72% of people say emails are their favorite way of communication from a brand. With the increase of emails being sent to everyone’s inbox in 2017, it is important to make sure your brand’s emails stand out. How do you make that happen, you ask? The number one way to get on the right track with your emails is mastering the basics. We’ve come up with the four email marketing best practices that you should focus on in your emails.
Get Permission
Growing your email list organically takes time and patience. It also may cause you frustration. With the frustration comes the temptation of purchasing an email list. We can promise you that this is NOT the route to go. Not only are you breaking general email marketing rules, but the email list you are purchasing is most likely going to be low-quality, non-qualified contacts who aren’t going to bring anything worthwhile to your brand. Instead of wasting your money on contacts who don’t care, use this time as an opportunity to create quality content, such as eBooks, whitepapers, webinars or other downloadable content to entice people to give you your email address, otherwise known as Permission-Based Email Marketing. You will more likely gain contacts who care about your product and brand and WANT to know more using this type of marketing strategy.
List Segmentation
Once you gain a high-quality email list, you are going to want to segment your list appropriately. The email list you have is a list of individuals, with differing likes and dislikes, various hobbies and come from all types of interesting and varying backgrounds. One email may not resonate with someone as much as another email. This is why segmenting your emails and grouping the variety of people in your database into lists that have similar interests is important. Segmentation leads to higher open and click rates, lower unsubscribe rates, a better experience for your customers and essentially moving them further down the sales funnel. In fact, segmented campaigns drive a 760% increase in revenue. This leads me to the epicenter of email marketing excellence…
Content
Sure, segmentation is important, but segmentation does nothing for you if you don’t pair it with relevant, enticing email content. Engaging your subscribers, as well as educating them, is something you will want to accomplish in the content of your email.
- Get Personal – Personalization is the way of the future. Capture the attention of your reader by using personalization in the first glance of them opening your email.
- Short and Sweet – Make your emails easy to scan and read. This allows your customer to get the important information they need to know to make a decision about your brand much easier, and makes it less likely your email will end up in the trash, or worse, high unsubscribe rates for your email send.
- Call-To-Actions – You will want your call-to-action to remain above the fold in your email content. If you put it below the fold, almost as many as 70% of recipients of the email will not see it.
- Interactive Emails – This type of email is becoming more prevalent in 2017. This interactivity encourages users to click and create user engagement that a still image may not encourage. This also leads to higher click rates for your email sends.
- Design Your Emails for Mobile – If your email isn’t mobile friendly, then you shouldn’t have sent it in the first place. In 2016, open rates on mobile were to 68%. Enough said.
Analytics
One of the most valuable things you can gain from email marketing is the analytics it brings you. This gives insight into what is and isn’t working for your brand, what type of content your audience is interested in and helps show your sales team c-suite that the awareness of your brand is growing. Analytics also encourage you that you should keep doing what you are doing or show you that you need to change things up. Analytics are ever-changing and are a great resource and tool in your email marketing plan.
Email is still and will likely continue to be one of the best ways to communicate with an engaged audience who wants the latest, relevant news from your brand. Apply these golden rules to your email strategy and boost your brand’s overall communication. Want to talk about this in more detail? We can help!
