Email Marketing Best Practices

Marketing is all about putting yourself out there. You’ve got to get in front of consumers and show them what you’re made of. While it can be nerve-wracking to start firing off emails to your customers, it’s a cost-effective strategy that can result in high conversion rates. Here are our favorite email marketing best practices to help you level up your campaigns.

Email Marketing Best Practices: Do’s

Write Subject Lines They Can’t Scroll Past

What’s going to make your campaigns stand out in a sea of your subscribers’ unread emails? A subject line that piques their interest and keeps them curious until they click. It’s all about finding the balance of not giving everything away, but sharing enough to get that open rate up.

Personalize, Personalize, Personalize

Next on our list of email marketing best practices: the power of personalization. Customer needs continue to change; prioritizing unique experiences can help you rise to meet them.

Whether it’s including subscribers’ names in the subject lines or sending campaigns curated just for them (more on that later!), personalization can lead to a noticeable increase in conversion rates.

Choose the Right Cadence

If you subscribe to any number of newsletters, you’re probably getting hit with dozens of email campaigns per day. It’s impossible to keep up with them all, and most of those might end up in your trash folder.

The same happens to your customers. When you’re trying to get your emails, opened, seen, and clicked through, you’ll want to make sure you’re not sending too many blasts. A longer cadence helps build hype for what’s coming next.

All in all, you don’t want to overload your subscribers. Less frequent campaigns will help you stand out from the crowd.

Pay Attention to Your Sender Name

Email marketing is part of the larger customer trust machine, and your sender name is an important piece of the puzzle. It helps to build your brand reputation over time with both internet service providers and customers.

Whether you choose customercare@[your brand name] or the name of a high-profile employee with a great personal brand, pick a name and stick to it. Send your emails from a company domain, and you’re golden.

Clean Your Email List

Just like with any other database, keeping your email list fresh is imperative. Sure, it’s cool to look at a large subscriber count, but what does that number mean if there’s no engagement to match?

Invalid email addresses and unengaged subscribers can result in your campaigns not making it past spam thresholds. Remove nonexistent emails, those with full inboxes, and those who haven’t engaged in a year, and watch your sender reputation improve.

Take Advantage of Lead Magnets

With today’s saturated market, customers are spoiled for choice. They’re also more likely to think twice before handing over their data. When you want to capture leads and build an email list, you’ve got to offer value up front.

Lead magnets are a great way to get consumers to pay attention. A special industry report, a white paper, a series of templates, or an exclusive discount are low-cost ways to attract leads who are likely to stick around.

Prioritize Engaging Content

Even if you have a strong email list, the perfect cadence, and an enticing subject line, your email content also needs to be click-worthy. Maybe you include an interesting story, striking imagery, or fun GIFs. Or, maybe you throw in an interactive element to pique their interest. Either way, let your creative juices flow and see what works!

Email Marketing Best Practices: Don’ts

Purchase Email Lists

Buying email lists is probably the biggest possible email marketing don’t. When you’re delivering campaigns to folks who haven’t consented to receive them, your open rates won’t be as high as you’d like. Plus, you might get denied by major internet service providers.

While building a list organically may seem like a daunting task, it’s worth it. Using lead magnets as we mentioned earlier can help you get there faster. You’re all the more likely to see higher engagement rates and strong deliverability.

Forego Segmentation

It’s no secret that different consumers are after different things. And, since we’re always about delivering the right message to the right people at the right time, we’ll never stop touting the importance of segmentation. Grouping your customers based on their demographic information, consumer behavior, or purchase history allows you to send tailored, effective messaging.

Skip the Testing Phase

Sometimes, emails go out with typos or broken links; it happens to the best of us. But, that can all be avoided when you send yourself a test email to proofread before the real thing. You’ll be able to make sure everything is loading, there are no spelling errors, and your campaign looks good on both a computer and a mobile device.

When you choose not to send a test email, there’s no way to predict what customers will see until the campaign goes out. This phase of email marketing will help you catch any errors and ensure that your brand puts its best foot forward.

Send the Emails Yourself

Maybe you’re just starting out with email marketing. Sending your marketing messages from Gmail, Outlook, or Apple Mail might look like an easy solution, but as your list grows, it can be hard to keep up this way. Plus, you won’t be able measure your campaign performance, manage your reputation, or automatically clean your email list. Implementing an email marketing solution is a worthwhile investment.

Leave Pop-Ups Out of Your Strategy

Much like the lead magnets we mentioned earlier, pop-ups are a great way to grow your email list organically. Some may find them annoying, but if they’re properly targeted to each user, you might see better results than you think.

Consider when you want your form to appear, when it should be hidden, and how often it should be shown to the same user, if at all. By analyzing your bounce rates and average time each page, you’ll be able to properly place your pop-ups and watch the leads roll in.

Skimp on Preview Text

Strong preview text goes hand in hand with an enticing subject line. Typically, an email’s preview text pulls a line of body copy and displays it next to the subject line. Since it has a pretty optimal placement, it should build upon your subject line, encouraging your subscribers to take a peek inside the email itself.

Complicate Unsubscribing

Yes, you’re bound to get some unsubscribes, even if your content is top notch. The easier and the more instantaneous unsubscribing is, the better. It seems counterintuitive, but an obvious unsubscribe link that doesn’t customers to log into their account to finish the job keeps your list clean.

Final Thoughts

It’s time to start sliding into consumers’ inboxes in the best way possible. From engaging subject lines and content to proper testing and lead generation, these email marketing best practices will help you get your efforts off the ground.