Smartphones have invigorated email marketing as an important medium for Internet marketers. And just how big is mobile email use? Check out these statistics for 2015:

  • 45% of email opens occurred on mobile, 36% on desktop and 19% in a webmail client.
  • 67.2% of consumers use a smartphone to check their email
  • 75% of Gmail users access their accounts on mobile devices. Gmail now has 900 million users.
  • Mobile email click-throughs grew 22.8 percent on Black Friday, from 44.7 percent in 2014 to 54.9% in 2015. This increase is noteworthy because mobile opens were up only 2.7 percent, from 56.1% in 2014 to 57.6% in 2015.
  • 68% of Gmail and Yahoo! users’ opens occur on a smartphone or tablet

Email is used in a variety of ways and plays an integral part in any business’ model. An effective email marketing strategy keeps existing customers while expanding your prospects. So what do you do to improve your email conversion rates?

The following tips will provide you with the ideas you need to make the most of this giant market:

  1. Optimize for mobile – With so many people accessing email on their device, it pays to make sure your emails look great on mobile. Use mobile-optimized email templates and test your emails using a service like Litmus to make sure everything looks good across the most popular mobile and desktop email clients.
  1. Offer an incentive – Offering coupons, discounts, contests, demos, and free downloads all serve as draws to acquire new conversions. Make sure you segregate them into a new email group once the desired action is completed.
  1. Don’t hide your subscribe buttons – Make your opt-in button large and colorful. Also, don’t hide your opt-out or unsubscribe button in your emails. Sure, it sucks when people unsubscribe, but think of it this way, you are getting closer to those who have an interest in your products or services so your open and click-through rates rise.
  1. Offer free educational content – Including lead magnets on your site offering content that is high quality, live webinars, and educational videos give you many opportunities for you to capture emails. Users feel they are getting something of value and are more prone to give back something in return. They also give you insight on what that contact is interested in.
  1. Be persistent – Many customers require multiple interactions with a business before they commit to purchasing. Develop email nurturing campaigns that links to 3 or 4 resources or blog posts that tell a story with each email round.  End each campaign with a relevant call to action. Set these campaigns up in your marketing automation software to automatically move your leads through the sales funnel.

  1. Keep it simple – Easy to read, simple copy with one call to action stands out more to the reader than a wall of text and multiple links.  Make it easy for your prospects to understand and follow through on what you ask them.
  1. Measure results – Email is a perfect way to figure out which of your pitches works best. Try split testing different subject lines, wording, images, videos, calls to action, etc. Having data to understand which works best for you and your audience helps you target, communicate, and convert your prospects better.
  1. Quick loading pages – With more people using smartphones to read emails, links to pages must load quickly. Be sure your site is mobile ready! Work with your site developers to test site loading speeds and make sure they are loading quick enough to keep your customers engaged.
  1. Personalize emails – Too many businesses have developed a philosophy of sending everything to everyone. This does nothing to help you create a trusting relationship with the people on your email lists or to boost email conversions. If you segment your lists, personalize email campaigns with a recipient’s first name in the subject line, and send them an offer that is relevant to their past experiences, you have the potential for a winning email marketing campaign.

By employing these tips, you will boost your email conversion rates while also building up an engaged group of customers.