Skip to main content
search
Category

Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

Sep 18 2019

How to Get More Responses for Your Email Survey - 6 Easy Tips

By Uncategorized

Trying to convince customers to take the time to fill out a survey or leave a review is difficult. Of course, anyone can send out an email with a link to a questionnaire, but is this enough? With so many businesses asking for the same thing, how can you make sure your feedback request comes across genuine?

Following these 6 simple tips should make it much easier for you to gain useful customer insights and create an effective survey system to use again and again.

1. Find the right survey tool

Surveys are an integral part of your marketing strategy and there are countless tools out there to help you reach out to customers. Whether it's a designated agency, a system you've built in-house or a third party platform, it's important to find the right tool for you needs.

For many businesses, opting for an agency or premium-style service can be unrealistic. In most cases, it is possible to create and host your survey using a free tool. This will save you money and also a lot of time. Free web-based tools such as Google Forms are perfect for generating questionnaires to send via email. If you're looking for something on a larger scale, Survey Monkey offer a range of different plans to suit your business's needs. Alternatively, check out this post for some more great options.

Check out Google Forms as a free resource to help build your survey.

Once you've settled on your tool, you can create your survey, generate a link, and include this in your email to send to subscribers.

2. Grab customers' attention through your subject line

The subject line is always important and here is no exception. Using a generic subject line which customers have read hundreds of times is a bad idea, as it will only get ignored. For example: "We need your help!" As an email subject, this is vague, uninteresting and massively overused.

Use your subject line as the chance to clearly outline why the customer should take time to open your email and give you feedback. Here are a few effective examples we have come across recently:

Moonmail: "Last chance to get a $25 Amazon card!" Generating a sense of urgency is a proven effective way to motivate readers to act.
Frye: "$50 for your thoughts" Including a monetary value naturally will spike the attention of the reader and make them curious to discover more.
Thumbtack: "Tell us what you think of Thumbtack in 30 seconds" Outlining how quick the feedback process will be should help convince the customer that the survey won't be too time consuming for them.
Handy: "What do you hate most about cleaning?" Asking the question outright in the subject lets the reader know what to expect from the email and creates a more direct approach.

3. Use personalisation to make the reader feel important

The aim of your feedback campaign is to get as much information from the customer as possible, while also demonstrating to them how important their opinion is to you. Using personalisation is one great way to do this.

By addressing your customer directly, you naturally give them a sense of importance which they wouldn't receive from a mass email. Instinctively, when we see or hear our own name, we are much more likely to pay attention. This email from Specsavers asks the customer directly to take part in their survey. This personalisation, paired with the tagline "We value your feedback", makes the customer feel important:

Specsavers customer feedback survey in email

Specsavers use personalisation to make the customer feel their opinion is important.

Inserting a name placeholder into your email design is fast and effective way to integrate personalisation. Mail Designer 365 offers you direct integration of popular placeholders from Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor and Direct Mail for Mac so your design is ready to export and send:

Mail Designer 365 insert placeholders

Insert placeholders directly in Mail Designer 365 to easily adopt personalisation into your feedback emails.

4. Make the action areas bright and clickable

Making the action areas in your email vibrant and colorful is another effective way to capture the customer's attention and keep them interested. CTA (call-to-action) buttons and ratings charts should look extra clickable, so they instantly stand out in your email and draw in the reader.

Quick guide: What makes a button "clickable"?

  • Position - Central and hard to miss
  • Size - Large enough to read, but not overwhelmingly big and spammy
  • Color - Vibrant and stands out well against your email background
  • Message - Clear and concise. The customer should know exactly what will happen when they click

This example by Insurify makes it super easy for customers to give a quick rating. The color-coded chart is just asking to be clicked. No reader could resist!

Insurify ratings chart in email

The color-coded ratings chart in this email is super straightforward and really clickable.

When you create your CTA for your survey, make sure to stick to these tips to ensure the button stands out and makes customers want to click. An extra tip would be to specify the duration of the survey just under the button. This way, readers know exactly what they are getting in to.

5. Offer a reward

If you want to go the extra mile to encourage your customers to take part in your survey, you may want to consider offering a reward. A much larger proportion of your customers will be willing to take the time to help you if they can see the benefit for themselves.

One reward you could offer is a special offer on your products. Ask customers to complete your survey in exchange for money off their next purchase. This strategy is used well by Tailor Brands. In this email, they offer a 50% discount in exchange for customer feedback:

Tailor Brands customer survey email

Offer customers money off their purchase in exchange for completing your survey.

