Who would have thought years ago that email would be one of the best ways to engage with leads and customers of your e-commerce site? Despite the available technology nowadays, emails manage to find itself dab smack in the middle of most marketing campaigns and strategies.

The adaptability of email throughout the years is no accident. One would easily think that the static, bare-to-the-bones emails from the '90s wouldn't survive in today's marketing landscape.

While there are still companies that employ simple drop email campaigns to its subscribers, email now accommodates beautiful design and layout from messages. The more attractive and compelling the email is - from design to content - the higher the conversion rate will be.

Increase email conversion rate further with micro sites

One of the best ways to engage your subscribers through emails is by creating micro sites. From the name itself, these are email messages that emulate the appearance and functions of a website. You can design the messages like you would a website by including images, menu bars, and more.

Unlike static emails, micro sites allow you to display the email content dynamically. You can present your message in a much more exciting manner that will only help improve engagement, if not directly and positively affect your conversion rate.

Elements of mailable micro sites

To better understand the benefits of micro sites for your email, below are features that are normally found in micro sites.

• Content browsing - You can show an image carousel within your email message. Whenever people click on the different options on your email, the carousel scrolls to the feature image of the option you chose.
• Video - Instead of an image carousel, you can choose to show a video instead. Video content makes your much more dynamic. On the downside, your email will probably take longer to process and load no thanks to the feature video.
• Payments options - Instead of featuring a link in the email to the payment page, you can get people to pay straight from the email message. Google's Pony Express enables you to do this With Gmail users.
• Live content - Do you want to showcase countdown clocks that are accurate with the time zone of the recipient? How about providing a weather forecast to the location of the subscriber? Micro sites let you do these things so you can create interactive content that resonates with your audience.

Examples of mailable micro sites

If you want to implement micro sites as part of your email campaigns, then you need to learn how to do it right. Below are examples of companies and brands that used mailable micro sites to great effect.

Pret

As an organic coffee and natural food brand, Pret wanted to be ahead of the curve against bigger and more experienced competitors. While launching its Smoothie and Frappe campaign in 2015, the brand found its edge with email marketing.

Instead of creating tried-and-true email campaigns, however, Pret tried the mailable micro sites route by creating an email campaign in which the image of the smoothie or frappe fills up after subscriber click on their choice of product. It's a small change that made a world of difference to Pret since no one in their market is doing something like it.

Best of the Best

The brand launched a campaign that offered discounts on select luxury automobile brands to its subscribers. To make the email appealing and unforgettable, Best of the Best featured an accurate countdown timer on their emails. People who will open the email will see how much time they have left before the offer expires. It doesn't matter when or where they open the email - it will show the exact time they have left, so they know whether they are still eligible to place their order.

The email also shows the upcoming promos the brand has in store so subscribers can watch out for them and prepare to make their purchase in advance.

Timberland

As a fashion and apparel brand, Timbaland provides value in their emails by also showing the weekend weather forecast. In the case of Timbaland, it's important to show the predicted weather in the upcoming days so people know the kinds of clothes and shoes to wear. For instance, if the weather on Saturday will be rainy and cloudy, then people should avoid wearing leather shoes when going out. It's a nice touch of information that goes in line with their branding.

Conclusion

If you truly want to succeed with your email marketing, then you need to upgrade your content efforts. Mailable micro sites is a byproduct of providing your subscribers with engaging ways to interact with your content. If you're not generating a lot of results from your current campaigns, then you should give micro sites a try. The examples above should give you ideas on how to approach emailing micro sites for your business.