Email Marketing Best Practices: Strategies for Higher Engagement

The art and science of crafting a persuasive marketing email, whose branding echoes on both your desktop and mobile devices, should never be overlooked or dismissed. In fact, many companies are finding that email marketing is still a powerful tool for engaging with consumers and building long-term relationships, utilizing both direct messaging tactics and rich email content.

A key element to this success hinges on the email design on a chosen email platform, and a well-structured email template, selected with specific email clients in mind, can make a big difference in your click-through rate, and ultimately, your conversion rate. Here's a tip: When offering products or services, consider incorporating attractive discounts into your email subject line. Furthermore, an effective email marketing program should always include a comprehensive unsubscribe page and confirmation email system to foster trust and transparency.

There are several reasons why email marketing, with its consistent messaging and personalized email content, is still effective and relevant in today's digital landscape. For one, email allows for more personalized and targeted communication with customers about your brand's services. Unlike social media where messages are broad-based, email allows a marketer to send tailored thoughts to individual customers based on their interests and preferences. Utilizing email analytics and CRM software for gathering and understanding feedback can provide valuable insights about the interests and preferences of customers, thus improving email deliverability and maximizing the impact of every marketing email communication.

Another reason why email marketing remains in the lead is the fact that it allows for more detailed and in-depth communication. Emails provide a platform to share relevant articles and information that matters to the targeted customer, expanding the scope of information sharing unlike in social media where you are limited by character counts and the fast-paced nature of the platform. This, powered by marketing automation, can help to build trust and credibility with customers and position your brand as an authority in your field.

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Furthermore, basic email marketing can be a cost-effective way to reach a large audience. And if you're an email marketer struggling to craft the perfect email, you can always find free email templates online. While social media advertising can be expensive, marketing emails allow you to reach a large number of customers without breaking the bank due to its high email deliverability. Plus, with the right strategy, these marketing emails can achieve a high return on investment and drive real results for your business.

In conclusion, while social media and other digital marketing tactics are important, the branding power and direct communication benefits of marketing emails should not be neglected. By incorporating email into your overall marketing strategy, you can build strong, personal connections with customers and drive real results for your business.

According to Hubspot, email isn’t the newest channel, in fact the first marketing email was sent in 1978 and resulted in $13 million sales. Email may not be as new as social media, but with the incorporation of technology like CRM software and marketing automation, it sure is an effective way to build an owned audience that gets results.Think of the possibilities and greater outcomes you could get from combining all of those tools, even including optimizing your email frequency, design, and color schemes with a proper campaign in an email marketing program. This approach opens up access to a vast amount of customer data and gives you a myriad of options to reach your audience effectively.

The Effectiveness of Email Marketing

Let’s do a fun poll to see where your thoughts are, read the following statistic and guess to which marketing tactic this statistic refers to:

"Content marketing, particularly across websites, makes use of effective SEO techniques to drive traffic and engagement. However, an email marketing tool generates $38 for every $1 spent, providing an outstanding 3,800% ROI. These impressive numbers are not achieved by blogging but rather through a robust strategy known as Email Marketing.”

Just kidding,

This statistic isn't about content marketing or SEO for websites at all.

Email marketingSocial mediaInfluencer marketingSEMBlogging

This statistic actually discusses Email Marketing. This isn't just the bedrock of many businesses' revenue and ROI strategies; it is one of the top ways to boost engagement rates, surpassing even the most well-planned email marketing strategies.

If you’re actively seeking ways to generate more revenue and meet your business objectives, and haven't yet optimized your email marketing for peak email deliverability, including features like an easy unsubscribe link to avoid unnecessary unsubscribes, then it’s high time to start.

Or possibly, you are already utilizing email marketing but seem to be accumulating more unsubscribers than conversions. The option is still open to revisit your strategies. Have you contemplated evaluating the mobile-friendliness of your email templates or even, considering the fonts and color tones of your emails? With the right permission to access your email analytics, a comprehensive analysis can provide valuable insights to enhance your click-through and conversion rates.

