Interactive email ensures subscribers do precisely what you want directly from their inboxes. These interactions are the same functionality they would expect while engaging content on the web. Just as static content made way for dynamic content on the web, it is clear that static emails are no longer good enough. Marketers must cater to the increasingly smarter and more demanding modern customer, and interactive emails are one way to achieve this. So, how can you begin sending interactive emails?
5 Steps to Send an Interactive Email
Interactive emails position your brand to make sales directly from the inbox. It’s a fresh approach that enables brands to use engaging effects, create catchy clickable actions, and add quizzes, carousels, or even games. In fact, interactive emails have been a top trend in 2020.
#1 You Need a Video or GIF
Regardless of the platform, videos multiply engagement. GIFs and videos add a fresh dimension to what would otherwise be a wall of boring text. You may even use them to show off your products and services in innovative ways. OptinMonster and Wyzowl report that 79 percent of your consumers would watch a video instead of reading about a product.
In terms of applying these visual elements in email, you could showcase various options of a particular product offering. Dyspatch offers an easy drag-and-drop functionality that allows you to add videos without writing one line of code. Giphy and tools like it help you turn photos or videos into exciting GIFs.
These two elements will pull your reader toward your content goals.
#2 Incorporate a Poll or Survey
Polls and surveys help brands gather data. Prospects expect them on websites or social media. But, they’ve also proven to be a useful addition to good old email.
Polls require active participation, as your customer or subscriber willingly lets you learn more about them. Previously, email marketers would provide a link to a survey. Often, the subscriber moves on to other things without coming back to the email, or they don’t bother participating at all.
According to internet marketing legend Neil Patel, surveys are an excellent customer service tool. Planting polls in emails increase engagement from your readers and Dyspatch has poll and survey features that ensure subscribers can provide information you need to offer them more value.
It’s even possible to optimize surveys for devices and gain valuable information about your customer and get feedback for your offerings. The best part: you can raise your email click-through rate.
#3 Get Customers to Talk Back to You
We often use emails to invite subscribers to events such as webinars, calls, or training. But, we should not just hope that they’ll show u Interactive emails that can also include RSVPs to an event without leaving an email.
Dyspatch’s ecosystem of features enables customers to engage with you, receiving the value they need and empowering your brand and business even more.
The ability to RSVP directly from their inbox ensures that your subscribers engage more with your email. Another significant upside is that more people eventually attend your event.
#4 Point Your Emails to Interactive Images
Remember that old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words?” It’s even more true for interactive emails. In addition to videos and GIFs, still, photos are powerful visual email elements. A static image in your email is bland, with little taste. Using interactive images in interactive emails lends interactivity to your messages.
There can be multiple possibilities when email subscribers click on different elements of a picture. These include:
- revealing more information about a product or service,
- triggering animations, and
- making videos to pop up
Interactive images provide a way to offer more informative content. They’re incredibly efficient when users view them from modern mobile devices and can engage with the image via the touchscreen.
There are a number of web tools that can help you create interactive emails from vanilla images. Some even allow you to lump multiple products with popup buttons in a single interactive image. The buttons will take prospects directly to your website, where they can purchase your product.
Interactive images promote user engagement, potentially guaranteeing more sales.
#5 Get Personal
Customers prefer to feel like they are communicating with real humans and not impersonal machines. There are tested techniques for being personal with your subscriber base. Here are a few tricks a marketer can try right now:
- Using the reader’s name in the email when referring to them
- Sending messages using a personal email address instead of a brand email address
- Appending your name as a signature in all messages
While these work with regular static emails, interactive emails may appear trickier. However, it’s a simple process comprising sending specific content to your customers based on their specific interaction with your brand.
It enables you to improve sales opportunities and make the buyer journey more effective.
Personal messages may feature content on an abandoned shopping cart and product recommendations. You can use a customer’s browsing and shopping history to determine the items that are the best fit for their wants and needs.
For instance, if a customer has dutifully patronized your e-commerce business for a year, you might note what they have never looked at or purchased. What follows can be a personalized suggestion email on items similar to those they’ve bought. Everything can happen within Dyspatch’s intuitive interface. Imagine selling beyond your website; in your email.
Personalization endears brands to customers and can encourage them to click and meaningfully interact.
Conclusion
Contrary to uninformed thought, email marketing is alive and well. Interactive email newsletters can enhance email marketing efforts by significant proportions. Brands are continuously probing and unearthing innovative ways to use interactive emails. Website traffic, subscriber engagement, and conversion rates are a few metrics that interactive emails can improve.
You can begin sending interactive emails today. Dyspatch’s modular email builder offers easy-to-use tools to help you start right now and improve efficiency across the board. Now, pick one of our tips and send that interactive email right away.