Our top 5 tips for using emoji marketing

Since the first emoji made an appearance all the way back in 1999, the power of the emoji has rapidly grown. The way the first emoji was embraced and loved, is the same way emoji marketing has been embraced by all different types of brands. Getting your head around how to use emojis within your business can be challenging.

At Eat Marketing we like to think of ourselves as emoji enthusiasts, especially considering the power they can hold within the marketing world when used correctly. We’ve taken a look at our top 5 tips for using emoji marketing to help you.

Long live the emoji.

1. Expressive email subject lines

The average person’s inbox is typically quite crowded. In a day and age where hundreds of emails are sent to potential clients, you need yours to be punchy and expressive, so they don’t end up in the junk folder.

A great way to do this is by including emojis into the subject lines of emails. With only 2% of company emails sent to private clients using emojis in their subject lines, it’s a great way to use emoji marketing and an easy way to set yourself apart from the competition.

There’s a few ways to incorporate emojis into your email subject lines, you could add the emoji at the start of the line and use a consistent emoji, so eventually everyone associates it with your brand. This also makes your emails easy to spot when you go in to preview your emails. Alternatively, you could try using emojis at the end of the line, and use them to add extra context to the topic of the email. Fast fashion brands such as Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing and ASOS are particularly good at this. They use emoji marketing as a lighthearted and fun way to push their messages from new range announcements to exclusive sales.

The choice on how you use emojis in your email subject lines is completely up to you, but we recommend using them in some shape or form.

2. Custom branded emojis as instastickers

Emoji marketing can help build brand awareness, a great way to achieve this is through custom branded emojis. Having your own set of bespoke emojis for your brand helps you reach out to new customers as well as keeping your loyal customers intrigued and coming back for more.

The possibilities with branded emojis are endless, we worked with The Bay Fish and Chip shop and created a collection of Instagram stickers. With online ordering on the rise, The Bay embraced their set of new, branded GIF stickers to encourage new customers to interact with them via social media. The stickers represent key aspects of The Bay’s brand, from fish and chips to seashells to reflect their beachfront location.

Having a set of on-brand, engaging stickers allows you to use them across all your social media platforms and spread the word to more people about your brand.

3. Promote engagement on social media posts

Emoji marketing enables you to promote engagement to your branded social posts. It not only humanises your brand, but it gives you the opportunity to drum up some fun and interesting interaction between you and your consumers. For instance, using emojis to ask your social media followers “what’s your favourite season ❄️☀️🍁🌳” and asking them to comment using the emojis, is a simple yet effective way to gain attraction to your social channels and generate engagement.

When using emojis on your social platforms, make sure they are intentionally used and add extra context or emphasis to the post. There’s nothing worse than irrelevant emojis in a social post, don’t just use them for the sake of it.

4. Feature emojis in paid social advertising

Just as with your social media posts, using emojis in your paid ads can increase engagement. It’s true that social ads with emojis receive a higher click-through rate than those without. Use emojis in your social ads in the same way you would social posts, to support your message and align with your brand voice.

Emoji marketing is great in this instance too, as it can be used to break up text. Nobody wants to read a long, boring ad – emojis offer a perfect chance to perk up the text, making it a more enjoyable read.

5. Engaging emoji stickers with GIFs for Instagram stories

We’re not afraid to admit that we’ve spent hours and hours scrolling through the GIFs on Instagram stories ever since the feature was introduced. Take your branded emoji stickers to the next level and turn them into GIFs, which can be used on your Instagram stories.

This will increase brand awareness and bring your social content to life. At Eat Marketing, we created our own Instagram stickers from tasty food service related stickers like takeaway boxes, to tech stickers that showed online scrolling. Our on-brand stickers, though delicious, are also a great way for us to showcase the work we do within the food marketing industry.

Emoji marketing is a fantastic way to boost your brand and increase engagement. It’s important to remember not to overuse emojis, but to creatively integrate them into your marketing channels.