Email marketing is, without a doubt, one of the most effective strategies for companies to promote their products and/or services. It offers a return on investment (ROI) of 28.5 percent, which is four times higher than that of direct mail.

When it comes to value, hosts of studies have established that businesses earn $44 for every $1 they invest in email marketing. But even after spending heavily on email marketing, you may still fail to reap its full benefits. This is why this guide will discuss 5 tips to improve your email marketing to help you exploit its full potential.

You must keep increasing the number of subscribers that consume your content. If you fail to recruit new subscribers continuously, your current recipient may stop consuming your content or unsubscribe from your email list altogether and your campaign will promptly switch from being active to stagnant. And once your campaign becomes stagnant, you’ll see a sharp decline in your sales volume and profit margins. So it’s wise to keep on building your subscriber list.

Below are a few ways to do that:

* Add subscriber buttons on all your website’s landing pages

* All your landing pages should have pop-up or slide-in images

* Add surveys that are scheduled to appear while potential subscribers are browsing

* Use your social media platforms to promote your email newsletter

* Explain in detail the benefits visitors will reap from being part of your email list

* Incorporate a call-to-action (CTA) subscriber button somewhere within the order process

* Add some gated content on your website. That way, visitors will have to provide their contact information before they can access that content.

* If you have an eCommerce site, you can create a special offer whereby a visitor provides an email address and they get a coupon in return.

* Contribute regularly on Quora and include a link to your website in each of your posts.

* Incorporate sharing buttons into your thank you page, your lead magnets, and even your email signature so that your current subscribers can get the word out there for you.

Segmenting your subscribers involves placing your recipients into thoughtfully organized lists. Some of the parameters that you should consider when creating these lists include demographics, subscriber status, psychographics, or products purchased. Once you segment your subscribers, it’ll be easier for you to tailor your content to suit their unique needs. In turn, you’ll enjoy enhanced conversion rates.

In fact, data on Campaign Monitor shows that segmented campaigns result in a 760% increase in revenue.

Segmenting your subscribers enables you to send the appropriate amount of email. This helps you keep your email-averse subscribers from unsubscribing early while engaging your loyal subscribers adequately. Segmentation also allows you to improve your sending frequency.

Identify your most engaged and dedicated subscribers and then isolate them in a section of your list. You can then keep them engaged by sending them more emails without offending other subscribers in your email list.

Although most marketers know the value of personalization, many don’t give it the seriousness it deserves. Personalized content is one of the most reliable ways to improve the effectiveness of email marketing.

Studies have shown that personalized emails provide six times greater transaction rates compared to emails that lack any personalization. Other statistics show click-through rates (CTRs) and conversion rates increase by 14 percent and 10 percent respectively when subscribers interact with personalized email content.

Personalizing email content requires more than just adding the name of the subscriber to the content. It involves tailoring the content to resonate with the recipient. For instance, you can use your customer’s previous purchases to come up with tailored content. You can also personalize location imagery.

The images you incorporate into the email could be informed by the location or any other attribute associated with that specific customer segment. Be sure to invest in great services for your email marketing so you can organize your subscriber list, send personalized content on time, and perform other valuable tasks required to make your marketing efforts successful.

Monitoring campaign success provides you with useful insights for improving future campaigns. For example, if you discover your CTR is under-performing, you could perform A/B tests on different subject lines to identify the best format to improve CTR among your subscribers.

You may also discover that your recipients are visiting your website but never purchasing from you. That often means your email content isn’t compelling enough for recipients to want to buy from you. The best way to handle this problem is by incorporating a limited time offer or even a promo code. You could also experiment with different CTAs to identify one that will significantly improve your conversion rate.

If you notice your unsubscribe rate is steadily increasing, then you need to find ways to bring it down. You can start by revising your welcome emails to make them more compelling. Make your subject lines precise and catchy. Make your new subscribers feel special by providing them with discounts and exclusive content. Another crucial aspect of your email marketing campaign worth tracking and improving is the forward/share rate.

Remember if your current subscribers are forwarding your emails and sharing your content, that’s a clear sign that they are becoming your brand’s ambassadors and driving leads towards your business.  So how do you increase your forward/share rate? By creating high-quality content that users can put into practice, creating infographics, triggering emotions, making the most out of trendy topics, adding fun into your content, using video content, and more.

A study from Litmus and BlueHornet reveals that 71 percent of users will delete an email right away if it fails to display properly on their mobile devices. To keep your emails from heading directly to the trash, it’s wise to concentrate on developing stunning and highly engaging email content that’s optimized for mobile devices. Choose a single-column design that facilitates seamless vertical scroll.

Use high-quality images and make your headlines bold. Ensure there is adequate whitespace for effortless scanning and use short subject lines. Also, make your CTA buttons big enough for easy tapping. Most importantly, select the best alternative that can provide you with a user-friendly interface and excellent features at a budget-friendly cost.

With email marketing services such as MailChimp, you can check how your messages appear on a wide array of devices and in various inboxes, including Outlook 2011 or Gmail in Chrome browser, and ensure your designs display appropriately.

Alternatively, you can utilize responsive designs to craft your emails, especially if you aren’t employing any email service to check how your message will display on a variety of devices. Implementing a responsive design in all of your emails can significantly increase your mobile click-to-open rate (CTO).

Email marketing is the most lucrative type of digital marketing channel. But there are a few areas you need to get right in order to enjoy its full benefits. They include subscriber list building, segmentation of subscribers, content personalization, CTRs, and optimization of email content for mobile devices. Get this right and you are in for a positive marketing experience.