Emoji Marketing 101: How to Leverage Emoji to Engage Your Audience

Imagine opening your inbox to a sea of emails. (Yes, I realize that for some, this alone is already a nightmare. #teaminboxzero)

As you scan down the list of recipients and subject lines, your eyes start to cross and the letters all blur together. Let’s be honest – one of three things will happen to any emails you don’t open and read right then and there:

1. You mark all as read.
2. You do a blanket delete.
3. You leave them on unread (gasp!) to rot away in your inbox.

As much as it pains marketers, grabbing attention in the inbox is no easy feat. We’re receiving more email than ever and it can be all too easy to tune things out.

But there is one thing you can do to stand out in an already crowded inbox.

Enter: The emoji.

The Emoji: More Than Just a Pretty Face

Believe it or not, the little yellow faces of emoji have been around since 1999.

Emoji started out niche, but have gradually been granted mainstream status over the last five to 10 years, including loads of personalization.

Perhaps they make a frequent appearance in your text messages and other personal communications, but they can be just as practical (and impactful) in a professional setting too.

Let’s walk through the impact emoji can have on your email and social media marketing, including best practices, things to avoid, and more.

Benefits of Using Emoji in Email Subject Lines

Busy entrepreneurs and business owners don’t do email marketing just for the fun of it.

We do it because there is an important message that your audience needs to hear! But if your subject lines and, therefore, your open rates consistently fall flat, it may be time to shake things up.

A cleverly placed emoji can catch the eye and spark curiosity in a way that is difficult to do with a plain text subject line.

So the real question is: Will using emoji in my email marketing increase open rates?

As is true with most marketing tactics, it depends.

Many brands have reported increased open rates when they include emoji in their subject lines. Whether or not this will have the same effect on your marketing efforts can be determined through testing and tracking.

In addition to potentially increasing open rates, emoji do the important work of letting your personality shine through. Using them can be a great way to increase your know, like, trust factor with your target audience.

Best Practices For Emoji Use In Subject Lines

While the DCM Krewe will always encourage you to have fun with your marketing, (we don’t do boring over here) there are a few ways you can get a little too carried away with emoji usage.

Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:

→ Relevance: A random assortment of emoji won’t do the trick. Always pick emoji that are relevant to your topic. (See example below.)
→ Simplicity: ‘Less is more’ absolutely holds true when it comes to emoji in your marketing. For subject lines in particular, stick to one, maybe two if you have an absolutely perfect pair.

(BONUS TIP: Always keep emoji at the beginning of your subject lines in case the end gets cut off on mobile.)

→ Testing: The best way to know if emoji in your subject lines will increase open rates is to, like all things in marketing: TEST IT!

If you want data on how a single subject line performs with and without an emoji, set up an A/B test in your CRM.

Example:

Using Emoji in Social Media

The benefits of using emoji in social media marketing overlap a lot with the benefits of using them in email marketing. But with a different format also comes different ways to use emoji and different reasons to do so.

Besides adding in personality and catching more eyes, emoji can also help make your social content more readable.

Long form social media posts can do wonders for engagement, but longer posts are going against the grain on platforms that have been designed for brevity. Using emoji can be a great way to break up a longer block of text and make it more easily digested.

Best Practices For Emoji Use On Social Media

Keep these recommendations in mind when using emoji in your social media posts:

→ Stay on Topic: Just like with email, always make sure that the emoji you choose are relevant to the topic of your post. For example, if you’re writing about an upcoming event with a circus theme, don’t include a dolphin emoji in your caption. 🎪🐬🤔

→ Clarity: You don’t necessarily have to stick to the ‘less is more’ rule for emoji usage in social media. A great way to use emoji is in place of bullet points in a longer post to help break up the text and clarify your points.

→ Use to Enhance Engagement: Engagement on social is key. Anytime you can give your audience an easy way to engage, that’s a win.

Emojis provide just that. Include a call-to-action for readers to drop a particular emoji in the comments of your social post. The easier it is to accomplish, the higher the chance they will do it.

The Bottom Line

Using emoji in your marketing can be a great way to grab readers’ attention in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Just as with all areas of marketing, though, the key is to KNOW your audience. Know who they are, what they respond to, and what they want, then use that information to guide you when you begin using emoji in your subject lines and social media captions.

And once again… Don’t forget to test!