That's why today, inspired by the success of various digital marketing strategies, including content marketing and SEO optimization for websites, I decided to talk about 4 email marketing best practices exemplified by successful email examples. While these tips won't necessarily transform you into an overnight Google sensation earning $13 million in sales like that first email did, they are likely to bring a higher ROI to your business.

Before I delve into these 4 email marketing best practices, which have reaped substantial successes across multiple platforms, I aim to further enlighten you:

So far, I’ve provided you with one statistic that proves how dynamic email marketing still is. But if you're the type who needs more convincing, you might still be slightly hesitant.

If that’s the case, dive into these illuminating statistics:

A staggering 93% of B2B marketers use email to distribute content across multiple users. This sort of email marketing strategy often goes hand-in-hand with content marketing across various websites.

Talk about how to get started with email marketing andHow to analyze your email marketing efforts

Intriguingly, the anticipated number for active email accounts, both personal and corporate, opens up a whole new world of opportunity for marketers - there will be over 4.5 billion potential recipients by 2025.

It's projected that the U.S. will indeed heavily depend upon email advertising, planning to invest over 10 billion dollars in such marketing strategies by 2023.

Highlighting the popularity of this communication tool among millennials, 73% of them prefer communications from businesses to come via email - a clear endorsement of effective email marketing strategies.

More than 50 percent of U.S.Respondents admitted they check their personal email account more than 10 times a day, making it their preferred method to receive updates from brands, subscribe to informative content, and even unsubscribe if necessary. Whether it's on a computer screen or a mobile device and whether it's an email client like Gmail or Outlook, checking email is an integral part of many people's day-to-day lives.

Given the power of email marketing, you must comprehend that one of the main goals of using this tool is to establish meaningful and personal relationships with your existing and potential customers. This contributes to achieving your business goals. Ensuring that your brand's email goes beyond the spam folder and lands into their contact list, or better yet their subscriber list, is crucial. This is true whether you're sending a B2B email, a B2C email, or any email example that fits into your sales funnel.

Crafting powerful email subject lines is just as important as the content of the email itself, as it plays a decisive role in urging your audience to check your email. Here are a few ways in which you should be leveraging the power of email marketing:

Build Relationships: You can foster solid relationships through personalized conversations that allow you to understand your subscriber on a person-to-person level, leading to better engagement and lower unsubscribe rates.

How to use email marketing

Create Brand Awareness: Keep your customers and potential clients engaged and position your business as top of mind in your industry. Strategic email marketing methods are a key ingredient here. These methods may draw inspiration from successful campaigns and could involve using reputable email service providers like Gmail or Mailchimp.

Promote Content: Email doesn't only have to be about the hard sell – it's a great tool to educate your customers, showing them you care. Use your chosen email service provider to promote your blog or any other valuable content. Remember, the sender name should be easily recognizable to build trust and increase open rates.

Generate Leads: Email can also be used to gather personal information in return for a valuable gift (guide, e-book, tutorials, webinars, etc). This approach, supported often by Gmail and other similar providers, is a classic subscription tactic that can expand your subscriber list.

Nurture Leads: The purpose of nurturing leads, as we delve into this blog post, is to help them, keep them engaged with your brand by providing them with useful and relevant content. This process often involves using email marketing platforms like Mailchimp or even Gmail. Each has its unique channels to reach out to your audience and ensure adherence to important email regulations imposed by email service providers.

Market your Products: Email is also great if you want to promote your product or service through a platform like the Campaign Monitor or Mailchimp. Even the launching of a new product or website can be effectively communicated through these channels, effectively driving website traffic into your sales funnel.

Now, you might be brimming with anticipation, possibly wondering,

Where do I start with email marketing, perhaps leveraging platforms like Outlook, Gmail, or established email service providers like Mailchimp?

One of the biggest advantages of email marketing is its ability to reach a wide audience at a low cost while bringing attention to your website address. It allows you to personalize your messages and target specific segments of your audience with relevant content. With the right strategy and tools, such as split testing different subject lines, sender names, or content offered by providers like Mailchimp, you can create engaging and effective emails that drive conversions and build brand advocacy.

