Email turned 40 last year but this doesn’t mean it is old fashioned. Marketers and business owners still use email as a key digital marketing sphere. Not only is it cost effective but it also offers fantastic ROI.
There are a number of things to keep in mind when embarking on a new campaign. The golden rule is to make sure you’re not sending out SPAM. You should ensure that every single person on your mailing list has granted permission to be on there, you should also provide them with the option to opt out again if they desire by including an unsubscribe mechanism. Putting the user in control in this manner is an effective way to promote brand loyalty.
A question of design
The design and content of the emails themselves are also of paramount importance. What’s right for one business may not be right for another in terms of tone, humour and other considerations. In general though, it’s important to have a high impact subject line that grabs attention and gives the reader an indication of what the email contains
Mentioning juicy promotional offers in the subject line can often mean an email will have considerably higher open and click-through rates. However, you shouldn’t overdo this, as the email recipients might consider yours as too spammy. Finding the right balance is important and it can be achieved by A/B testing or any other methods.
Getting a clear and direct message across
Email subject is the all-important aspect in email marketing. It dictates email open rate (the number of emails sent and actually opened/read by the recipients.) Ideally, you would want your open rate to be as high as possible.
Content should generally be easy to read, direct and clear. Calls to action and links should be visible and particularly obvious to the reader. Your goal is to convert your reader, not to confuse them with plain and lengthy email content with no visible call to action.
Accessibility issues
Your email’s purpose is for your reader to take action. You need to accommodate your recipients by making your emails as accessible as possible. With that being said, short emails often work wonder as they send your message effectively, considering your readers’ attention span.
Images in your emails can be powerful tools to deliver your message. However, by default, email software, such as Mozilla Thunderbird is disabling image by default. Email recipient can choose to display the image, but that means one more step for your message to be read – ideally, you want your emails to be opened hassle-free, so again, test, test, and test.
One more thing – with the ever-growing trend of everything-mobile, you need to make sure that your emails will be displayed correctly on every mobile device.
Focus on deliverability
Choosing the right email marketing provider is said to contribute the half of your email marketing campaign’s success. One of the characteristics of such provider is the additional resources offered for users, typically in the form of training program, tips for better email marketing, and so on. An expert provider like little green plane offers CIM approved email marketing training courses to help users launch a successful campaign. These cover all topics including more advanced subjects, such as how to compile your list and profile your audience, email design, incentives and spam. Even if you’re reasonably well versed in email marketing, there’s always something new to learn and knowing how they affect your campaign can really help you to get the most out of your email marketing.
Takeaway
Please bear in mind that, in email marketing, conversion rate is golden. Indeed, the number of emails you sent and the number of recipients you have are important. However, your ability to persuade readers to take action is the ultimate factor.
Be sure to always on the lookout for best practices, and make testing a must-do, as it will help you to determine what kind of campaign would work out well.