3 simple strategies for an improved approach to email marketing

In today's hyper-competitive marketing climate, with everyone clamoring for their voices to be heard, companies are eager to connect with consumers through their inboxes, delivering emails that will reach their intended recipients in their targeted demographics. But of course, getting through in the first place is only one small part of the battle. There's a lot more to success than simple email marketing deliverability.

More importantly, companies today are looking to differentiate themselves from the pack, designing and writing messages that are more compelling and thus more likely to hold people's interest. It's not uncommon for the typical online user to receive dozens of emails per day - how can any one company stand out from that crowd?

According to Business 2 Community, this question is important because if done right, email has a chance to offer tantalizing levels of ROI.

"The return on investment for email marketing is high, about $40 for every $1 spent," Jill Bastian, community education and training manager at VerticalResponse, told the news source. "This is not only a fantastic number to see, but it's also held pretty steady over the years. Email marketing is very inexpensive, usually just pennies per email. It reaches lots of people and can bring in sales/donations very quickly."

Having said that, it's still important to strive for improvement. Here are three primary ways that companies are looking to craft better marketing emails:

More interesting content
Simply put: The better an email is written, the more likely it is to be effective. Do you have a catchy and click-worthy subject line? Does the content of your message get to the point elegantly and succinctly? Is there a clear call to action at the end that monetizes the content? All of these elements matter.

More engaging designs
Visual choices are also important. Little decisions like the font and background color of a message might not seem like much, but they can make all the difference. If a design is too loud and distracting, people might delete and unsubscribe, but if a message looks welcoming, they may read on.

Better social media tie-ins
In addition, you want the other elements of your online marketing strategy to work in concert with one another. One example of this is connecting your email content to your social media presence. If your messages urge people to follow you on Twitter, this will continue a cycle of engagement that ultimately makes people more likely to become paying customers.