Email marketing is a critical part of any marketing campaign, regardless of what niche you operate in. Many businesses use email marketing to keep in touch with existing clients, but it can be disheartening to realise more than half of your recipients haven’t even seen or opened your email.
54% of marketers say engagement rate is a top priority, yet many companies make the mistake of sending too many emails or not personalising their messages. The simple things matter a lot, so it pays to carefully manage your email marketing campaign if you want to maximise its success rate. To help you get started, here are some email deliverability best practices, as recommended by some of the top experts in the business.
Is Email a Good ROI?
Arguably so, yes, it is. The great thing about email is that it costs virtually nothing to send hundreds or thousands of emails. One click, and off they go. Of course, you do need to have a database of email contacts, and if you deal with people from the EU, these recipients must have explicitly given you their permission to be contacted, as per the new GDPR legislation.
The advantage of using email marketing is that it costs very little in terms of investment. Start-ups can write their own email newsletters and use a SaaS solution to automate the process. Of course, you do need to keep on top of your email contact database, as sending emails to people who no longer exist is a waste of your time. Use free software such as Canva to create a professional-looking email.
Boosting Engagement
Emails are a tried and tested method of engaging with existing customers, but you have to craft your emails very carefully. Most people aren’t interested in receiving a generic email that begins with an uninteresting subject line and goes on to address the recipient as “Dear User”.
Would you open an email addressed to a ‘user’? No, probably not. Emails addressed directly to the recipient have a much higher click-through rate. In fact, the open rate for personalised emails is an impressive 17.6% compared to 11.4% of generic emails. So, for the sake of adding the recipient’s name, you could quite easily boost your open rate.
Tweak the subject line. It needs to be crystal clear what the email contains. Time references are effective, for example, ‘24-hour sale coupon’ or ‘X tips for a relaxing holiday weekend’. Interestingly, subject lines that contain the words “thank you” are also effective, so if you have a good reason to thank your recipient, go right ahead!
Offer Help and Assistance
The golden rule of email marketing is that your main priority should be to help the recipient. Use emails to build a lasting relationship with the recipient. Tell them things that are of interest to them. Don’t use every email as a sales pitch, as this is a huge turn-off for people.
‘How-to’ newsletters are often effective. You don’t need to craft an entire ‘how to’ article in the email. Keep that for your website blog or social media feed. Instead, add a synopsis to the email and encourage the reader to click through to read the rest of the article. This kills two birds with one stone by booting email engagement and improving click-through rates.
Always include a call-to-action in your email. A strong CTA encourages the reader to click on the link or place an order. Research indicates that the best CTAs are button-based, so bear this in mind when you design your email content.
KISS
Keep It Simple Stupid, affectionately shortened to KISS, should be your benchmark. This is critical. Readers don’t want to be bombarded with a long block of text when they open an email. Too much information is off-putting and will send your marketing email straight to the junk folder.
Decide in advance what your key objective is and stick to it. Is your aim to notify a customer about a new product or service? Or is this merely a ‘touching base’ email? Whatever the purpose of your email, put time and effort into your design. Keep text short and to the point. Use images and buttons to break up text, but don’t use high-resolution images, as these are slow to load, especially on a mobile device.
Don’t forget to make sure the email is optimized for mobile devices, as 54% of emails are now opened on a smartphone, and those users won’t thank you for eating up their valuable data for no good reason. Use responsive email templates and test emails before hitting ‘send’.
It’s sensible to test different subject lines, content, and other variables, to find out what the most effective combination is. That way, you can be certain your emails stand the best possible chance of avoiding the dreaded junk folder.
