Don’t Start Creating Emails Without Reading These "Before" And "After" Email Marketing Best Practices

You know all about the benefits of Email Marketing…

You have figured out which Email Marketing Service to choose for marketing your business…

You are about to launch your first Email Marketing Campaign…

After the launch, you are expecting good ROIs…

Everything looks promising…

But you need to STOP.

Yes, don’t launch your campaign unless you’ve gone through the Email Marketing Best Practices shared in this article.

Because if you do, chances are that... 

• Your emails might not be delivered to your leads inbox...
• Those who receive don’t open your emails, and hence…
• The CTR of your emails decrease, which will mean…
• Less revenue for your business

There’s no doubt that Email Marketing can be used as a weapon to make your business sales touch skies.

But following the best practices will help you achieve more with the same amount of effort that you normally would. 

So let’s get to them...

WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE STARTING AN EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Before you start with an email campaign for your audience here are the top practices to keep in mind.

A. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

A deep understanding of your audience is one of the most important aspects to take stock of, before you start emailing them.

You don’t want them to feel like your emails are irrelevant for them.

You should connect with them from the word go.

There are a few things that can help you understand your audience like, building their buyer personas.

Buyer personas help you understand your customers (and prospective customers) better.

It will help you know: 

? What are their specific needs and interests?

? What is the typical background of your ideal buyer?

? Which time they will likely check their emails?

? What type of actions or activities your audience performs?

When you get to the nerve of the problem, you will be starting your campaign with a strong base.

Once you are done with your research then comes the next part…

B. BUILD YOUR OWN EMAIL LIST

In other words, never send emails to a list that you have not grown yourself or have bought it from a third party. 

Email campaigns depend on a healthy open rate, and if you're contacting people whose information you bought -- rather than earned from a previous interaction -- you'll quickly see your emails' performance drop.

So don’t try to buy any of the cheap email lists from the internet.

Be original. 

Create your own list because when you try to acquire leads using methods like PPC, Social Media Advertising, SEO, you will be acquiring quality leads that are your target audience. 

These people will be interested in hearing from you and hence this will increase your deliverability rates, open rates, and click-through rates which will ultimately mean more profits for your business.

There are several ways to do this including single opt-in, double, and pre-confirmed opt-in to name a few. 

Using a double opt-in to get your customer’s email is recommended to avoid bots signing up to your email list and hence decreasing your list’s quality.

A double opt-in involves sending a person a confirmation email after they sign up, letting them know that they signed up and requiring them to click a button to confirm they indeed want to stay signed up.

The leads that will confirm their subscription will mean that they are interested in hearing from you and hence you will receive more open rates and hence click through rates.

C. PERSONALIZE YOUR EMAILS

With your own targeted audience inside your list, now you can go ahead and start writing emails for them.

But you don’t want your emails to sound like the other 100 emails your customer receives each day.

So, what you need to do is stand out and personalize each mail in the campaign.

Your customer should feel like this email is just for him.

Stop using words like ‘we’ or the ‘company name’, instead use more ‘you’ and ‘I’.

This is an amazing way to build trust with your customer and make your company more valuable in front of the eyes of the customer.

A person’s name is the most important to him so it is recommended to personalize the subject lines, the greetings inside the emails by adding in the first name or full name wherever applicable.

D. QUALITY BEATS FREQUENCY

Yes it does.

It is not important how many emails you put into your email campaign, what’s important is the quality of content you are providing to your audience.

If you are unable to connect with your audience in the first few emails, you will see the decline in the opening rate of your emails.

So try to put in a catchy subject line and preheader text.

And sprinkle your email with quality content so that the customer enjoys the slippery slide going through your email.

Avoid using spammy words as it will lead you to the spam folder of the customer’s email client which is obviously not what you want to happen.

It is also suggested to keep the main content and CTA above the fold. 

If the CTA is below the fold, chances are that a majority of people won’t even notice it if email copy is not that great.

Try to include the CTA at least 3 times inside your email copy. This will offer people to click through multiple times while reading the email which will help improve your conversions.

Now that you are ready with your campaign, let's move on to the next step...

E. TESTING YOUR CAMPAIGN

You don’t want to just write your emails and hit the send button.

You don’t know if the campaign will be successful or not.

You don’t know how your emails are being displayed in different email clients.

You need to be sure before you launch your campaign.