To create a successful email marketing strategy, it's important to start by defining your target audience and understanding their needs and preferences. When done correctly, your emails can play a pivotal role in advancing your business goals.

At the very beginning of creating tailored email campaigns that resonate with your audience and encourage them to engage with your brand, a foundational understanding is necessary. To improve the user experience, it is important to utilize various marketing channels, including the powerful platform of email marketing, and adhere to email best practices.

The subsequent step is to establish transparent goals for your email marketing campaign and create a roadmap to achieve them. This might include setting benchmarks for open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. To do this effectively, HTML skills can be beneficial for deeper customization and personalization. The length of your emails is also a critical aspect to consider for maintaining reader engagement. Remember, using tools like split testing, provided by email service providers, can provide greater insight into these metrics.

1. Create an email marketing strategy

In order to make it inviting for your readers to participate, it's also crucial to create a user-friendly sign-up form on your landing page that easily allows your audience to provide their email addresses and join your email list. The user experience here indeed sets the tone for the entire email marketing journey.

Once you have defined your audience and objectives, you can lean on your resources to select the right type of email campaign that aligns with your prospects' interests and meets your goals. This selection process can be made easier with the help of your email service provider, such as Mailchimp.

Upon your campaign set up, adhering to a consistent schedule for sending your emails at optimal times is vital. A strategy that takes into account the length of time between emails enhances the reader's experience and fosters trust and credibility with your audience, ensuring they anticipate your messages eagerly.

Finally, remember to measure the outcomes of your email marketing efforts and to test your approaches. The data gathered from user experience, engagement, and response to your email campaigns should be used to optimize and improve your plan. This could involve split testing various aspects of the emails you send out, including elements such as HTML formatting, content length, and timing, all while leaning on the analytics provided by your email service provider for informed decisions.

Email marketing, when properly executed according to the beginning strategy and later adaptations determined through best practices, can be a powerful method for building brand advocacy, generating conversions, and engaging your prospects. By utilizing different marketing channels, you can foster lasting bonds with your audience and drive business growth.

Next step in your email marketing strategy involves segmenting your defined audience into various groups that will begin receiving your crafted email communications. Note that this is a vital component of the email best practices to ensure each segment receives content that is customized to their interests.

Building these lists is a crucial step and includes leads and your email subscribers (newsletter subscribers, for example). The gathering of leads for your email list can be done via two routes: lead magnets and opt-in forms, each an equally important marketing channel.

A lead magnet acts as an attractive incentive, luring people to sign up to your mailing lists. Free content offers serve as excellent examples of lead magnets, offering value while maintaining optimal user experience.

2. Build an Email list

Such offers are extended to individuals, specifically targeting certain demographics, in exchange for some personal information, predominantly their email addresses. It's through this potential-packed email marketing channel that businesses have the ability to gather valuable insights regarding customer preferences.

Such offers are extended to individuals, specifically targeting certain demographics, in exchange for some personal information, predominantly their email addresses. It's through this potential-packed email marketing channel that businesses have the ability to gather valuable insights regarding customer preferences.

Lead Magnets

While handing out these email promotions, remember it's essential to note that people are quite protective of their personal information, making the emails sent by the email providers a matter of extreme sensitivity. Hence, these content offers must be of real value to your audience to warrant their participation. It's also important to uphold this respect by including an unsubscribe button for those who choose not to continue receiving these emails.

Examples of viable lead magnets which might appeal to your email sub or subscriber:

Opt-in forms are precisely that, forms. They're the tools we, as email providers, utilize to gather the audience's data, thus growing our email lists.

Ensure your forms exhibit the following characteristics:

• Ebook
• Checklist
• Whitepaper
• Template
• Webinar

Opt-in Forms

Equipped with a foundational understanding of email marketing, the other critical aspect to ensure your campaign's efficacy lies in the diligent measurement and tracking of its performance, to enhance bounce rates and develop customer loyalty.

