Best Strategies to Outstand in Your Customers’ Overfilled Inbox

Many companies consolidate all the resources they have to create outstanding email marketing campaigns. And no wonder, why there’s so much hype.

Our recent study reports that email marketing is responsible for 28% of all online site visits. This sounds more massive if you imagine millions and millions of marketing emails that companies send. 

There’s a dark side to this hype. 

Your customer’s inbox gets overfilled. 

Thus, the chances are lower that your marketing email gets noticed and you get enough leads and visits on your website. 

So, what’s the way out?

What should you do to outstand in your customer’s overfilled inbox?

Let’s take a look at the best strategies. 

1. It’s All In the Subject Line

Email subject line is the first thing that catches your customer’s eye. And customers judge your email subject lines very strictly. 

• 47% of consumers open emails based solely on the subject line.
• If your email contains the word ‘newsletter’, it is 18.7% less likely to be opened. 
• A whopping 69% of email recipients would report an email as a spam judging solely by its subject line.

So, to avoid being sorted as a spammer, make sure that you use the following subject line trends in your email marketing campaign:

Get personal 

In the overfilled inbox, the first thing that stands out is the customer’s name. It’s a quite old practice, but for some reason, no one uses it. Just look at this overfilled inbox:

9 emails, and only one of them has a name. 

Why does it matter? 

This personalization strategy works because it makes your customers feel like they receive special treatment. They know that you’re sending a similar email to thousands (or maybe millions) of other people. So it shifts their perception from feeling ‘generalized’ to feeling ‘noticed’. 

Create a sense of urgency 

There is a sense of urgency, after all, since all deals are short-lived. But if a customer follows your brand, you need to remind them of what they can miss out on by creating a subject line like this:

Introduce yourself

Another well-known personalization strategy, which sadly almost no one uses. It’s a pity because it creates the feeling of special treatment that we’ve talked about. Moreover, the stats by InvespCRO, mentioned above, claim that emails with a name have an 18.3% higher open rate:

It’s all in the subject line – your lost leads, low visits, and emails marked as spam. So, engage more personalization tactics to make your emails stand out in your customer’s overfilled inbox. 

2. Smile to Conquer Overfilled Inbox 

It’s all always black and white. Why wouldn’t your customer delete it? 

However, you can brighten up the dark and gloomy place that is your customer’s inbox by adding some emoticons and icons in your subject lines. 

It’s a great strategy as you can make your email subject lines look more festive:

Nevertheless, only a few companies are ready to make the commitment and ‘smile’ in their subject lines. “Our research shows that only 4% of the companies send their clients emails with subject lines that have smiles and other emoticons”, says Dr. Sean O'Dowd, a researcher at SupremoBusiness. 

Meanwhile, subject lines that have emoticons and icons, also have higher open rates and response rates. 

• Emails that had ‘lips’ emoji had a 24% higher open rate on Valentine’s Day.
• Father’s day ‘wrench’ emoji brought a 22% higher read rate. 
• In time for the upcoming holiday, Christmas-style ‘Christmas tree’ emoji brought emails a 38% higher open rate. 

Placing emoji in subject lines is not an easy bit, however. 

Here are some things to keep in mind. 

• Not all email hosts can support the emoji. Outlook.com, for instance, some symbols are replaced by the word emoji, so check your emoji before sending out emails. 
• Keep it relevant. You cannot place any emoji to make your subject line more colorful to stand out in your customer’s overfilled inbox. The emoji in the subject line should be in line with the topic and the contents of the email:

• Keep it simple. Don’t obnoxiously stuff your subject line with emoji. It makes your email look unprofessional and it may be the reason why it gets sent to spam. 

Strive for a more festive look of your email subject line. You can achieve it by using emoji, as long as you keep them relevant. 

3. Lure Them with an On-Point Contents

We’re not talking about the body of your email when the customer opens it. It’s not the point. 

We’re talking about that little bit of email content that is showing in the inbox. 

These small sections carry a lot of value and, if you get them right, can help you stand out in your customer’s overfilled inbox. 

So, what are the strategies that you should follow?

Again, the name. 

This customer-centric approach never gets old, and perfectly suits in this case. This strategy is used to help customers see the emails that contain personalized offers, which is crucial if you want your emails to stand out in an overfilled inbox:

Highlight the offer 

Looking at an overfilled inbox, it’s hard to notice emails that contain real offers, so your email can easily get lost. Highlight the offers by capitalizing them or placing emoji for them to stand out:

Use your space wisely 

These email meta descriptions work like Google meta descriptions. If you get to the point right away, you’ll be at the top. But in this case, it’s not Google who sorts your emails, it’s the customer. So, definitely don’t do this:

The content of your email should start with clear intent. Start your message by calling your customers to action right away or get to the point of what you expect from them or what you offer them. 

After all, would you open an email that shows no signs of value?

Exactly. 

Wrapping Up

What’s your goal for this email marketing campaign?

Is it to attract new leads?

To increase the number of visits?

Reactivate ‘sleepy’ subscribers?

Doesn’t matter because you can’t do that if you can’t make your email stand out in an overfilled inbox. 

Customers receive thousands of emails but not all of them are worth their attention. 

Those, which do deserve this attention, have engaging personalized subject lines, and on-point high-quality personalized content. Exactly, what our strategies can help you achieve. 

So, we encourage you to try them out and let us know your success story!