosity and makes people want to click to find out what you were talking about in your headline. Brainstorm multiple headlines and pick the two that you think work the best and run an A/B test to a portion of your audience to see which one gets the best click-through rate. You may be surprised at what you find.

2) Use personal stories that people can relate to. People are much more likely to read your emails if you engage them with stories that you've lived to that relate to your business. People like to know who is communicating with them rather than just a faceless corporation.”

- Brandon Ballweg, a Photographer and Founder of ComposeClick

Provide Personalized Offer or Advice to a Particular Segment

“One tip for email marketing that has worked for you like magic:

A personalized offer or advice for a specific segment has always worked work for open and click rates. Be sure to keep your subject line to 41 to 62 characters so that it loads on mobile.”

- Olivia Tsang, Email Marketing Manager at SuperMoney

Send Emails During Weekends and Include with Catchy Subject Lines

“With my kind of work, I have sent hundreds of emails to my subscribers and prospective clients all the time. I always make sure that my subject line is short and catchy, and that my content is easy to read and understand. By doing this, I get good feedbacks most of the time.

One of the strategies that really worked for me was timing and frequency. I conclude my observation based on how and when my clients respond to my email. It is best to send emails during weekends so they can read it on weekdays and act on it accordingly. I also made a list depending on which country they are in, and what time zone they have so I can send my emails at an appropriate time. Make sure that you also send them regularly but not every day so they can be hooked and engaged in connecting with you.”

- Samantha Moss, Editor & Content Ambassador at romantific.com

Grouping the Audience Based on Gender, Location, etc.

“Email marketing has been an important component in the growth of my business. There are many tips that I would consider successful. But if I were to choose one, it would be this: make it personal.

This is in reference to three things. First, group your audience based on gender, age, location, etc. Tailor emails for each section so everyone gets an email that resonates with them and feels personal.

Second, have your name or an employee's name in the sender's field. Receiving an email from a company or department doesn't make the recipient feel special. It can even feel cold. But a real person's name in the sender's field feels warm and friendly.

Third, include the recipient's name. 'Dear Nancy' will have better results than 'Dear customer/reader'.

This one tip has greatly improved my conversion rate. I hope it was helpful. Thanks for the opportunity.”

- David De Haan from Stand Up Paddle Boards Review

Using More Bullet Lists with Links

“Email marketing nowadays is very complicated, due to lots of competition. So, we tried different different methods.to get more subscribers and leads. As first, we try some different and regular methods like use CTA(call-to-action), but due to CTA our mails get dropped in spams. So, we try one tip that uses More bullet lists and uses more links so that even if a new user clicks anywhere by mistake it can be best for me as marketing. So always try to use more links(hidden).”

- Wredman sola, Admin at theprogrammingx

Use Power Words in the Subject that Motivate Users to Open & Click

“People want to feel like they’re more than just a number. So, to further make your emails more personable, include the recipient’s name. Subject lines should inspire readers to take action. So, include power words that motivate audiences to open and click. Never use all-caps. Always include call-to-action in your email.”

-Riddhi Khatri, Sr. SEO Executive at Elsner Technologies

Send the Same Email with Different Subject Lines

“The thing which improved our email marketing was very simple. ‘Send the same email with different subject lines’.

This sounds very simple and yet I only see few marketers who are using this. If you are sending weekly or monthly newsletters only once per issue you are missing out on a bunch of traffic. We increased our traffic by more than 10% after setting up the rule to send another email with a different subject line for subscribers who haven't opened the first one.

This simple trick doesn't require nothing more than setting this up in your email marketing software and coming up with another subject line, and yet it brings a noticeable difference.”

-Aleksandar Pesic, Growth Manager at InvoiceQuick

Resend the Better Emails

“This is one trick that my business has been using for a while, and let me tell you, it works like a charm every time! The process is simple. When one of our email campaigns gains success, we tweak it to make it a little better and send it to our new subscribers. In fact, we also resend the better version to the ones who didn’t open the email the first time around. It has also helped me and my team understand what our prospects like, leading to improved campaigns in the future.

The repeating has driven more traffic to our site more times than I can count on one hand!

- Jitesh Keswani, CEO of E-INTELLIGENCE

Include a Countdown Timer in Your Sales Emails

“One tip would be to include a countdown timer in your sales emails. Especially in “final reminders” or “last day of the sale” emails, including a countdown timer helps to create a sense of urgency and a higher click-through rate, which ultimately leads to higher revenue. This has definitely helped to increase our click through rates when sending out follow up promotional emails.”

- Carissa Rogers, Email Marketing Manager @ Your Marketing People

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