Email Marketing Best Practices

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that email marketing is dead. Sure, cold emails rarely get opened these days, but frequent communication sent to a reliable subscriber list can lead to great results for your business. You just have to make sure you’re adhering to email marketing best practices. While the marketing strategy remains effective, the methodology that leads to success certainly has changed.Email marketing, like any other kind of marketing, requires a special touch. If you mess it up, it can push people away from your brand. The tips in this article will put you in a better position for success if you follow them consistently. Take a look at Symphonic's email marketing best practices for 2019 and discover what you need to do to keep your email list engaged and converting.

Personalizing Your Email Campaigns

Personalization will make all your digital marketing go further, but it’s especially important for email campaigns. The easiest way to personalize an email is to use the subscriber’s name. It makes them feel like you’re reaching out to them on a personal level, even though you both know you’re not; you just automated your emails to fill in the “name here” section with the first name of the recipient. While plenty of people appreciate seeing their name in a subject line even if they know it’s just a macro, you’re going to have to go a lot further if you want to maximize the number of people opening your emails. Implement their purchase history into their email. Or offer them something unique to their geographic location. Whatever you can do to make their email feel unique will surely increase the likelihood that they read through it and respond to your call to action.[caption id="attachment_2027" align="aligncenter" width="674"]

Courtesy of Capterra.[/caption]

Segmenting Your Email Subscribers

In order to offer those on your email list the kind of personalization they deserve, you'll need to segment your email list. Instead of sending the same message out to everyone on your list with a few details here and there changed, you can create separate emails for each segment represented by a unique buyer persona. To do this effectively, collect as much data as you can from your email list subscribers. There are a few different ways you can segment your email list based on the information you’ve gathered about your subscribers. If you’re selling a high-value product or service, it might be better to target the segment of your email list high income. You can even create segments based on data gleaned from your subscribers’ actions, such as their purchase histories and browsing histories on your site. Just make sure you never make them feel like you’ve been watching them.Finally, while it’s okay to ask them questions about their gender, age, occupation, location, etc., never make personal questions like that mandatory.

Optimizing Your Welcome Emails

Getting someone to sign up for your email list is hard enough. Your next job is to make sure you do everything you can to keep them signed up. One of the best practices for email campaigns is having strong "welcome" emails. The goal of any email list should be to create long-lasting relationships with your customers, and first impressions are essential.In your welcome email, make sure you thank your customer for signing up. Using their name also adds the personal touch that all your emails need. Be sure to give them a brief, yet detailed, overview of what they can expect from the messages to come. This will include things like how often they’ll get emails to what kind of content they can expect. If you can, offer a new-subscriber discounts or some other offer.

Optimizing Your Campaigns for Mobile

We shouldn't have to tell you this, but in 2019 more people are checking email via their phone. That means you need to make sure your emails are mobile-friendly so that people can receive and read updates on the go. Don’t think for a second that this is something your campaign can afford to ignore. All other email marketing best practices don't mean a thing without a mobile-friendly format, because people will immediately delete emails if they aren’t easy to open and view on their mobile device. A good way to make sure your emails are mobile-friendly is to use a simple, yet impactful, design. Make sure your content works well when listed in a single column that mobile users can scroll through. When it comes to your call-to-action, it’s helpful to include a big button they can tap rather than a hyperlink inside your text. Most importantly, however, make your text big enough for people to read, without it exceeding the edges of their mobile device.

Symphonic Digital Knows Email

Keeping up with the email marketing best practices is something you can outsource to Symphonic Digital. We take a data-driven approach to all digital marketing to ensure your emails are getting opened and are converting as many people on your email list as possible. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your email marketing campaign.