Consistent analyzing of your email marketing efforts offers you and your team the necessary resources to make informed decisions, acting as the backbone of your future strategies.

• Has an attractive design
• Has an attention grabbing headline
• The copy is relevant to the offer
• The form is simpleIt provides a double confirmation
• The flow works

Here are the best ways to evaluate your email marketing campaigns' effectiveness:

How do you measure your email marketing efforts?

Remember that audiences differ; some might appreciate personalized content, while others may prefer more promotional material. Some respond positively to colorful CTAs, while others may not.

Thus, a/b testing various elements within your email and sticking with what works best is imperative.

A/B Test:

Here are examples of items you can a/b test:

Now, to which key performance indicators (KPIs) should you be paying more attention?

There are four main key metrics to measure in email marketing: clicks, links, landing pages, and words. These components help to understand the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign, providing insight into how many recipients are interacting with your content and fostering customer loyalty, thereby making the most out of your mailing lists.

• Subject lines
• CTA’s
• Images/Videos

KPI’s:

How to improve it?

You should ensure that you are following best practices to avoid spam filters, remove inactive people from your list, check which emails hard-bounced, and remove those emails from your list. Monitor how often your links are clicked and how traffic flows to your landing pages, in addition to being conscious about the usage and placement of key words to maintain your reputation in recipients' inboxes.

Deliverability: This refers to measuring the rate at which emails reach your intended audience inbox.

How to improve it?

Create engaging subject lines, adjust and play with the time and date you send out emails to see which one works best. Keep tabs on the clicks and interactions with your links to gauge the effectiveness of your schedule and subject lines.

Open Rate: It refers to the percentage of people that open up your email as soon as it reaches their inbox.

How to improve it?

Write engaging copy and content, make sure that your offer provides some sort of value to your audience, A/B test different CTA’s (images, graphic vs in-line copy), and also review the preview text of your emails, as they are often displayed in inboxes along with the subject line.

Click Through Rates: Refers to the percentage of people that actually click on the CTA’s inside the emails you send.

How to improve it?

Make sure your email is aligned with your brand and buyer persona, and it will help you check if you're promising one thing and delivering another. In addition, ensure that the words used in your email are relevant and resonate with your audience.

Unsubscribers: This will measure the percentage of people who opt-out of your email list once they receive an email from you.

Okay, so far, we’ve discussed how to get started with email marketing, how to measure your email marketing efforts once you’re done with them, and how these efforts reflect in the inboxes of your audience.

Let’s ensure that once you measure those email efforts, you see positive results from them, in the form of increased clicks and engagements on your links.

These 4 email marketing best practices will help you do that:

Crafting an email that will entice a high open rate, increases the likelihood of your links leading to landing pages being clicked and that will increase your click-through rates takes a lot more than you think. A good email that keeps your customers engaged should expertly combine words with other elements, and should have the following characteristics and components:

Copy: Copy should have consistency with your brand’s voice and stick to specifically one topic. Ensure that you make your email concise, demonstrate your value and consider the words that are most likely to elicit clicks and interactions.

1. Email Marketing Tips

Images: Make sure that if you use images, they are high-end, eye-catching, relevant to the topic and double check that they can be viewed through different devices, as this can affect the way your links appear and performance of your landing pages.

CTA: Make sure your call to action stands out and catches your reader’s attention with great copy, the CTA must also be relevant to the main message of the email, and its placement is pivotal in achieving the right amount of clicks.

Timing: Make sure you are sending out your emails at the time that your customers usually open their emails. This strategic placement will help ensure your emails reach their intended devices and inboxes at the right time for maximum engagement.

Responsiveness: Most people check their emails on their phones, make sure they are optimized for mobile devices as well. A mobile-optimized email is more likely to get more clicks and visits to your landing pages.

Personalization: You can use personalization tokens to get more familiar with your audience, always remember to use a friendly tone. Personalization is a great way to get your emails read and your words appreciated.

Fun fact: A study revealed that Tuesday at 11 am ET is the best day and time to send emails.