So what you should do is to send yourself a test email to check if the email is rendering perfectly, the design is looking as you want it to, the links and CTAs are pointing to the right locations, etc.

On the layout front, it is recommended to keep your email width between 500-650 pixels. If your email template is wider than 650 pixels, you're asking users to scroll horizontally to read your entire message. This is even more cumbersome for a recipient who's reading your email on his or her mobile device. So you also need to make sure that your emails are responsive.

A/B testing is an important part of email marketing. You need to have different options to choose from which works best for your targeted audience. With email campaigns you can conduct A/B tests on your: 

? Subject Lines... 

? Whole email...

? From Name...

? Date/Time, etc.

Keep in mind during the testing phase that you only test one element at a time. Once you find a winning element, move onto the next test!

It’s just like a car.

Car is fully tested in every aspect before it is brought into the showroom for sales purposes. The same is the case with your email campaign. 

You need to be fully sure of your campaign.

All these practices will help you make a successful email campaign, but there is still some water left in the bucket.

Hang in as I’m about to sprinkle in some more email practices.

WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND AFTER KICK STARTING YOUR EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Your research is done.

You have written some amazing email copies.

Your email list is ready. 

Time, date of each email is scheduled.

You launch the campaign……

What next?

There is still a lot more for you to do. The game is not over yet.

Let’s dive into the knowledgeful ride of After Launch Email Marketing Best Practices.

A. TRACK CLICKS AND OPEN RATES.

Remember: A Good Email Marketer is Never Done Testing. 

Once your campaign starts, you need to track each and every email to check: 

? How is it performing?

? What is the opening rate of your emails?

? What is the click-through rate for CTA’s within your emails?

If everything seems ok, Congratulations. You have succeeded to set up a high-performance email marketing campaign.

But if something is not seeming well, you need to take action immediately. 

Find the problem and solve it. 

You don’t want your efforts to be wasted.

So keep this point in mind, and optimize anything that you need to, as much as you need.

After tracking, the next thing you should do is...

B. REWARD YOUR LOYAL SUBSCRIBERS

Consider your subscribers as your friends.

You have different types of friends, some are casual friends, some are good friends and then there are close friends. 

Who will support you no matter what? 

Ones that are loyal to you.

How will you express your feelings to your close friends that they are really special to you?

By telling them or by giving them something special, or by any other way that sets them apart from all your other friends.

The same should be the case with your subscribers.

Your close/loyal recipients are your biggest brand ambassadors. 

Subscribers who always open and click (and maybe even share!) your emails deserve a little extra attention for their loyalty and engagement.

Have a new email template or call to action you’d like to try out? 

It’s a good idea to start with your VIP recipients first.

You might have received or seen similar messages from different companies:

• 10% off only for you!
• Get a sneak peek of our next launch – only for our VIP list!
• 5% off every order when you become a member!

These are the ways different companies make their VIP customers special. 

They make their loyal customers realize that they are different from the rest of their customer base.

You can also use this practice for your email list as well. 

But what about unsubscribers?

C. THERE WILL BE UNSUBSCRIBERS

Apart from your close friends, there will be some friends with whom you are not friends anymore.

So, there will be unsubscribers as well.

At some point in your email campaigns, even if they once opted into your emails, some recipients may not want to hear from you anymore. 

That’s ok (and a natural part of the email lifecycle).

The ability to unsubscribe from your email program should never be confusing, should be available in one click, and finally, should be instantaneous.

This will make your email list cleaner and more targeted. This takes us to our next point... 

D. CLEAN YOUR LIST ON REGULAR BASIS

There are friends which you don’t like now (for whatever reason). So you stopped talking to them.

So, you need to remove some subscribers as well.

Although some people will take the time to unsubscribe themselves if they aren’t interested in opening your emails, many will just ignore your emails indefinitely. 

This can be harmful to your delivery rates as well as cost you more in Email Service Provider costs.

To address this issue, carve out some time each quarter to remove unengaged subscribers from your email list. 

If they haven’t opened your email in a couple of months, you can feel safe removing them.

CONCLUSION

Applying the tips above will make your emails stand out, get delivered, and be acted upon.

Your competition might be already trying different ways to beat you to dust. 

But you can get an edge over others by choosing email marketing and using these best email practices to raise your business to new heights.

Don’t think. 

Act. 

If you still have any doubts about Email Marketing Best Practices and want a FREE consultation, go ahead and message me now.