9 Ways to Use Conversational Email to Boost Your Email Campaigns

Whether done in person or through digital means, there is no denying that conversations help us grow personally and professionally. The same goes for marketing. Whether inbound or outbound, conversations are what keeps businesses alive. Proper communication between clients and companies is vital to strengthening a healthy customer–business dynamic.

If executed properly, email marketing is a convenient yet surefire way to reach your audience. However, there are a few things that you need to implement to keep a conversation going.

What Is Conversational Email?

Conversational email is when brands send emails to existing leads and current consumers to start a conversation on a specific topic. It is one of the fastest ways to reach your target market without being too pushy and encourages people to reply to the email by adding CTAs such as “reply to us if you need anything” or “we can’t wait to hear back from you”.

This particular strategy is a part of conversational marketing. The latter is defined as the way businesses connect with their audience, either through their website, social media channels, SMS marketing, or any type of marketing strategy that involves reaching out to a target market. It provides real-time and one-on-one conversations between the brand and its clients.

Why Email Marketing?

With all the digital marketing strategies available, what makes email marketing one of the best? Before we talk about unique campaign ideas, we’ll talk about some of the reasons email marketing should be a definite part of your strategy.

1. Email is used around the world

Of all the marketing techniques available, email is a form of communication that has been adopted around the world.

By 2020, 3 billion people around the world are expected to use email. And currently, 92% of adults that have access to Internet use email – 61% of them using it every day.

With these numbers, you can conclude that email is a sure-fire way to reach a huge portion of your audience.

2. High ROI

ROI, or return on investment, is the amount of money you make for every dollar you spend. You want a high ROI because that means you’re getting more for your money, and spending it wisely.

The average ROI of an email marketing campaign is 3800%, and 77% of that ROI is derived from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns.

3. Great engagement

Overall, users engage more with email than they do with other forms of digital marketing.

For example, your email is six times more likely to get clicks than a tweet. You can use engaging elements in your emails such as photos, videos, gifs, buttons, and more – and though you can use some of those things in a tweet, emails provide the textual content that a tweet can’t.

Also, your message is five times more likely to be seen if you put it in an email as opposed to Facebook.

4. Creates conversions

Conversions are one of the biggest goals of digital marketing – and conversion rates for emails are considerably high.

In comparison to search engines and social media, email marketing conversion rates are the highest at 4.24% of visitors making a purchase, while search engines see 2.49% of visitors making purchases and only 0.59% for social media.

5. You can personalize each email

When you think of each tweet that goes out to your followers, or each post that you make on Facebook, there are ways to target your audience, but you can’t personalize it to each viewer.

With email marketing, however, you can personalize each email to address each recipient. If you’re not sure how personalization affects your email marketing campaign – trust us, it’s a lot!

When you personalize an email, you’ll see up to six times higher transaction rates. Not to mention, emails with a personalized subject line is 26% more likely to be opened than those that have a generic subject line.

As far as personalization in general, you can personalize your subject lines, and you can even go as far as using the recipient’s name in the opening of the email.

You can also personalize your campaigns so that users interested in specific products or services will receive emails related to those interests.

In fact, those segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of revenue.

6. Real-time deliver

As opposed to a direct mail campaign (or any other form of traditional marketing), your email recipients receive your message in real time.

Whether or not they’ll see your message the minute it arrives in their inbox is hard to tell, but regardless, when you send an email, it gets to the recipient in a matter of seconds.

Direct mailers can take days to deliver – not to mention, with email marketing, you don’t have to pay for postage.

7. Increased and easier communication

With email marketing, it’s easy to start and keep a conversation with your current and potential customers.

For example, if you send out a monthly newsletter that talks about one of your new products, email allows your customers to reach out to you quickly and easily with any questions they may have. And likewise, you’ll have the opportunity to reply quickly and easily – essentially creating an open line of conversation with your customers.

Accessibility is something that all customers look for – especially when they’re uninterested in your product. They want their questions answered before they spend their money on something from your company.

8. Easy to track

If you’re running a direct mail campaign, you’ll never know whether or not the mailer you sent ended up in a filing cabinet, in the trash, or if it was even opened at all. This can be a huge waste of money – both in postage and in paper products.

It also is extremely difficult to know what is and isn’t working in your mailing campaign, because for those that did open your mailer, you have no way of knowing what parts recipients read, what parts they want to know more about, or what parts they were uninterested in.

Email marketing allows you to easily track your emails so you know exactly who opened them, how many times, and when.

You’ll also be able to track what links your subscribers clicked in the email – which lets you know if the content you’re providing is beneficial or if recipients are uninterested.

By tracking your emails, you can craft the perfect content after analysing what your recipients seem to be interested in, what they’re not clicking, and what brings them to your site.

What Are the Benefits of Conversational Emails?

One of the many advantages of conversational email is having the chance to create personalized experiences for your customers. The more the receiver feels like the email has only been sent to them, the more likely they are to reply.

We often hear that a key to successful email marketing is writing like you are having a conversation with the recipient of your message. But what exactly does that mean?

What are the key characteristics of conversational writing? Read on to discover nine ways you can make your next message more conversational—and thus more engaging to your customers.

Here are a few other advantages of conversational emails:

Email Is Convenient

As we have mentioned, email marketing is one of the most convenient ways to communicate with your customers. No matter where your client is located, you can simply contact them via email. Also, unlike with phone calls and SMS, you can send attachments and include important links in the body.

