Email marketing best practices are essential for businesses to maximize their email campaigns. Utilizing the correct approaches can help you to raise involvement and generate conversions from your intended demographic. From optimizing content and designing for mobile devices to personalization techniques and analyzing performance metrics, there’s a lot that goes into successful email marketing.
To ensure success, it’s important to understand how to manage lists effectively while adhering to regulatory compliance laws. Learn more about these key areas of email marketing best practices in this blog post.
#1. Use a Professional Email Marketing Platform
An email marketing platform is a must for any serious business. It ensures you stay compliant with the law, saves time and energy, looks great in the inbox, and helps your campaigns reach their full potential.
For example, professional email marketing platform like Constant Contact and MailChimp provides features like automated opt-in forms to ensure only opted-in subscribers are receiving emails from you. This protects both you and your customers from legal issues that could arise if someone was to receive an unsolicited message.
And it also allows you to customize mobile-responsive templates with your brand colors and logos so your messages look as good on mobile devices as on desktop computers. You can even add content blocks like videos or images that will automatically adjust based on the size of the device being used by each recipient.
Plus, it ensures all necessary footer information is included in every message – such as contact details, unsubscribe links, etc. – which keeps you safe from hefty fines should any laws change over time.
With an intuitive user interface and easy setup process, using a professional email marketing platform gives small businesses access to powerful tools that would otherwise be too expensive or complicated for them to operate effectively on their own. And it’s one less thing they have to worry about when trying to grow their business quickly.
#2. Don’t Purchase Contact Lists
When it comes to email marketing, one of the worst practices you can engage in is purchasing contact lists. Not only does this practice often result in low open rates and poor performance, but it also violates GDPR regulations that require consent from each European recipient before reaching out.
Rather than buying a list of contacts, marketers should focus on building their own list organically. This can be done by providing value to potential customers through content such as blog posts or webinars. Or by offering something valuable for free, businesses are more likely to build relationships with their target audience and increase engagement with their emails.
Another way to reach your target audience without breaking any laws is by using Versium Reach – a platform made specifically for B2B marketers that allows them to access data about their target market across multiple channels without purchasing contact lists.
It’s an easy way for businesses to stay compliant while still being able to connect with the right people at the right time.
Note: Purchasing contact lists may seem attractive when trying to grow your business quickly, but it’s not worth the associated risk. Not only could you face hefty fines if caught violating GDPR regulations, but you’ll also end up wasting money on contacts who won’t even read your emails due to low open rates caused by a lack of engagement and trust between sender and receiver.
Instead of taking shortcuts that could land you in hot water later down the line, take some time now and invest in building relationships with potential customers so they will be more likely to respond positively when contacted via email campaigns down the road
#3. Optimizing Your Email Content
The email content is the backbone of any successful email marketing campaign. To ensure your emails are engaging and effective, it’s important to optimize their content for maximum impact. Writing compelling subject lines, crafting copy that resonates with readers, and including visuals or links can all help increase engagement with your emails.
~When writing subject lines, make sure they are concise yet eye-catching enough to draw attention from recipients.
Try using action words like “discover” or “unlock” as well as emotional language such as “amazing” or “incredible” to capture interest quickly. It may also be helpful to include personalization elements like a recipient’s name or location in the subject line for an extra touch of relevance. Here are some other clever ways you can optimize your email content.
Moving on to design for mobile devices, there are several factors you should take into account, such as responsive design basics, testing across platforms, and optimizing for touchscreens.
#4. Designing for Mobile Devices
Designing for mobile devices is an essential part of any email marketing strategy. Creating emails adjustable to different screens, from PCs to tablets and mobile phones, is key to effective email marketing. According to research from Litmus and BlueHornet, 71% of people delete an email if it doesn’t look good on their mobile screen_ and 16% unsubscribe.
To ensure a seamless transition across devices, consider utilizing responsive design for your email campaigns.
Responsive Design Basics
“A responsive design allows your emails to adjust their layout automatically depending on the device being used by the recipient. No matter the device, your message can be read and interacted with in a way that’s appropriate for them.”
To create a responsive design, you should use media queries and flexible grids so that elements such as images, buttons, text blocks, and other content can resize or rearrange themselves accordingly. Additionally, make sure to test how your email looks across multiple platforms before sending it out.
Testing Across Platforms
Testing across different platforms is key when designing for mobile devices since each platform has its own unique display requirements. Verifying compatibility across diverse email applications such as Outlook and Gmail, in addition to web browsers like Chrome or Safari, is vital for ensuring recipients can view messages accurately no matter which device they are utilizing.
You should also consider testing out different screen sizes—from small phones up to large desktop monitors—to make sure everything looks good everywhere it needs to be seen.
Emails for Touchscreen
When creating emails specifically designed for touchscreen devices like tablets and smartphones, there are several things you need to keep in mind to provide users with an optimal experience while interacting with your message on their device’s smaller screen space size.
All in all, designing with mobile users in mind is a key factor for successful email campaigns, as an ever-growing number of people now access their emails via their phones.
To further improve the effectiveness of your emails, it’s also essential to explore personalization strategies such as segmentation tactics, automated personalization tools, and leveraging customer data.
#5. Personalization Strategies
To further improve the effectiveness of your emails, it’s essential to explore personalization strategies such as segmentation tactics, automated personalization tools, and leveraging customer data.
