Email marketing super important because it allows your brand to reach your customer for very little cost. Every brand should be investing in some sort of email marketing. But what does that mean and what are some tips for best practices that you can follow to drive the most success?
Well, I’m going to jump into that right now.
1. Build Segments Not Lists
Tip number one is to segment your list. Don’t ever shotgun email out to just a broad list (and never purchase lists). You want to have a very segmented list of people that have opted in that want your content. When your emails are more relevant you can combat high unsubscribe rates and a high spam rate. You want to deliver the content they want to see. If you do that you’re going to have a low subscribe, rate and a low spam rate, and that’s going to really increase the efficiency of your email campaign overall.
2. Plan Out Automations First
Tip number two is don’t wait to automate. Really think about your autoresponder campaigns in advance. One of the best ways to think ahead is to spend a few minutes creating a content and promotions calendar. All ShopSendy clients have a calendar created in advance for the whole team so everyone’s on the same page, all the graphics and copy are edited and created well before the actual send date.
Ask questions like:
- Who are you going to send to and what are you going to send. Content you send to potential customers is going to be different than what you send to your actual customers.
- What are you going to send on the holidays or special events. Maybe you’re going to send things on their birthdays, what are the promotions, you’re going to run for the year.
- How do your promotions fit in between holidays and where are the gaps in the calendar you can fill with content or offers?
You can think about all this in advance, build your content and email strategy ahead of time, so that it’s there, and it’s automated. If you just wait to send at the last moment there’s a good chance you might get stuck and never send anything at all. You also hurry through it and you don’t send the best content.
3. Personalize It
Tip number three is to personalize email software has ways of basically dynamically inserting names and other information into the emails This adds a level of personalization. So you’re going to want to do that with your emails because it’s going to do things like increase your opening rate increase your click through rate, and just increase your results overall, even just by inserting somebody’s name, it’s going to make it more personalized make them feel more comfortable with the content, you can do that with most email software and also if you connect it to a CRM, it’s even more powerful and it gives you more information that you can implement into the design to make it more personal for each user.
4. Design Mobile First
Tip number four is to design for mobile-first. People check their email dozens of times a day, mostly on their phones while they’re on the go. Make sure that your emails look good and display correctly on mobile. Also make sure your main message is above the fold. On your phone that’s not a lot of space before the phone cuts off your content below the screen. You’re going to want to make sure you have your main call to action main selling points above the fold.
5. Use Short Curious Subject Lines
Tip five is to have a catchy subject line that relates to the email and creates a bit of mystery and curiosity. Do not use click bait subject lines or you’ll frustrate readers into unsubscribing. A great subject line is all somebody is going to see initially, they don’t see the contents of your email. So you’re going to want to make sure that’s catchy and enticing for the user to click on, put yourself in their shoes, what would you want to see what would compel you to open that email and make sure that’s your subject line. Studies show if you insert their first name into the subject line it’s going to increase your opening ratio significantly.
5. Send At Optimal Times
Think about what days and times you want to send your content. Studies show that Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday around lunchtime from 9am to 2pm in the reader’s time zone has the highest open rates. Consider what time your customers are most likely to actually have time to open and read your emails. Also, consider what the objective of your email is. Test sending educational or informational emails on the weekend because that’s when people are looking to kick back and be entertained. For sales and conversions send during the week.
6. Know Your Numbers
Analyze your data and dig deeper than just open and click through rates. Most email marketing software has metrics for every campaign so you can track your results and see what’s working or not. Make adjustments to your automated campaigns based on data provided from previous tests.
7. Test Before You Send
You can always send it to yourself or a co-worker and check for basic things like if links and formatting look good. Take it one step farther with tools like Email on Acid and Grammarly.
There you have it. Follow these basic guidelines and you’ll be well on your way to email sending success. Need some help with your email marketing? Click here to get a custom welcome sequence or abandon cart sequence for free.