Email marketing can be a highly effective and economical tool for businesses to reach their customers but it can be tricky for folks not familiar with the ins and outs. However, whether you’re a mom-and-pop restaurant or a multinational bank, the underlying principles of effective email marketing remain the same. With the right resources and guidance, creating effective campaigns is within reach for everyone with an earnest desire to take their marketing to the next level. Here are a few important guidelines to keep in mind when creating email magic.
DO Write A Strategy
Whatever your goals and objectives are, you need a gameplan. Identifying the purpose of the email campaign is a great start, followed by laying out content strategies and benchmarks for success. With a clear outcome in mind, you will be better equipped to analyze success and make adjustments.
DO Use Email Marketing Software
Utilizing an email marketing platform, such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact, can help you automate workflows, manage email databases, and create professional presentations. Most platforms scale their subscription pricing to the number of emails sent, so even small businesses can create sophisticated campaigns, and larger businesses have access to tools that will scale up with their business growth.
DO Stay on Brand
Treat your email templates and designs with the same attention to brand as any other advertising. Your email campaign should embody the same tone and voice as other marketing channels in both its visual design and content.
DO Segment Your List
The more you can personalize your email content, the better. By segmenting your list, you’ll be able to send more customized messages to targeted audiences. Segments can be based on a wide variety of demographics, consumer habits or interests and email marketing programs make segmentation easy to manage.
DO Be Mobile Friendly
Duh. With an ever-growing percentage of emails being read on smartphones and tablets, make sure your email layouts are mobile responsive to ensure the best display on all devices.
DO Track Results
Analyzing campaign performance will help you understand customer’s behavior and create more targeted strategies. Some common metrics to watch include open rates, bounce rates and click rates.
DON’T Send Unwanted Emails
Spamming is unprofessional and unproductive. Annoying your customers with unwanted or unsolicited emails can be counterproductive and will potentially damage your brand and negatively affect your customers’ perceptions. Your list subscribers should be just that – subscribed! This means they have agreed to receive emails, and that they can easily opt-out if they choose. This isn’t just good practice, it’s also the law.
DON’T Forget to Test your Emails
Testing your campaigns will help ensure that your email appears as designed and also offers an opportunity to catch typos and double-check all your hyperlinks! Human errors are inevitable, but you can minimize mistakes and silly errors by testing and proofreading.
DON’T Write Lazy Subject Lines
Email users receive a lot of messages every day, so make sure your subject line stands out as click-worthy! Even a well-crafted campaign can fail to perform when a humdrum subject line cripples the open rate. Keep your audience and objectives in mind when choosing your words and stick to straightforward and concise phrasing.
Email isn’t going away anytime soon and with ever-evolving features and integrations, email marketing campaigns can work wonders with proper planning and management. However, not everyone has the time to optimize their campaigns. Getting outside help from an agency can also be a great option for businesses that want to focus their efforts and improve results.