Additionally, using NLP (natural language processing) technology can help marketers understand user intent better so they can craft more effective content that resonates with recipients. With these powerful tools at their disposal, companies can create personalized experiences for every recipient, which leads to increased engagement and ROI from email marketing efforts.
Moreover, examining results metrics is critical for refining your email marketing initiatives, permitting you to recognize weak points and get the most from your investments.
#6. Analyzing Performance Metrics
Analyzing performance metrics is essential for any email marketing campaign. Tracking opens, clicks, and conversion rates, as well as assessing ROI enable marketers to gain knowledge of their customer’s preferences and habits.
Also, tracking open rates and clicks helps to understand how many people engage with your emails. This data can be used to optimize subject lines, design elements, content format, or even timing of delivery in order to maximize engagement levels.
While tracking click-throughs provide insight into which links within an email are garnering the most attention, potentially revealing which offerings have a greater appeal to your audience.
And then, measuring conversion rates provides insight into how effective your campaigns are at driving sales or other desired actions from subscribers, such as signing up for an event or downloading a white paper. Conversion rate optimization techniques involve A/B testing different versions of emails against each other to determine which version performs best based on the goal being measured (e.g., number of purchases).
Finally, evaluating ROI helps marketers understand whether their efforts generate positive returns for their businesses by comparing revenue generated from email campaigns versus expenses incurred through running them (e.g., cost per send).
Knowing the ROI enables better decision-making when allocating resources across channels such as paid search ads or social media posts so that budgets are spent where they will have maximum impact on business goals like increasing customer lifetime value (CLV).
Moving on, managing email lists is a key component in ensuring that campaigns reach their desired audience.
#7. Managing Email Lists
Properly managing email lists is a fundamental element of any prosperous email marketing plan. It’s important to understand how to grow, prune and maintain your list to maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Growing subscriber lists organically is essential for long-term success. To ensure long-term success, utilizing digital methods such as social media, blogging, and website content can help to grow your subscriber list organically.
Ensuring that your registration procedure is straightforward and obvious will help potential subscribers understand precisely what they subscribe to before submitting their details.
Pruning inactive subscribers should also be part of regular list maintenance efforts.
Keeping an eye on open rates, click-through rates, and other engagement metrics will help you identify those who are no longer engaging with your emails – it’s best practice to remove them from the list or send them re-engagement messages as appropriate. Doing this regularly helps keep your list healthy and ensures only active users receive your emails.
#8. Adhering to Regulatory Compliance Laws
Complying with applicable regulations is a fundamental element of any email marketing plan. Non-compliance can have serious consequences, such as penalties, damage to reputation, and potential legal repercussions.
Therefore, businesses need to understand the regulations that apply in their region and ensure they are following them closely. So, when understanding CAN-SPAM regulations, businesses must know what constitutes spam under this law.
This includes unsolicited commercial emails sent without permission from the recipient or deceptive subject lines and content that misleads recipients into opening emails they wouldn’t otherwise open. Companies must also provide a valid physical address in all emails and opt-out instructions for those who no longer wish to receive communications from them.
The GDPR, effective across Europe, necessitates that organizations managing EU individuals’ information – including email addresses – observe rigorous regulations regarding collecting, storing, utilizing, disseminating, and deleting this data. Companies need clear policies outlining how personal information will be handled by employees or third parties with whom it may be shared.
Also, when it comes to utilizing automation tools within email campaigns, companies should consider setting up triggered emails that send out automated responses based on certain criteria, such as website activity or purchase history. Recurring messages allow you to schedule regular reminders about offers or events related directly to your business goals, further engaging customers over time and leading to higher ROI rates when done correctly.
Finally, integrating CRM systems into your email marketing efforts allows you to track customer behavior throughout the entire sales funnel, better-targeting individuals and increasing conversion rates even more significantly.
#9. Include a Call to Action
Call to action (CTA) is an essential element of any successful email marketing campaign. It encourages the reader to take a desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
A CTA should be clear and concise so the recipient can easily understand it. By including a CTA in your emails, you are allowing readers to act on what they have just read.
When crafting your call-to-action statement, keep it short and sweet – no more than two sentences long at most. You want people to understand what you’re asking them to do without having to read too much text.
Also, make sure your CTA stands out from the rest of your content; use the bold font or bright colors if necessary. In addition, ensure that there is only one call-to-action per email message to not confuse readers with multiple requests for different actions within one message.
For example, don’t ask someone “Sign up now!” and “Buy now!” in the same email – pick one and stick with it!
Additionally, consider using language like “click here” instead of “go here” when creating links to increase click-through rates on CTAs embedded within emails. And make sure you’re keeping your CTA and main message above the fold, because as per Eyetracking research from Neilson Norman Group:
Consumers spend 57% of their view time on above-the-fold content.
Finally, track how well each CTA performs over time by measuring metrics such as open rate and click-through rate (CTR). This will help you identify which calls-to-action are working best for your audience so that you can focus on optimizing those particular messages moving forward.
Conclusion
To sum up, companies must adhere to email marketing principles to achieve their desired outcomes. It is also important to optimize content and design emails with mobile devices in mind, personalize messages when possible, analyze performance metrics regularly, manage email lists efficiently, and adhere to regulatory compliance laws.
By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your business’s email marketing efforts will be successful. Take your email marketing to the next level with Knowmail‘s comprehensive tools and resources. Get expert advice on design, deliverability testing, and more for maximum campaign success.
