Relevant email makes users happy, makes them act, and makes you happy in the end, as sending relevant emails increases the ROI (Return On Investment) of your entire list.

A 2010 study by Nielsen indicates that users in America spend less and less time on email — in fact, 28% less than in 2009. Is there less email than a year ago? No, no. People simply read less of it.

That’s why sending relevant emails — and adjust them for mobile viewing, as email is more often read on smartphones than ever — is crucial for email marketing success. Easier said than done, though.

10 tactics to increase email relevancy:

1. Segment your users and send them offers and content relevant to their segment.

Nothing groundbreaking here; email segments still work miracles if you go the extra mile to create them and actually send relevant emails. This increases deliverability, too.

You should segment the users not only depending on their buying preferences, but also their activity and engagement. This will create you a more clear picture of what you are trying to do and when to perhaps give up on a segment.

2. Send concise, shareable, and targeted email with a clear call to action.

Again, a best practice, which most marketers abide to. Less is more, and the more straightforward your writing, the more clients will like it (well except if you become too bold). Let the clients know what you want from them — usually a click –, and they’ll appreciate the honesty.

3. Don’t get hung up on email relevancy.

What email marketers forget quite often is that you have to offer something more than relevant emails to get the client’s full attention. You have to offer personality.
This has nothing to do with the “best practices”, it has everything to do with how well you communicate with the reader. Something funny will do.

4. “Offers” aren’t everything you can offer.

I can imagine that you are at least remotely knowledgeable in your field. That means that you can probably share the knowledge you have with your email list.
So, for example, if you sell flour, try sending your list a course in “cake baking”. Or, if you’re selling staples, maybe write a witty email showcasing what you can really do with staples? (Like build a city of staples)

5. Observe current trends.

While at one point in time I would have opened every email that had the words “Paris Hilton” and “tape”, I wouldn’t do it now. Generating subject lines from current trends is a practice often employed by spammers; you aren’t one, but it still works.
Also: holidays. A set of lingerie is just a romantic present, but on February 14th, it becomes the Valentine’s day super gift. See what I mean?

6. Employ transactional emails to your advantage.

Transactional emails are, for example, “welcome message” emails or emails that are sent to the user after a purchase. Users expect emails like these, because sites like Amazon and Ebay use them. They are read up to 4 times more often than regular emails, so use them to showcase your best deals.

7. Test different kinds of emails.

A/B testing is an email marketing standard. Use A/B testing to measure the efficiency of different subject lines, types of content, ways of link placement, calling the user to action, etc. The key benchmark upon which you can rely to measure the efficiency is, unsurprisingly, The Click. You’ll also gain important insights on email deliverability in the process.

8. Send less email.

The more email you send to a subscriber, the less he’s worth. “Targeted email” actually implies that you needn’t send ten emails to the subscriber for him/her to realize your point. Email relevancy is driven by emails that have a clear value that the customer sees right away. Besides, bombarding subscribers with email looks needy and annoys the user.

9. Use analytics tools for your gain.

Using analytics software is quite an effort at the beginning, but it pays off if you know how much a subscriber is really worth to you. Use analytics tools to track user activity on your website, and, again, segment the subscribers depending on what interests them the most.

10. Send emails consistently.

To send targeted email, the timescale has to be targeted to the recipients, too. Email relevancy has a lot to do with how well you fit into the “time schedule” of the subscriber, not only with delivering them relevant offers. Send emails at consistent times (e.g. weekly, bi-weekly, etc.), because it implies your reliability as a business and tells the customer as much about you as the email’s content does. Simply apply #7 to your email sending times, and see what gets more clicks.

We would like to know what do you do to send more targeted email? Tell us about your experience and what has worked in the past.