Alternatively, if you want to offer a bigger prize, try tempting your customers with a competition or giveaway. Convince customers to take part in your survey in exchange for entry into a prize draw. The bigger and better the prize is, the more effective!

In this email, Morrisons offer customers the chance to win a seriously exciting prize of £1,000 to spend in their stores. Seeing an incredible prize like this is super tempting for readers and will increase the chance of them participating in your survey.

Tip: For bonus points, tease the grand prize in your subject line. This will surely result in an increase of your open rates.

Morrison's customer feedback email

Get readers geared up to take your survey by offering the chance to win an exciting prize.

6. Make the survey process quick

Last but not least, you should also do everything you can to ensure the process is as quick as possible. You've gone through all the hard work of getting your customers through to your survey, make sure it pays off! Many customers will quickly lose interest if they feel your questionnaire is too long-winded. Here are some tips to help shorten the process:

  • Prioritise - Although you probably want to know as much as possible, you should first determine what is most important to you. This will help you narrow down what you want to ask customers.
  • Keep it concise - Overly wordy questions will only overwhelm and confuse participants.
  • Make text-based questions optional - Answering multiple choice questions is easy, but not everyone has time to write long answers. Make your text-based questions skip-able, as some feedback is better than none at all!
  • Give customers options - Similarly, if customers are pressed for time, they may not want to answer all questions. Build a cut-off point into your survey so participants can choose to end there or continue to more questions.

Survey emails made easy with Mail Designer 365

We hope you have found these tips useful and will take them on board when sending out customer surveys. Getting good quality feedback from your customers is the first step towards optimising your business.

If you want to find out more about what your customers really think, use the Customer Survey HTML email Design Idea in Mail Designer 365 to encourage your customers to give you the feedback you need to improve your business:

Customer Survey html email template in Mail Designer 365

Try the Customer Survey HTML email template in Mail Designer 365

Not got a Mail Designer 365 plan yet? Download today for free to test this template and over 100 more.

Stay creative,

Your Mail Designer 365 Team

Subscribe for more great tips!

Don't forget to sign up for our email newsletter and enjoy regular tips, tricks and advice for everything relating to email design – delivered directly to your inbox.
 
 
There was a problem registering your email address.
Please check and try again.
Thank you for registering! Please check your email inbox.
We've just sent you an email for you to confirm your email address, if you haven't already.

About data privacy

Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...

Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.

 

Try for free
Aug 22 2019

5 Easy Ways to Increase Open Rates - Get Subscribers to Open Your Emails

By Uncategorized

As an email marketer, one of your biggest challenges is achieving successful open rates. Convincing subscribers to open your email when they first see it in their inbox can be difficult, as you are relying entirely on the strength of your subject line, as well as your customers' interest in your brand to try and win them over.

Put yourself in the customer's shoes. How many of the dozens of emails you receive each day do you actually open and read? Not many, right?

According to research from 2018, the average email open rate lies at around 17-18%. Although this sounds extremely low, it is a realistic figure to aspire to and anything above this should be considered a great success.

What influences open rates

There are a whole host of key factors which can impact upon your customer's decision to open your email. Here are some of the most significant aspects to keep note of:

  • Key words and triggers: Using the correct key words can make a seasonal email campaign stand out in a crowded inbox.
  • Brand identification: How likely are you to open an email from a brand or sender you don't recognise?
  • Day of the week: Emails sent during the week may have slightly higher open rates, as people check their emails more whilst at work.
  • Time of year: Sales and promotions may be more popular in the build up to the holidays, as people are actively looking for great deals.
  • Deliverability: Naturally, emails that don't appear in the customer's inbox at all don't get opened. This means stay away from spam traps at all costs!

Keeping these influential factors in mind, following these five simple tips should help you achieve brilliant open rates and massively improve the success of your email campaigns...

1. Stay relevant

Because email providers such as Gmail have separate tabs for promotional, marketing-style emails, you will have to work hard to make sure your customers actually notice you in the first place. The best way to do this is by identifying the needs of your target audience.

Use detailed market research and customer analysis to find out what your target group is looking for. In doing so, you'll be able to highlight key words and concepts to include in your subject line and draw in readers.

New Look have been clever with this email subject line. University and Back to School are both massive seasonal topics. If you know your target group is students, mentioning this buzzword in the subject line is a guaranteed way to pique interest and hopefully increase open rates.

