E-mail is an important and often underused aspect of online marketing. You collect e-mail addresses from potential customers and send out periodic newsletters to let them know what’s going on with your company or products. How many of those e-mails go directly into the recipients’ spam folders? Of the users that do click on the e-mail, how many actually read it thoroughly and get the intended message from it?
If you want an effective e-mail marketing campaign, you need to find ways to get your recipients to engage with your messages. How can you do that? Take a look at interactive e-mail. Here’s what you need to know.
What Is Interactive E-mail?
As its name implies, an interactive e-mail is an e-mail message that allows users to engage with it beyond just seeing photos and reading text. It includes dynamic elements such as videos, fillable forms, and more, that can be executed directly from your inbox.
These elements are designed to capture users’ attention as soon as they open the e-mail and get them to engage with your brand in more creative ways than simply, “Click here to buy our product.” It can lead to better conversion, more qualified leads, and ultimately better sales.
In addition, it can also encourage users to share your brand with others. If something in your e-mail really captures their attention, they’ll be more likely to pass it on to their friends, allowing you to reach more people and capture more leads.
Examples of Interactive Content In Email Newsletter
Interactive email
The simplest and perhaps most common element in an interactive e-mail is mouseover images—i.e. images that appear one way at first, but change when you move your cursor over them. Some companies will send images of their latest products to customers, which change to brief descriptions of those products when users mouse over them. Or if you product can be used in two different ways, has hidden features, or a dramatic before and after contrast, you could use mouseover images to highlight those things.
You could also use this feature to send your users a quiz. Ask an engaging question with a multiple choice answer. For instance, “Which appliance is the biggest consumer of energy in the home?” Then you’d include the choices, “Washer/Dryer, TV/Entertainment System, Refrigerator, Heating and Cooling,” each in its own dynamic image box beneath the question. When you mouse over the wrong choice, the box turns red. When you mouse over the right choice (heating and cooling, in case you were curious), the box turns green.
Another potential of Interactive Content In Newsletters use is to send surveys to your customers. Rather than making them click a link and be taken to a survey site they may or may not trust, with an interactive e-mail, they can fill in their responses directly in the e-mail message and submit it when they’re done.
There are all sorts of different possibilities for making use of interactive e-mail. You can talk to them directly with a short video embedded in the message. You can allow them to add products directly to their cart, from the e-mail. The sky’s the limit. When you can engage customers directly from their inbox, you can create a more dynamic and productive customer relationship and send them e-mails they’re actually happy to receive.
Contact us today to help you figure out what kind of interactive e-mail messages would best suit your brand!