Personalized Experiences Leads to Customer Satisfaction

The more personalized the email is, the higher the chances of your consumers replying to the email. Send your leads personalized emails that you know they would appreciate by addressing them by their name, sending special promos and discounts based on their past buying behaviour. You can also send content based on blogs that they tend to click on.

A Better Understanding of Your Clients

Using testing and proper target market research can help with understanding your clients better. The more you know about your prospects, the better you can personalize your email conversations with them.

Here are a few ways to get a better understanding of your customers’ needs:

• Send out surveys. Provide surveys to your consumers by sending them to their email addresses. You can also add it as a prompt on your website. Ask questions that would add value to the business and to your customers’ buying experience.
• Take a peek at the comments. Comments and testimonials, whether from blog posts, Google reviews, or through social media can help you understand what your buyers really want. Make it a habit to read through all of the comments a few times a week and respond to them.
• Put yourself in their shoes. Creating personas based on the data that you collect can be a good indicator of what your clients are looking for. Study your customers’ buying behaviour as well as the demographics for each customer segment.
• Meet with your sales team. Your salespeople are the ones who talk to your clients the most, so brainstorm with them at least once a month. Ask them the most common pain points your clients are experiencing. Work on these issues and see if the response gets better.

Getting to know your buyers better will help you decide what content to put out in your email newsletters and that can help start continuous conversations.

The Chance to Create Positive Experiences

A good buying experience leaves a lasting impression on customers. Marketers might think that the only way to give their consumers a positive buying experience is through social media and their website. However, continuous email conversations can also be implemented to create a stronger bond with them.

Here are a couple of ways you can use conversational email to leverage your email campaigns:

Start With the Subject Heading

Customers won’t open an email if the subject line is not interesting enough. Therefore, you need to encourage them to stop and read the email content before you can start a conversation with them.

Here are some tips for writing an inviting subject heading that encourages people to engage:

1. Keep it concise and straight to the point.
2. Pique the reader’s interest by asking a question, and then answer it in the body of the email.
3. Use numbers in your subject line.
4. Be creative and think outside the box.
5. Immediately address them by their name.

Set a Warm and Inviting Tone

A lot of companies think sounding like a robot means they sound professional. That’s not true. You can still come off as a professional without seeming too serious or robotic.

Humanize your emails by using a direct, warm, and inviting tone. Customers aren’t inclined to reply to emails that sound flat or feel as if they are talking to a brick wall. Use words that you would normally use in conversations, and see to it that the email flows naturally. Avoid using jargon and use words that your customers can easily understand.

Provide a Brief Q&A Portion

Present a question and follow it up with a direct answer. To make it even more conversational, add a call-to-action at the end of the email.

Here are some CTAs that you can use to encourage people to reply to the email:

1. “Email us back to know more.”
2. “Got any more questions? We’d be more than happy to hear back from you!”
3. “For more questions and answers, please reply to this email directly.”
4. “We love hearing back from our customers. Hit the reply button if you have any questions.”

Offering solutions to your consumers’ pain points can help start a conversation and build a relationship with the brand.

Personalize Your Email Campaigns

As mentioned earlier, keeping your emails personalized can increase the chances of your readers replying to the email.

Here are a few more tips to make your email content personalized:

1. Segment your email lists to make the content relevant to the receivers.
2. Address them by their first or last name.
3. Use behaviour triggers based on their past actions.
4. Send personalized birthday email greetings.
5. Send tutorial videos and instructions based on what they have recently bought from you.
6. Suggest relevant items and send them content they’d love.

Include Your Business’ Contact Details

Give your audience the opportunity to reach out to you in different ways. You can do this by adding your social media links to the email, your business’ direct phone number, and even a map of your physical location (if you have one). The more options you offer, the better the chances you have of them engaging with the brand.

Give Your Audience Something in Return

Reward your clients by giving them something in exchange for their loyalty to the brand. If they are new subscribers, then make sure to send them a welcome email that contains what’s in store for them. Offer a coupon or discount codes that they can use on their next purchase. If you want to go the extra mile, you can always consider sending them actual gifts.

Additionally, you can keep the conversation going by letting your customers know about upcoming contests and promotions. You. Take the opportunity to inform them of special tips and tricks on how to improve their chances of winning. Not only will it seem that the email sent to them is personalized, but they will also feel that you care enough to let them in on some “secrets”.

Try Different Approaches

There is nothing wrong with trying out different approaches to email marketing. There is no rule book or strict guideline that you should follow when sending out emails to your customers. Try different methods and see which ones your clients respond best to Track the metrics and see which strategies make your customers reply to your emails.

The best part about email marketing is that it is cost-effective. You do not have to worry about spending too much to build a relationship with your patrons. Stick to the methods that work and keep tracking those KPIs.

Keep the Email Short

Make your emails easy to read by keeping the content short and straight to the point. Long and boring emails are likely to be ignored by your receivers.

Also, your content should be easy to skim, use short sentences and paragraphs. Keep the topics segmented and use bullet points or numbers if needed. Try reading your email aloud and see if it seems too lengthy. Leave some breathing room so your readers don’t feel overwhelmed.

Don’t Send Too Many Emails

Avoid bombarding your leads with nonsensical emails as this can make them unsubscribe to your email list. Once they choose to opt out, they are gone forever.

Only send them emails if you deem it necessary. Make sure that you have something valuable or important to say.

Conclusion

Reaching out to your audience and encouraging them to engage can be a difficult task. However, as long as you are equipped with the right strategies, then you can expect your customers to reply to your email. Do ample research, show that you truly care and that you want what’s best for your clients, and the rest will follow.