Use the relevant buzzwords for your target audience to entice them to open.

2. Use personalisation

It's one of the oldest tricks in the book for a reason! Using personalisation in your emails is a certain way to grab your readers' attention straight away. By capturing your readers' attention, you will also see a rise in open rates, as they will be curious to find out more.

Not only is it an instant eye-catcher, personalisation is also a great way to make your customer feel special and creates a sense of exclusivity.

Research by Deloitte suggests that including your customer's name in the email could increase open rates by over 5%. In this email from Booking.com, the use of the customer's first name instantly makes the subject line more eye-catching.

Using your customer's name in the subject line is an effective way to grab their attention and increase open rates.

3. Outline the sender

Nobody likes receiving emails from an unknown sender or no-reply address. As well as appearing untrustworthy, they're also confusing and prevent the recipient from connecting with the brand. To combat this, be sure to provide a from-address which readers will be easily able to recognise.

It's much more likely your customers will open your emails if they instantly recognise your brand in their inbox. Using your company name as the sender should improve your chances of increasing your open rates. As shown in the example, Thomas Cook always make sure their subscribers can immediately tell when an email is from them.

Thomas Cook always make sure you know the email is from them.

4. Have fun with emojis

In order to increase open rates, you need to think of ways to make your email stand out against competitors in your customers' inbox. Emojis are a fun way of adding color to your subscribers' inboxes. As well as helping you say more with the few words you have, emojis will help your email be more eye-catching to your customers.

This email campaign from Boots is a great example of how to effectively use emojis in your subject line. The fire emoji brings the heat to customers' inbox while also complimenting the rest of the text.

Adding emojis to your subject line makes it much more eye-catching for customers.

5. Include a snippet text

One common and unfortunate error made by many email designers is to leave out the snippet text. Your snippet text is your extra opportunity to sell your email to customers and gives you a chance to summarise your message for them.

In Mail Designer 365, you can use the inbox optimisation tool to craft the perfect subject line and snippet text for your email campaign. Your subject line will then remain visible at the top of the design window so you can view it alongside your design:

Craft the perfect subject line and snippet text with Mail Designer's inbox optimisation tool.

Key Takeaways

  • Use tricks like emojis and personalisation to make sure your subject line is interesting enough to stand out in a sea of similar emails.
  • Always include a recognisable sender name so customers know who you are.
  • Keep your subject line concise and use clear keywords which are relevant to your readers.
  • Use the snippet text to convincingly outline the main message of your email.

We hope you have found these easy tips for increasing your open rates useful and will keep them in mind when building your next email campaign. Want awesome emails that everyone wants to read? Download Mail Designer 365 free today and check out the inbox optimisation tool, as well as tonnes more exciting design features!

Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team

Get expert tips straight to your inbox!

Sign up here for our email newsletter and enjoy regular tips, tricks and advice for everything relating to email design – delivered directly to your inbox.
 
 
There was a problem registering your email address.
Please check and try again.
Thank you for registering! Please check your email inbox.
We've just sent you an email for you to confirm your email address, if you haven't already.

About data privacy

Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...

Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.

 

Try for free
Apr 15 2019

Email Marketing Ideas for Hotels and Travel Agencies - Use Email to Get More Customers

By Gabrielle Uncategorized

Thanks to the rise of the internet and social media, it's getting easier and easier to find great deals for holidays and getaways. One way for you to get ahead of the game is by putting together a solid email marketing strategy for your hotel or travel agency.

Here are just a few reasons why you should consider email to communicate with your customers...

  • Low cost - Especially compared to costly TV ads or unsustainable print media.
  • Direct access - Share tailored offers directly with your customers.
  • Quick conversion - Transport your customers straight to the offers on your website.
  • Visually effective - Get creative to convince customers through HTML design.

In this guide, we're sharing our top tip on creating an effective email strategy for your business, as well as some great examples of best practice in the hotel and travel industry to help you get inspired.

Email Marketing Best Practice for Hotels

1. Building an email list for your hotel or travel agency

Although there are ways to obtain large numbers of email addresses without putting in a lot of work, it is always better to go for quality over quantity and try to encourage organic signups. This will mean your email content is being sent to people who actively want to receive it.

Potential customers visit your hotel's website to find out more about your offers and deals. For this reason, it's likely they'd be interested in receiving this information straight to their inbox. By building a newsletter sign up form on your site, you will attract more customers with a genuine interest in staying at your hotel or booking a holiday with you.

