Even with the rise of social media, mobile apps, and other forms of communication, “old school” email remains the number one way for marketers to keep in touch with their users. And as it should be. Sending out a weekly (or monthly) e-newsletter is a great way to stay in touch with your prospects and target audience. However, getting subscribers to even click on the email is not easy. Here are 5 tips to help you optimize your email marketing campaigns.

1) Segment your subscriber lists

Dividing your subscribers into different lists will improve the performance of your email marketing efforts because the lists will be specifically defined. For example, our newsletters are geared towards online writers in general. That can be literally anybody. So to break it down, we thought about our different types of writers (our target audience) and narrowed it down to bloggers, publishers and content marketers. This way, we are able to create different messaging and emails, carefully crafted and customized to each segment.

When you’re placing links into your emails, make sure they go to the right place. When someone clicks on a link, it is captured in your analytics and this makes it a great way to understand what people like reading and more importantly, who likes reading it. It’s all about your audience so always double check that your links are working.

3) Timing

When you’re delivering your e-newsletters, test out different days and times to find the right timing. I did this by dividing up my entire subscriber list into different days and times of the week, for one campaign. If you don’t nail timing, your great content will just sit in people’s inboxes undiscovered.

4) Unsubscribers

Don’t fret the people who unsubscribe from your mailing list. I know, it’s a bummer but it doesn’t have to be. You can look at it as a learning experience to refine your e-newsletters. The best way to find out what makes people click unsubscribe is to ask them why. Shoot them a friendly email asking them for feedback and what you could have done better. People love to help and be heard, so you’re likely to get some valuable tips to improve your campaigns. If you show that you care through personalized emails, you may be able to win them back!

5) Focused CTAs

Clickthrough and subscriber rates are all fine and dandy but the point of the e-newsletters is what you want to convert your readers into doing. Remember that you have a specific goal to achieve with your newsletters. Focus on what call-to-actions you want to include and make that your primary goal for sending out emails. What specific action do you want your readers to take when they read your e-newsletters?

Do you have any tips on how to make e-newsletters perform better? Leave us a note in the comment section, we’d love to hear from you!