Hello, and welcome to a new episode in our “Learn from” series. Today’s guest: Mailbird. Mailbird is an email client for Windows used by 3,038,503 people (and counting).
And because the folks at Mailbird really know what email marketing is about, they’re gonna share their know-how on interactive emails with us. Let’s get going!
Want to create highly converting emails instead of digital soulless messages? If so, then you are on the right path. Customers want to feel involved in your content without leaving their inboxes, and interactivity makes this possible.
According to studies, interactive content — including videos, quizzes, image carousels, polls, or other visual elements — can drive an increase in click-through rates by up to 300%. But what are these conversion steroids you can inject into your emails to make them more effective? Let’s find out!
The Benefits of Interactivity in Emails
More sales? Check. More website visitors? Check. Interactive emails grab your readers’ attention immediately, bringing better results to your email campaigns. You can make more out of email marketing if you combine juicy copy with interactivity, regardless of your goals. These elements we’re about to share can help you:
- Keep subscribers entertained,
- Increase customer retention,
- Drive up your click-through rate (CTR),
- Make customer data easier to gather,
- Increase customer engagement.
Interactive emails work best on three main occasions: when promoting new products or features, preparing your audience for an event, or simply increasing your email engagement. It doesn’t have to be super complicated, but where can you grab some ideas? We’ve got your back. Let’s explore some examples together.
Examples of Interactive Email Content (with Templates)
It’s important that your interactive elements are not mismatched with the email copy (e.g., the email talks about a discount, but there’s a GIF of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.) To avoid such whoppers, we’ve peeked into a few major brands for real-life examples.
Clickable and Entertaining Events
When emails have interactive events, users have to take some kind of action to reveal what’s behind them. Especially if you’re introducing a new discount in your e-commerce store, clickable events raise more curiosity and get more people onto your website.
Hiding discounts behind a “scratchable” button is a good example. But it doesn’t always have to be a discount. Events can be used to cover product descriptions, reviews, or distinct features as well. Instead of having customers visit your shop to explore different products, you can bring this experience right into their inboxes.
That’s what Google Pixel Buds have achieved by adding buttons to change the buds’ color when tapped. The email seems like a landing page, but it’s actually a minimalistic focus on the product’s features and versions.
GIFs
We usually only exchange GIFs with close friends and others we know well, but they can be useful in marketing too. GIFs are a fantastic way to entertain and connect with your audience. They should help you make new friends among your prospects, who will then be more inclined to buy. Adding a viral GIF or making one yourself isn’t hard at all nowadays.
Those good GIFs will make your emails enjoyable and strip off their formality. Let’s see an example:
Feelunique is a beauty retailer with bold marketing campaigns. Since users seem perplexed by complex app interfaces, they’ve broken down the buying process into a few steps put together and animated in GIF form. Remember, your GIFs don’t have to be premade or memes you see go viral. You can create them in your style too.
Feelunique’s approach is designed to increase interactivity and enhance user engagement. However, users won’t engage as much as they would with star ratings.
Star Ratings
Whenever customers purchase or have been with you for a long time, send them a rating survey to see how satisfied they are. A typical email builder gives you the tools to create a simple star-rating survey right within your email message.
Depending on the rating, you can even follow up and address users differently. For instance, those who gave lower ratings can be directed to a Google Form. Here, you can collect detailed feedback about their poor experience. For example:
This email from Mack Weldon is simple yet perfect: it thanks users and asks them to rate their purchases. Below, the email has links to related products, which enhances the effectiveness of the sales funnel because it informs and sells.
So far, we’ve involved users quite a lot, but can we do more? Can you optimize your newsletter with more interactive emails than these? Let’s try to figure it out.
Quizzes and Surveys
We turn to quizzes because we find them fun, challenging, and entertaining. That’s why adding them to emails bonds readers to your brand. By using an email account management service, creating quizzes becomes even easier — you can integrate other apps and unify all your accounts in one space.
Surveys work well with quizzes to achieve positive results. Finding inspiration shouldn’t be hard with the presence of sites like BuzzFeed, where you can find plenty of quizzes on topics ranging from the Marvel Universe to food and geography. Brands like Cosmopolitan, Seventeen Magazine, and Road Scholar are well-known for using quizzes to keep their subscribers engaged.
This email is specific and hasn’t just posted a random quiz out of nowhere. Rather, it uses an event to pick the topic from. This one is inspired by Independence Day (US). Choosing options is easy, and you don’t have to leave your inbox to provide answers. Always create quizzes in this way, with a clear motive. For instance, if you have a fashion line, create quizzes to test your customers’ knowledge of famous designers or celebrities’ clothing styles. Making emails as personalized as possible should be your goal, and that’s what we’ll discuss now.
Personal Touch
Who doesn’t hate those robotic emails that remind you of spammers or insurance companies informing you that your latest payment is due? Don’t be like them. Genuinity is the key. Add that personal touch to avoid sending emails your users don’t want to receive.
The best email marketing companies know that simple actions, like addressing customers by their first names in a friendly manner, isn’t enough. What if you could give your customers the option to make decisions specific to their preferences right from your emails? That’s what Sephora introduced a few years ago.
Adding this questionnaire at the end of their emails helped them better understand their audience. It also helped the respondents browse well-categorized products that matched their personal needs. Not everyone thinks of filters when searching for products, so presenting this option in the form of a quiz leads customers directly to a landing page with pre-filtered choices.
Final Thoughts
During these crowded times, shoppers are bombarded with so much interesting and engaging content that they’re unlikely to read your emails without a scale of interactivity. Incorporating events, GIFs, quizzes, and star ratings make your emails more fun to read and keep subscribers entertained.
Psychology says that making people feel rewarded infuses a sense of indebtedness in them. If you entertain them, they’ll give you their feedback, browse through your products, and buy more often. With these tips, you can ditch the boring bulletins and stake a place in your audience’s minds as that cool company that sends fun emails.
Kasia Slonawska
Kasia Slonawska is a passionate content marketer and growth hacker. With several years of professional experience in digital marketing and educational background in writing, she’s eager to share knowledge in numerous blog posts.