Here are some great examples:

Trivago

On their website, Trivago go for the subtle option of integrating a sign up box into the footer area. This is simple and effective, but only if customers can find it first!

Booking.com

This sign up box from Booking.com is bright and uses convincing wording to encourage curious customers to sign up:

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook have gone for an even more eye-catching option. The pop up window is a great way to grab customers' attention and inform them of your email newsletter:

Connect Mail Designer 365 to your website, with a dedicated sign up form builder for seamless lead generation. How it works →

2. Segmentation

To ensure you're sending the appropriate emails to your customers, it's helpful to have an idea of what they might be interested in when it comes to holidays and travel. You can do this by using list segmentation to split all of your contacts into separate audiences based on their tastes and preferences.

What do your customers want?

One of the first things to identify is whether your customer is travelling for business or leisure. This will help you set the tone of your email as well as knowing which types of deals to send out to them.

In this example from Thomas Cook, customers signing up to their mailing list are asked to answer a few quick questions:

Let customers tell you what they want while they sign up for your newsletter.

Tip: Easily implement this strategy into your Mail Designer 365 sign up form using the customer attributes field in the form builder.

Offer optional holiday types (e.g. families, couples, or party) for users to choose from to show you their preferences. When they sign up, the chosen attribute will be assigned to their contact in Mail Designer 365 Delivery Hub so you can send them tailored offers.

More information →

3. Email design tips for hotels and travel agencies

Without effective email design, your newsletters will not pack the punch you need them to in order to get customers onto your website. Here are two tips you can use to make sure your design stands out.

One of the most important elements of any email is the CTA (call-to-action.) Particularly for a travel related email, where there is a lot going on, it's a good idea to make this as clear as possible so readers know where to click to access your deals. This example by cheapflights is a bold and clear way to showcase their best deals:

Make your CTA buttons vibrant and clear so your readers know how to access your deals.

Another key aspect is the choice of image. In order to sell your hotel or holiday package, you have to let the image do all the talking. In this example from easyJet, their winter deal takes centre stage. The choice of a festive feature image will instantly help customers imagine themselves in the location and entice them to click to find out more.

Use strong, powerful images as your featured image in order to grab readers' attention straight away.

4. Email subject line ideas for hotels and travel agencies

When you're ready to send out your email, you'll need to craft an effective subject line which will convince subscribers to actually open it once it lands in their inbox. This isn't always as easy as it sounds. For some advice and inspiration, you can check out our quick guide.

Here are some simple, yet effective tips to try out:

  • Keep it short and snappy
  • Use holiday keywords to get straight to the point
  • Mention a key offer or deal to entice customers
  • Include time sensitive language to create a sense of urgency
  • Use emojis to brighten up their inbox

easyJet get straight to the point in this subject line, enticing customers to get booking.

Stuck on your subject line? Try out Mail Designer 365 TextScout AI for AI-generated subject lines. Just enter your campaign keywords and go!

5. Transactional emails

Your initial email has worked its magic and you've managed to sell a holiday or take another booking for your hotel - the hard work isn't over yet! A good email marketing strategy will also concentrate on the after sales aspect, including booking confirmations, up-sells (e.g. upgrades, car hire), flight reminders and the all important customer satisfaction rating.

In contrast to your sales emails, the key to a good transactional email is simplicity. Here it's important to provide the customer with all the relevant information for their booking so they can refer back whenever needed. Remember to always include contact information for your support team, in case customers have any questions.

This flight confirmation from easyJet is simple, but contains all the relevant information the passenger will need to know before taking off.

We hope you have found this guide useful and that you'll consider these tips if you're building up an email marketing strategy for your business. Mail Designer 365 is the perfect choice for any travel agencies, tour operators, or hotel owners starting out with email marketing, due to the easy-to-use nature and stunning design tools.

Find out more about our email marketing solutions for hotels and travel.

Get started with Mail Designer 365 today

Start your 7 day free trial and use your Mac to create stylish email newsletters for your business.

Start your free trial

No credit card required
Compatible from macOS 10.13 onwards
Apr 05 2019

Email Marketing Guide for Restaurants

By Gabrielle Uncategorized

With a market value of over 465 Million Euros in Western Europe alone, it's safe to say that the food industry is one of the largest, most powerful industries in the world. For the average restaurant owner, this makes it extra important for you to stand out from your competitors and strengthen your connection with your customers.

Here are some of our top tips on how you can use email marketing to boost sales in your restaurant and build up long-lasting relationships with your diners...

