Building of Email Chains: 8 Tips & Tricks

You wake up, open your eyes and take your iPhone. One of the first things we do in the morning is checking our social networks and mailbox. Most of emails are mercilessly deleted at once. If you’re a marketer then you’ve got just few precious seconds of user’s attention before he deletes your email. Forever.

How to build email chains which are interesting enough to be opened by your subscribers?

Here you can find some advice.

1. Separate MQL from SQL

Examine your website and list all of your subscription forms. Some of forms might be oriented for people who showed some weak interest in your business while other ones may be useful for those who were interested particularly in the purchase of your product.

That is where the definition of MQL and SQL comes from.

Marketing Qualified Leads are the ones who want to subscribe for newsletters, to keep updated about special offers or to download some useful information from your website.

Sales Qualified Leads are your potential customers who acknowledge their need in your product and almost ready to buy.

Obviously it’s much better to adopt email chains for needs of these two types of the audience.

2. Set up one goal for one email

Every business owner wants to achieve all his goals as fast as he can. There is a temptation to encourage email recipient to watch your new product review, to follow your social media and, of course, to click and buy as well.

But the user can’t do that simultaneously.

Keep in mind just one goal you want to achieve with every email in the chain. And make that goal clear for your subscribers.

3. Rise up the the strength of CTAs

Do you remember about MQL and SQL? Well, there is a time when MQL should be prepared to become SQL.

Many email marketers use five-point scale. Level 1 means that the letter has just informational goal and encourages reader to watch some video or to read some blog post. Level 3 typically motivates subscribers to do something or to get something for free. Level 5 means that the letter contains particular offer to purchase some product.

Use this scale and rise up the strength of your Call-To-Actions gradually.

4. Insert If and Else (regarding on the behaviour)

Analyze people’s behaviour to make your email chains more relevant. For example, you can list some product groups and track which one the user choses to click on. Then you can start the new chain which contains the information exactly about the product group picked by the user.

5. Test everything (time, subjects, CTAs, etc)

You can test and compare the efficiency almost of every element of your emails and email chains. Whether you prefer A/B testing or multiple testing you can sharply improve your email campaign.

What can you test?

• Time and day of the week: note when you sent an email with the highest open rate
• Subject lines: test 2-3 subject lines and find out what works better for your audience
• Colour schemes: you can use the same template in different colour schemes
• Buttons and Call-to-Actions: here is the whole Universe of options
• Email signatures: test different email signatures to find out which one is the best for you

6. Use only one design template and speaking manner everywhere

The only one thing you should keep constant and not to test is the template. All emails from your company or brand should have one standard. That makes them easy recognizable for your subscribers.

7. Loop the chain

Regardless whether you’ve got the result you wanted or not try to resend your email chain from the beginning. Of course it’s better of you change some subject lines and offers. And make tests. Over and over.

8. Email signatures

Just as the design template and the manner you speak to your customers the information in your signature should not vary in different emails. Still you can try different styles of email signature to understand which one is the most efficient. If the signature is chosen properly then it might generate calls from your potential clients or at least keep in their minds the information about how to find you when they will be ready to buy.

To find inspiration for creating your own email signature check email signature examples