Subject line: Use a clear statement that is in alignment with the main message and content of the email. Try to be as captivating as possible with subject lines. Craft subject lines and preview text that are captivating and accurate to increase the chances of your email being opened when it lands in your audience's inboxes.

Visual Elements: If you really want to make your emails stand out you can also include visual elements that actually have movement. Adding a moving element to your emails is attention-grabbing and may result in more clicks on your links, leading recipients to your landing pages.

2. Email Segmentation

Creating a successful email marketing strategy can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you are doing it for the first time. However, by following a few simple steps, you can create an effective strategy that will help you engage with your audience and achieve your goals.

The first step in creating an email marketing strategy is to define your audience or buyer persona. This will help you understand who you are targeting your messages to and what they want to hear, read, and learn about. Once you have a clear understanding of your audience, you can then establish your goals and create a path for people to sign up for your emails.

Once you have your audience and goals in place, it is important to choose the right type of email campaign for your needs. There are several types of email campaigns, including newsletters, promotional emails, and transactional emails, each of which has its own unique benefits and drawbacks. Research and learn about each type of campaign, and then decide which one will work best for your audience and their specific wants and needs.

Finally, once you have your campaign in place, it is important to create a schedule and stick to it. This will help you build consistency and trust with your audience, and it will also allow you to measure and track your results to see if your strategy is working. By measuring and analyzing your results, you can make adjustments and improvements to your strategy to ensure that it is as effective as possible.

The best way to segment an email list is to create separate lead magnets and opt-in email sign-up forms for the different stages of the buyer’s journey.

You can segment your list any way you want, basically; here are a few ways in which you could break them up:

• geographical location
• industry
• lifecycle stage
• language
• job title
• industry

3. Personalization

Having those lists will help you get even more personal with your emails.

Whatever email marketing platform you use it’ll help you gather and store information about a contact and create personalization tokens with it.

What do personalization tokens allow you to do?

• Add a first name in your subject line
• Include region-specific content
• Talk about relevant or personal events, specific holidays
• Use a personal signature to end your emails and not just a company logo

4. Automation

Automation is not only time-saving, but it also allows for better organization and personalization of your emails. Modern email marketers love automation. You can set up triggers to send emails based on specific actions taken by the recipient, such as opening an email or clicking on a link. This way, you can tailor the content of your emails to the individual's interests and needs.

In addition to automation, email marketing tools also provide valuable insights and data on the performance of your campaigns. You can track metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to see how well your emails are performing and make adjustments accordingly.

Overall, implementing an email marketing strategy with automation and data tracking can greatly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing efforts. It allows you to focus on creating engaging and personalized content, rather than spending time and money on manual email sending. However, bear in mind that as your business grows, you may get to a point where you need additional email marketing tools to support your efforts.

How do you automate? There are two main ways:

Autoresponders:

These can be simply described as a series of emails that are immediately sent out from a mailing list once triggered by a certain action. For example, when someone downloads a guide or ebook, they get one of those autoresponder emails with instructions or thanking them for their purchase or download.

Workflows:

The word workflow might sound a bit scary, but trust me, they’re easy to set up once you get the hang of it.

A workflow is basically a flow with yes/no branches and it will execute certain actions based on the criteria you set.

Workflows are smart; they understand when email recipients have opened an email, and it will set off a series of actions based on that behavior.

Both autoresponders and Workflows will help you will help you send the right email to the right people at the right time!

Actually, companies see a 20% revenue increase when they send emails based on lifecycle stages.

Conclusion

An email marketing strategy is a valuable tool for businesses to increase revenue and improve customer relationships. So, take the time to find the right email marketing software for your unique needs. By defining your target audience, setting goals, creating a sign-up path, choosing the right campaign type, and implementing automation, you can effectively nurture your customer base and prevent buyer's remorse. Follow these best practices and regularly track your performance to achieve a higher return on investment through email marketing.

If you’re still unsure of where to start or need help setting up an email marketing software, you can always reach out to us; we are happy to help businesses like yours grow through digital marketing.

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