Branding and Style

To kick things off, let's start by thinking about your brand and your target audience. This will massively help you to determine the style of your email and create the right aesthetic to really speak to your customers.

For a down to earth, family friendly eatery, feel free to use bright colors and focus on the happy, fun atmosphere of your restaurant. This vibrant email from Giraffe shows customers that the whole family is welcome:

Use bright colors and bold typeface to show off your restaurant's fun atmosphere.

A more sophisticated restaurant may want to opt for a refined approach, focussing solely on the atmosphere and quality of the food. Pizza Express use a minimalistic color scheme in this email and shine the spotlight on their delicious food:

A down to earth, minimalist theme is a great way to emphasise the quality of your food.

Building up your email list

The best way of getting contacts for your email list is by recruiting customers who already know and love your restaurant and want to stay informed. These are the customers who genuinely want to read your emails and will give you positive click through results.

One effective way of getting customers to sign up for your newsletter is by advertising it on your website and in the restaurant itself. If you want to go the extra mile, you can even offer an incentive such as a discount code when they register.

Here are some great examples of sign up boxes you could try on your website...

Bright and eye-catching from YoSushi.

Sleek and cool by Nando's.

Warm and inviting design by Wildwood.

Classic and inviting from Bill's.

Types of Emails

Now that you've got your email list built and ready to go, it's time to start deciding which types of emails you want to send your customers. For restaurant owners, there is a huge variety of options available to you when it comes to contacting your customers. Here are some of the most popular ideas...

The discount email

One of the most effective ways to kick off your email marketing journey is by offering all your new sign-ups a discount to say thank you. This will encourage them to come back to your restaurant and also make them feel appreciated.

The seasonal promotion

If you're lacking in ideas, take a look at your calendar for inspiration. See what events are coming up and plan an email campaign around them. This Father's Day promotion from Toby Carvery is a brilliant way to get customers to come and dine with their families and celebrate their dads:

Get inspired by seasonal events to create tempting promotional offers.

The family-friendly email

Do you have a lot of families visiting your restaurant or cafe? If so, this is another great theme you can utilise in your emails. Offer busy parents an incentive to choose you by emphasising the family-friendly nature of your business. This "kids eat free" promotion from Jimmy Spices is a clever way of attracting families to eat at their restaurant:

Show parents that they are more than welcome to bring their whole family along.

The newsletter

Many of your customers will have signed up to receive your emails because they are interested in what is going on with your business. Keep customers in the loop by sharing your most important news with them via your email newsletter. Alongside offers and promotions, this could also include information about...

  • Upcoming events (e.g. Open mic, quiz night, charity fundraisers.)
  • New menus or seasonal menus
  • Booking information for busy holidays
  • Important news such as closures or renovation work
  • Themed nights (e.g. Mexican night, Italian night...)

The Birthday email

Sending out a Happy Birthday email is a great way to build on your customer relationships and make them feel valued. This can be easily achieved by asking customers to fill in their birthday as part of the newsletter sign up process.

This example from YoSushi also provides an exclusive birthday offer to make the customer feel even more special on their big day:

Wish your customers a Happy Birthday and leave them feeling appreciated.

Booking confirmation emails

Sending a confirmation email to guests who have reserved a table at your restaurant is a great way to welcome them in advance and get them excited for their visit.

Show your restaurant's welcoming atmosphere by using personalization and a warm greeting. Don't forget to include all the essential details like date & time of the reservation, number of guests, location, your contact details, and a link to your menu so guests can start planning ahead!

The follow up email

Last but not least, a follow up email can also be a super effective way of showing your customer you care about their experience in your restaurant. This is easiest to achieve with a loyalty card system in place, so you can track when customers have visited your restaurant. Alternatively, you could also provide customers with a website where they can give their feedback.

A good follow up email will give customers the chance to rate their dining experience and help you improve in the future. This example from Nando's is a cheerful and colorful way to get customers to share their views:

Follow up with customers and use their feedback to improve your service.

We hope you have found these tips and ideas useful and will consider trying them out in your restaurant. For more information on how you can use Mail Designer 365 to create and send emails for your restaurant, head over to our dedicated restaurants page.

Get started with Mail Designer 365 today

Start your 7 day free trial and use your Mac to create stylish email newsletters for your business.

Start your free trial

No credit card required
Compatible from macOS 10.13 onwards
Close Menu
Privacy Settings / Datenschutz-Einstellungen