We may not have spoken about email marketing exclusively for some time, but it really is a staple in the mix of integrated marketing strategies. It has been tried and proven to really work at cutting through to your target market when executed correctly.
With this in mind I thought it was time for a quick refresh on a few email marketing best practice tips for you to get the results you need from investing your time, resources and budget into email marketing.
We have put together 5 top tips to ace your email marketing with all the things you need to get the mix right:
Be Authentic
Don’t send an email for the sake of sending an email. You said you’d send an email every month so you have to right? No, you don’t! Only send emails when you have something worthwhile to share with your database. If you send unauthentic emails people will tune out and hit delete before they even read your next email.
You can also show authenticity in the way your email is designed or written. If it’s appropriate for the content, use email addresses and email signatures of staff your contacts know and deal with regularly. Another key element is making sure your subject line directly relates to what your viewers will find inside. Don’t say you have the ‘Best Deal Ever’ when you’re offering a 5% discount.
Be Engaging
Emails should be engaging – it’s just that simple. You have a very short window from the subject line, with only three to five seconds once the email is opened to capture the reader’s attention. If you’re yawning no one else is going to engage with your email either. Test the response to your email internally before you distribute.
Always ensure your email marketing is ‘set up’ correctly. Most emails are viewed on a mobile device. Therefore, you should be creating an email that looks great and functions correctly on a mobile as your top priority. There’s nothing less engaging than an email that just doesn’t ‘work’ when you try to view it. You should also be testing your email on different devices and email systems.
We recommend, at the least, testing your email across a combination of the following systems, software and devices:
- Gmail
- Outlook
- Windows
- Mac
- Desktop
- iPhone
- Android
Another big engagement factor is personalisation. If you know your contacts first name, use it appropriately within your email. Keep in mind this needs to be accurate, if your data is a bit astray we would recommend avoiding this. No personalisation is better than incorrect personalisation.
Be Sure of your Purpose
Why are you sending this email? You need to have a clear purpose and a simple call to action for your email.
There are so many ways an email can be constructed and it really comes back to the purpose of your email. The two main options are plain text emails or a creatively designed image based email:
- You could use images and creative design when you want to showcase a retail offering with a clean design, engaging imagery and a clear call to action button to click.
- You could use a simple text, personalised style email when you want to show you are talking to the individual about something that doesn’t have a retail message. This could be used for example for a referral offer to repeat or VIP customers.
Be Diligent
Ensure you are managing your data well. This is possibly the most important thing we can share with you!
Segment your list, remove unsubscribers, only send to people who have ‘opted-in’ to hear from you and don’t purchase unqualified data.
You will see the best results from a database that is genuine and well managed.
Be in the Know About Email Marketing
Understand industry benchmarks to evaluate your email marketing efforts. You should be checking the reports of every email you send. If your stats are decreasing or fluctuating, consider the differences between your past emails to inform your direction for future emails.
MailChimp have a great guide for industry benchmarks you can access here. They share all the key stats including what the average open rate, click-through rate and unsubscribe rate is for a wide variety of different industries.
We hope these brief insights have helped you on your pursuit to perfecting your email marketing.
This really is just the tip of the iceberg and we’d love to assist you with tailoring your email marketing to get the best results for your organisation. Drop us a line and we can show you what great email marketing can look like for your business with a tailored and strategic approach.
Fun Fact: As of February 2017 there is an estimated 3.7 billion email users worldwide and around 269 billion emails sent per day – that’s a crazy 74 trillion emails sent per year!
