With the ongoing increase in the usage of social media, you may wonder whether email marketing is worth investing time into. Email may seem slightly outdated compared to the active, convenient, and instant communicative abilities of social media. However, email still holds its place of importance for marketing. Statistics from a Statista survey found that email is the most popular customer outreach channel. In fact, 37.2% of respondents said that they used email the most.
So how can you make the most out of your email marketing? Here are our five top email marketing tips for you to refer to when sending a marketing email.
1. Subject Lines
Subject lines are arguably the most important factor when delivering a successful newsletter or email. It will ultimately be the first thing your potential customer will read, so if it is wordy or reads like spam, it is likely to go ignored. A successful subject line should be on-brand, meaning it should be clear that it is coming from you. For example, you can include your company’s name or a relevant emoji. The subject line should also be personalised and short, but still descriptive. You should make it clear what the email is about and not make the subject line generic. For example, you could highlight a special offer. You should also use minimal punctuation, only add one relevant emoji and avoid spam trigger words to prevent the email being read as spam.
2. Include an incentive
The next of our email marketing tips is to offer an incentive. If you really wanted to commit to an email marketing campaign, you could introduce a loyalty scheme that encourages engagement with email content. However, you can also include simpler incentives such as interactive content. Pose a question to your recipients, set a challenge, start a competition, or encourage submissions such as photos. If you’d prefer, you could always include a joke or inspirational quote at the end of the email. All of these strategies will encourage your readers to look through the email’s content and inject a dose of personality into an email marketing initiative. This can also make the email seem slightly more light hearted if that fits your branding and message. It is important to note that an informal approach will suit B2C businesses more than B2B, and that gauging your audience’s appetite for humorous or casual content is essential before planning in these elements of an email.
3. Proof read and check the email
Nothing is worse than realising you made a spelling error or that your key messaging didn’t come across as intended. The easiest way to rectify this is by thoroughly proof-reading the email. Although this may seem inconvenient, especially if you are short on time, it is important to ensure that your brand appears professional and engages with your readers in the way you want. You should also get into the habit of test sending the emails to make sure they work properly.
Using a tool such as email on acid allows you to test and visually check how your email will be displayed in all of the most popular mail clients such as Outlook, Gmail, Apple and Yahoo. This will make sure that when your email is opened it looks perfect on every device.
4. Do not overload the email
Email marketing does come with its limitations, as some files and formats do not work well with email. You should take note of this, especially if you use tools such as MailChimp. Even on a basic level, cramming your email with different sized files and formats will cause it to load in slowly once it reaches its recipient. Unfortunately, readers’ patience is limited when it comes to the online world, so they may click away if the email takes too long to load. However, there are various tools you can use to compress files, such as Squoosh for images, and in-built file compression in software such as the Adobe suite.
To see more on email marketing tips, take a look at the above Mailchimp webinar on how to get your email to your consumer’s inbox
5. Be sparing with your text
This may seem like it contradicts the previous point, but do not bombard your readers with a constant stream of text. Keep your email short and sweet where you can, and include relevant compressed images to make it a more visual experience and to illustrate your written content. Think about it – if you opened an email from a brand you follow, the chances are that you would lose interest if it just contained an endless stream of text. Even breaking up the text into paragraphs will help with this. This is where proof reading once again comes in, or getting a second opinion from a colleague.
Summary
The key takeaway here is that consumers still like, and engage with, email marketing. If you have a newsletter, your readers would have subscribed to it for a reason, so don’t put them off with long, busy, or generic content. Keep your brand involved and make sure the emails feel fresh, recognisable, and encourage your customers to take action.
To find out more about email marketing, read our article on Email Marketing – Our Top Five Benefits, or our more detailed piece on How to Improve Your Email Marketing.
If you are seeking more support with email marketing, please see our Digital Marketing Services.