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If you have been doing email marketing for quite some time, then you are probably familiar with many of its’ challenges. Perhaps the most significant has to do with getting more clicks and improving one’s CTR (click-through rate). While you may not have any trouble getting your subscribers to open and read your emails, getting them to open the links you’ve included in your messages is often much more difficult.

So why is a high CTR important you ask? Well imagine running a store where a lot of people are coming in but then most of them leave without buying anything. That’s pretty much what’s happening to an email marketing campaign with a less than decent CTR. So what can you do about it?

In this article, we will go over a few tips for boosting CTR and get more people to respond to your CTAs (call-to-actions). Only then can you hope to elevate your email marketing campaign to a profitable level.

Use Multiple Links or Buttons but stick to 1 type of CTA per email

A common mistake that email marketers make is that they’re asking readers to do multiple things at once on one email. Whether you want your leads to purchase something, register an account on your site or share your message to their friends, it would be best to focus on a single CTA. 

Now it’s not to say that you should only put one link or CTA button on your emails. As a matter of fact, it’s a good practice to put as many as four links or buttons, especially for long emails. The idea is to save readers the trouble of finding them and take the desired action. Many even go as far as adding a link to the P.S. (PostScript) section of their email. Doing so will make it very difficult for readers to miss your CTAs.

The important thing is to avoid asking readers to do multiple things and just focus on one type of conversion. Any more than that and you risk overwhelming or distracting your readers which in turn, hurts your CTR.

Utilize long text links instead of images to get more clicks

Another common mistake that email marketers tend to make is the extensive use of graphic buttons. Yes, the latter does make your CTA stand out more but it is not without downsides. For one thing, these images can increase the time it takes for emails to fully load by a few seconds. That may not seem like much but according to Kissmetrics (a customer engagement automation company), a 1-second delay in loading time can result in a 7 percent decrease in conversion. For this reason, many email marketing experts agree that the use of graphics-based buttons just isn’t worth it.

The better option would be to use long text links like the one above about Kissmetrics. Such links stand out and almost impossible for readers to miss which should help raise your CTR without adversely affecting email loading times.

Leverage the principle of reciprocity

One of the pillars of human psychology is people’s natural desire to reciprocate any favors granted to them. This explains why freebies work remarkably well in email marketing particularly for enticing readers to take a specific course of action (click your link).

Simply put, if you offer people something for free during the course of your marketing emails, then there’s a good chance to many of your readers would also want to do something for you in return. If you’ve pointed that you want them to click on a particular link and buy, share or register for something, then many of them would be inclined to do so. Of course, this is only true if your freebies are something that your readers would find valuable or useful.

Engage your readers with questions to get more clicks

If you’ve already done most of the things mentioned above and are yet to find a noticeable improvement in your CTR, then chances are, there’s a problem with your email copy. Many email marketers find that they aren’t engaging readers well enough.

One neat trick is to use more question marks in your copy. This is because doing so will help you attract more of your reader’s attention. Questions compel us to think even if we don’t always realize it. Hence we tend to become more attentive when we read sentences in an email that has question marks in it. Periods, on the other hand, are easier to overlook.

Simply put, asking readers more questions on your marketing emails helps them get into a more attentive mood. As a result, prospects are able to grasp your marketing messages easier which in turn. This in turn, helps drive more conversions and a better CTR.

Conclusion

So there you have it — 4 powerful tips for increasing CTR in your email marketing campaign! As you may have already realized, none of them are overly complicated and something that you can start implementing today. Keep them in mind and you are bound to start sending more engaging emails and get more of your prospects to click through.