Businesses still use email marketing to help reach their target audience with offers, news, and exciting promotions. It isn't likely to fall out of favor anytime soon. Email marketing can be extremely effective if you spend time building the right audience and propagate your list with people who are truly interested in what you have to offer.
By 2023, researchers predict the number of email users will be 4.4 billion. Most people still use their email every day, which allows you to put your subject line in front of them more often than almost any other marketing method available. Even if you advertise on social media, they may not always see your posts or your ad may only pop up sporadically.
Around 59 percent of businesses feel email is their biggest return on investment (ROI) out of their promotional efforts.
Here are 16 email marketing tips to help improve your efforts and earn the best ROI.
1. Scrub Your List.
At first, scrubbing names from your mailing list might sound counterintuitive. After all, you want to reach more people.
However, your list is only effective if the people on it are interested in what you offer. Spend time removing accounts that bounce back, getting rid of those who never open an email from you, and seeing who interacts and engages with your sends. A little effort to clean up your list will save you time and money, and will allow you to understand your core audience better.
2. Polish Your Subject Line.
People see your subject line before deciding whether or not they'll open your email. Some providers cut off particularly long subjects, so keep your characters within the 60-character range or shorter.
Make sure the subject line reflects the content of the email, but avoid any words that might instigate a spam trigger and throw your message into the user's spam folder.
3. Secure Your Lists.
Those who give you their email and personal information trust you to keep it safe from scammers and hackers. Protect data by securing it in a location where access is restricted.
Commit to using secure practices on all devices used by you and your employees. Conduct training to ensure people know to never share their passwords and to secure mobile as well as desktop devices.
4. Segment Your Campaigns.
Segmenting your campaign allows you to create emails that are highly targeted and personalized. In a look at 2,000 Mailchimp users and 11,000 segmented campaigns sent to nine million recipients, researchers found they have a 14.31 percent higher open rate than non-segmented ones.
It does take a little more effort to segment your list and figure out what campaign speaks to each grouping, but the lift in opens alone is worth the effort.
5. Know Your Audience.
No matter where you're marketing, understanding your audience is a vital part of the process. You have an edge with your email list, though, because you can survey them and get to know them a bit better.
Discover their preferences, why they're on your list, and what types of products they might like to see in the future. Once you feel you have a firm grasp on who your audience says they are, compare that info with their behaviors and come up with some buyer personas you can write to when creating emails.
6. Create a Schedule.
If you are guilty of sending out a few emails and then ghosting your list for weeks or even months at a time, you aren't alone. The problem with not sending emails consistently is that people may forget why they signed up for your list in the first place.
Others will get new email addresses, and anything sent to them will bounce back unopened. Some people will forget they signed up at all and report you for spam.
This is why you should create a regular schedule for sending out emails, even if it is just a quick note to say you appreciate their business.
7. Keep It Short.
One issue with some emails is that they go on and on. In a look at their 2.1 million customers' emails, Constant Contact found some with three or fewer images and about 20 lines of text had the highest clickthrough rates.
The average person today is incredibly busy with work, family, and other commitments. They don't have time to read a message that scrolls on for miles. If you can't say what you need to in a paragraph or two, then you should split the email into more than one.
8. Go Mobile.
A recent study found users view 56 percent of emails on iPhones or in Gmail. Since a large number of emails are read on mobile devices, ensuring what you send looks OK on different screen sizes is a vital part of ensuring success.
It's far better to keep your design simple than risk losing your mobile readers.
9. Write a Killer CTA.
Each email you send out should have a call to action (CTA). You might invite subscribers to share the message with a friend, offer a limited-time deal, or encourage them to click through to the website.
Think about the goal and tie it into your CTA for that particular campaign.
10. Split-Test Your Emails.
Not sure what language works best with your CTA or which subject lines your readers respond to best? Conduct some split testing to learn more about your users.
Send out different calls to action to various segments of your audience. Try two different headline styles and test them with your entire list. Think about how you can improve over time by studying how subscribers respond.
11. Design Landing Pages.
When you send out a campaign, create a separate landing page for it, so you can more easily track how well each effort does.
It's much easier to see how much traffic arrives on a dedicated page than to figure out which came from elsewhere. Knowing in-depth stats allows you to improve future campaigns.
12. Embrace White Space.
Don't be afraid to leave plenty of white space in your emails. It highlights the most important elements and makes it easier to read blocks of text or view images.
Every inch of space doesn't have to be filled with content. Instead, choose to leave some space blank intentionally to give your readers' eyes a rest.
13. Discover Your UVP.
What is the unique value proposition (UVP) of your email?
Start with how your product or service solves a problem for the reader. Then, look at how it settles the pain point and does so better than any of your competitors. Now, communicate your UVP, and you'll have a much higher success rate than if you simply invite people to buy your product.
14. Send Abandonment Emails.
Are you using emails to send out invites after shopping cart abandonment? If not, you may be missing out on potential sales.
One study showed that when a follow-up email is sent within an hour of abandonment, conversions increase by 6.33 percent. The good news is that you can set up automated email triggers when people almost make a purchase but then bounce away, creating a scenario where you set up the campaign once and then let it do its magic.
15. Get Personal.
Whenever possible, make your emails personal. Address the person by their first name and send offers that tie into past purchases or browsing history.
The more specific you can make your campaign emails, the more likely the person is to take action. You could even show past purchases and make suggestions for other items the customer might enjoy.
16. Test Your Emails.
Spend time testing each email you send out to ensure you don't have any costly number errors or embarrassing grammatical mistakes. Nearly every email service provider gives you the option to send a test message that looks just like the one your subscribers receive.
Look it over carefully. If you are worried you might miss something, get additional input from others. Make the email as perfect as possible to present a professional look to the outside world.
Repeat Successes
When you send out an email and gain a positive response, look at the factors that made it a success. Repeat as many elements as possible without copying the same tired campaign over and over.
Include each element that brought you success, and you'll have a formula for the perfect marketing email.
Lexie Lu
Lexie Lu is a freelance graphic designer and blogger. She keeps up with the latest design news and always has some coffee in close proximity. She writes on Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.