11-point Checklist to Increase Email Marketing Clickthrough

Don’t schedule your next list email just yet. First, take a look at this handy checklist (hopefully you print it out and tape it up in your office) to ensure you’ve maximized the perceived value of what your customers will get by clicking through your email.

After all, an email click is like a mini-purchase. If there isn’t a strong value force, customers will not act.

This checklist is from a free six-checklist bundle download we’ve created based on MECLABS Institute’s customer behavior research to help you optimize your email marketing.

Arrest Attention

Once you’ve captured an email subscriber, and gotten them to open the email, the next thing you have to do is stop them.

Basically, you need to stop them from quickly deleting. Stop them in their tracks to an extent.

Does the headline start with the primary offer of interest? Optimizing headlines and subject lines will help improve your email clickthrough rate.

Can it utilize a personal salutation? “Dear Daniel” also captures my attention for a split second, even if I know it’s only an automated email platform making a call to a database to fill in a personalization field in an email template. Not truly personal. But as Dale Carnegie knew long before the advent of email, “A person’s name is the sweetest sound.”

Build Connection

It’s not enough to stop people, you have to connect with them. After all, there are negative ways to arrest attention.

In the movie “Sorry to Bother You” the main character is a telemarketer. To illustrate how disruptive telemarketing can be, the auteur behind the movie has the telemarketer literally crash into a family’s dining room while they are eating dinner.

This is not the resulting experience you’re going for. To build connection, think back to that headline you used to arrest attention. The objective of your headline is not to sell. No one likes to be sold to.

Your headline should help and connect with the email’s reader. Remember, those names in the database are real people. And your emails are entering their actual lives, falling into their inbox while they are at their daughter’s gymnastic practice, waiting at the bus stop, sipping their morning coffee when they first get to work, on break from a meeting, etc.

Put yourself in their shoes. How can you connect with them in these distracted micro-moments? At a base level, write like a human being who is writing to another human being. Remember, at its core, email is a means of communication not just a marvel of technology, thoughts and emotions transferred from one person to another not just 0’s and 1’s flying across the world at light speed.

Does the copy reference an existing relationship? Does it reference a recent interaction? It’s easier to recall and build on a previous connection when possible then to start a new relationship from scratch.

Build Problem

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve just barely cracked the door to their mindshare. You have it for just a quick moment in time.

Once you’ve connected with them, connect to a problem they have. What value can your email add to their lives? Does it address a current pain, promise or desire?

In its welcome email campaign, KontrolFreek addressed common customer pain points by highlighting that its accessories are design to fit gaming systems, as well as the fact that they are “100% tournament legal and proudly made in the USA.” By educating new subscribers and tying into their pain points, the video gaming accessories manufacturer and direct e-retailer was able to drive 33% of its total email revenue using the welcome series alone.

Does your email connect the offer with the above- mentioned steps? You want a natural flow in the email, not an abrupt ask. The problem element of the email is an inflection point, drawing people from the connection you’ve made with them to ultimately build interest in your offer.

Build Interest

It’s not enough to identify with a problem customers have, of course. There could be a million solutions to the problem. Why yours? Does it provide an interesting angle?

Is the explanation minimal? You should be able to succinctly build interest in the limited time you have their attention. If you have to do too much to build interest, your offer might be too complex for an email and you should consider a simpler offer. Or, at least, test the complex offer against the simple offer and discover what works best for your unique customers.

Build Suspense

For the click. Not a purchase. Asking for a purchase in an email is asking too much. Frankly, it’s hard enough to get a click.

You need to build suspense with your copy. Get them intrigued enough that your offer is the solution to the problem you’ve built that they’re willing to give you more of their time and attention with a click. Does the copy tell enough to maintain interest in the offer? This doesn’t always necessarily mean longer copy, it could mean better, more specific, more detailed copy.

Transfer momentum

Only when you’ve done the above can you make the ask, essentially, transferring momentum from the email to the landing page. Is the call to action focused on the next immediate step? Don’t ask for too much or you might lose them.

Also, make sure the call to action has true value for the recipient. The job of the call to action isn’t just to get something from the customer. You should connect real people with real value.

If including a post-script, does it intensify the need to click? Making that next step is a major ask of your customers’ time and attention. Help customers understand the value of trusting your brand enough to take that action.

Click here to get six free email marketing checklists to help grow your email list, attain a better email open rate, and boost your email clickthrough rate.