10 Email Marketing Best Practices by Jae-ann Rock

Posted on Jan 17, 2020 in Blog, Meeting/Event Planning, Training and HR

When DONE CORRECTLY, email marketing can be a highly effective way to:

  • Email Marketing Considerations

    Generate leads and nurture them over time

  • Boost sales
  • Build brand loyalty
  • Increase website traffic

Based on our experience, we have compiled the following list of email marketing best practices to help you achieve success in 2020!

10 Email Marketing Best Practices to Achieve Success

  1. Follow all CAN-SPAM Laws. Within your email content, be sure to include:
    • Your physical address
    • Email address
    • Phone number
    • The ability for the recipient to easily unsubscribe from your email campaigns
    • Remove all unsubscribes and bounces from your list and email system after each email campaign.
  2. Develop an Email Marketing Strategy
    • Determine your goals and objectives.
    • Identify hot topics of interest to your target industry (see #5 for more ideas).
    • Create an email marketing schedule and stick to it. Remember: Consistency is the key (once or twice a month is recommended)
    • Be sure your email marketing strategy is linked to your sales strategy and goals.
  3. Use an Accurate, High-Quality List
    • Use a high-quality, targeted email marketing list with accurate contact information including phone numbers
    • Be sure to send to enough people in your target market to achieve desired results. (Note: With an average email open rate of 10%, combined with an average 5% click-through rate, a list of 1000 contacts will yield only 5 “interested” people. So, be certain you are using a large enough email marketing database to achieve the results you need!)
    • Always keep your email marketing list current.
  4. Use an Email Marketing System
    • Use an email marketing system (e.g. MailChimp), designed to track all email activity, including opens, clicks, and unsubscribes.
    • Leverage email marketing automation tools to improve marketing efficiency.
    • Create workflows to automatically nurture interested leads using “hot lead” triggers. (i.e. the number of times a contact opens your emails; the number of times they click on certain links, etc.)
  5. Create Value-Added Content (versus SALES content)
    • Develop educational, thought-leadership content the reader will find helpful in their business.
    • Write about industry trending topics.
    • Take a controversial stance on something to get the reader’s attention.
    • Think from the recipient’s perspective. What interests your readers? What kind of content would YOU OPEN? (On the flip side: What makes you delete an email? What makes you unsubscribe?)
  6. Create a Compelling Subject Line
    • This is critical! Have a powerful, interesting subject line that builds curiosity.
    • Keep it short and sweet for ease of mobile reading: Aim for simple/concise text.
    • Use a number in your subject line. (e.g. “Top 5 Ways to Improve Email Marketing Results”) Numbered lists entice people to open emails.
    • Try a subject line scoring tool like SubjectLine.com to gauge the likelihood people will open your email. Note: these tools are AI-driven, so please use your best judgment in conjunction with any such tool to yield the best results.
    • Avoid using SPAM-trigger words or all caps in your subject line. Do not use spammy words such as: Free, offer, trial, clearance, sale, buy, order, click, call, deal, guarantee, compare, sign up, urgent, open, opt-in, etc.
  7. Use an “Email Teaser” Format
    • Do not give away the whole article within your email campaign. Provide just enough information, an “email teaser,” so readers will be enticed to “Click to read more.”
    • Include trackable links where people must “Click to read the full article” This is the only way you can track who is actually engaging with your content.
    • Make the message personalized and relevant – Use the person’s first name.
    • Keep the content short and EASY to read – Use bullets and bolded text.
    • Include a SINGLE, CLEAR call to action. e.g. “Click here to read the article.” or “Click here to register for webinar.”
    • Use a simple email template design without too many graphics that can get caught in SPAM filters.
    • If using videos, do not embed the videos within your emails. To use video, create a link that will take people to the video.
  8. Test Messages
    • Test your email messages on various popular email systems to be sure your content looks good across a variety of platforms.
  9. Measure, Analyze, Tweak
    • Use Trackable links to track and measure opens, clicks, and unsubscribes to see what works well and what doesn’t.
    • Call on all “email clickers” within 48 hours to determine their interest. Continue to add value and open a needs-based discussion.
    • Continue to test, analyze results and tweak your campaigns based on results.
    • Try different topics, subject lines, frequency, email templates, marketing lists, etc.
    • Always seek to improve results.
  10. Make it Mobile Friendly
    • More than 50% of email is now opened on a mobile device.
    • Be sure your email design fits the screen and ensure loading time doesn’t take forever.
    • Keep the word length short and manageable.
    • Keep up with changes in technology to ensure optimal results.

Remember, Mentor Tech Group is a highly specialized company offering marketing intelligence data for companies selling and marketing to decision-makers in e-learning, corporate training, talent management, and HR. This is not “just a list” but rather, a hand-built database of actual decision-makers, updated every four months by real people!

Outsource to an expert in your business. Mentor Tech Group provides:

See what our customers are saying, then contact us at (651) 457-8600 Extension 1. 

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