If you’re reading this, you’re either curious about how to optimize your email marketing strategy or are just getting started with email marketing. If so, you’re on the right path.
Despite the many marketing channels, email marketing is essential for any small business and a great way for you to generate leads and convert them into customers for your business.
- Choose a reliable email marketing platform
We understand the challenges that come from being a small business. You have so much to do to keep your business running. Sometimes, thinking about the right marketing strategy to help you drive results can seem scary. That’s why we created this blog post to help you with the top 10 email marketing best practices to help grow your business.
The first best practice for a successful email campaign strategy is conducting research on the platform you will use.
Although email providers like Gmail or Outlook seem convenient and cheap at first, they are not going to provide you with the proper tools or guidance you need to build and grow your business.
Instead, you should choose an email marketing platform that is easy to use, reliable, and will help you execute your email marketing plan. For example, iContact is the easiest email marketing platform for small businesses and includes several features that will enhance your email marketing experience. Our easy-to-use email platform offers various features that enable businesses to create stunning email campaigns, send automated and personalized emails, build high-converting landing pages, and more! Sign up for free today to start engaging your customers.
- Create professional, yet branded email templates
Brand recognition is key when it comes to building a relationship with your customers. It is important to create an image that not only fits your brand, but also looks appealing to your subscribers.
According to Reboot, using a signature color in your email templates can increase brand recognition by 80 percent. If you don’t already have an established brand identity, there are several things to research and consider regarding your branded image. This includes the colors, images, styles, and fonts that convince the market that your business brings quality, experience and reliability.
For example, in the image below, we can apply the squint test. To make sure that your email content and design are binge worthy, use the squint test. If you can still make out the outline of the email when squinting, you pass. With Vans, we can immediately recognize the brand by its iconic checkers and fonts.
- Use analytics to track your email marketing strategy
An efficient email marketing platform will provide you with precise and timely data on every email sent.
On your end, you will be able to see opens, clicks, bounces, opt-out information, and more engagement data. With this, you will learn about your subscribers’ interests in certain products or topics based on their actions or inactions.
It is important to track your open rate often because it helps you determine which email subject lines and content resonate best with your customers. You should also keep a close eye on your bounces (both hard and soft) because, in the long term, your bounce rate can impact your email deliverability.
- Keep your email list organized
Buying an email list and having an outdated email list will not only waste your money, but also waste your time.
Buying an email list is never a good idea for the following reasons:
- Your email engagement rate won’t be high because the contacts you email won’t recognize your business and, therefore, won’t open your emails.
- You will increase your chances of getting marked as spam.
- Your email deliverability and IP reputation will be damaged.
- It can put your email account at risk
Likewise, you should keep your current email list up to date. Over time, people change email addresses, move to new locations, or change companies. Because of this, it is possible for these email addresses to become outdated, leading to inaccurate data. So to avoid paying to send out emails that will never reach the intended recipient, clean your email list regularly and save yourself time and money.
- Understand email deliverability and avoid the spam folder
As mentioned above, a disengaged email list could be one of the reasons your email is not reaching the inbox. However, there are many more unhealthy practices that can send your emails to the spam folder. Understanding the spam risks will help you to avoid them and optimize your email marketing strategy.
A great place to start is the subject line of your email. Spam filters can flag your subject line as spam if you use too much of the following: emojis, exclamation marks, all capital letters, et cetera. It is best practice to review and edit your subject line when writing your email to minimize typos or errors you might have missed. Misspelled words, along with “spammy words” also have the tendency to be flagged as spam.
- Designing your email
There are several factors to take into consideration when designing your email. When it comes to email marketing, it is good to design for the devices that your subscribers will read your emails on, beyond just computers or laptops. In today’s digital age, it is important to make your content accessible on all subscriber devices. Martech states that almost 75% of subscribers admit they will delete an email if they cannot access it on their mobile device.
As mentioned before, branding is key when it comes to email marketing, especially with designing. Your branding is how your subscribers will recognize you and keep their subscription. For this, make sure you have your brand colors and logo in the email and that your branding matches the overall look and feel of your emails.
- Use email automation to send personalized content
As a small business, we understand that your time is extremely valuable. What if we told you that with email automation, you not only save time, but also send personalized emails to engage with your customers?
A good place to start with email automation is by sending out a welcome email to greet new subscribers. This is a great way to share a little bit about your business and let them know what kinds of email content to expect from you in the future.
For added personalization, you can send an automated email to congratulate your customers on their birthday or anniversary.
With email automation, the options are endless! Nurturing leads, encouraging action, and building loyalty are all goals that can be achieved through email automation.
- Segment your lists
Segmentation allows you to send more relevant and personalized information to your subscribers. For email marketers, this process consists of dividing email subscriber lists into various interest or demographic based sub-lists.
As a result, you can increase the instances of subscribers clicking links, remaining subscribers, and increase your reputation score.
In the image below, we can see that Krispy Kreme sent out two different versions of an email with different graphic treatments to test which email will resonate best with their subscribers. This could be seen as a behavioral segmentation to encourage clicks, opens, and lead to their website.
- Preview and test your campaign
When considering best practices and techniques that could change your subscribers ‘response, it is important to apply them and test to see what works. Consider using A/B testing by changing one small aspect of your email to test your campaign, or it will be difficult to differentiate which change makes a difference.
- Use call-to-action buttons that drive traffic
When creating your email marketing campaign, a call-to-action or CTA is one of the most important aspects of the email content. CTAs help businesses meet the goal of their email marketing campaign by encouraging subscribers to take action.
Be sure to include a call-to-action button in every email you send readers back to your webpage. An effective call-to-action button does the following:
- They stand out from other web design elements on the page by using a contrasting color, size, or manipulating the whitespace.
- They are clear and direct by using action words and phrases such as: “shop now”, “order today”, and “book soon”.
- It collects data for marketing analytics and better list segmentation.
- It leads the reader directly to what is expected.
Similar to the design process, there are several ways you can increase engagement and clicks by testing the look, placement, and elements of your call-to-action buttons. Learn more about this on our blogpost on Email Calls to Action (CTAs) to Make Your Messaging Thrive.
Which best practice was your favorite? Regardless, make sure to take what you learned here and apply it to your email marketing campaigns moving forward.
Email Marketing Best Practices FAQs
What are examples of email marketing best practices?
A few examples of email marketing best practices include (but are not limited to):
- Choosing a reliable email marketing platform
- Creating professional, yet branded email templates
- Using analytics to track your email marketing strategy
- Keeping your email list organized
- Understanding email deliverability and avoiding the spam folder
- Designing your email
- Using email automation to send targeted and personalized content
- Segmenting your lists
- Previewing and testing your campaign
- Using call-to-action buttons that drive traffic
- Ensure that your CTA is above the fold
What are email marketing best practices?
Email marketing best practices refer to the ways in which an email marketing campaign is successfully developed, designed and delivered. Generally speaking, best practices are deemed the correct or most effective ways to go about tackling a commercial or professional project (e.g., an email marketing campaign).
What email marketing mistakes should be avoided?
For starters, never buy an email list. Always make sure the individuals you are sending messages to have opted-in to receive your communications. Nowadays, most users are opening emails on their mobile devices. Therefore, don’t forget to optimize your emails for both desktop and mobile devices!
Here are a few other common email marketing mistakes you’ll want avoid:
- Including poorly written subject lines
- Not including a clear call-to-action
- Appearing unprofessional (poor email design)
- Using language your readers may not understand
- Relying too heavily on images
- Not segmenting your email lists
- Neglecting analytics
