Email marketing is the practice of sending emails to customers and prospects to promote a product or service, special offer, an upcoming event, or an ebook. In short, email marketing involves getting relevant, informative information in front of your target audience in a timely manner.
Businesses use email marketing to update their target audiences on company news and keep them engaged between purchases. There are many benefits of email marketing. It provides a cost-effective way to reach an already engaged audience, deliver targeted messages, and drive sales and revenue.
Follow these email marketing best practices to achieve great, long-term results.
Be Transparent With Your Data Collection
Many black hat marketers collect data on their target audiences from different channels without obtaining their consent. This is both illegal and unethical. If you go down that road, not only will your target audience mark your mails as spam and send them to their trash cans without even opening them. Ending up on an email server’s blacklist is a death sentence for any would be email marketer, your emails become exponentially likely to end up in spam folders which will severely damage your ability to have a successful campaign.
A penalty for violation of privacy would mean a damaging loss of face. Send emails to only those individuals who have given permission to receive marketing emails from you.
Make it Easy to Unsubscribe
Many individuals who sign up for your email lists may want to opt-out after some
time. Make the process of unsubscribing to your email lists as simple as possible. Add an easily noticeable unsubscribe button or link to your email template. Sometimes people aren’t looking to completely unsubscribe, but decrease the number of emails they receive from you. In this case, it’s a best practice to allow recipients to choose what information they want to receive from you.
Respect Your Subscribers’ Privacy
When a prospect or a customer agrees to receive emails from you, they trust you with their personal info. Do not breach their trust by sharing their info with third parties. In this same vein, organically building your list so that it comprises people who want to be receiving information from you will benefit both parties in the long run.
Segment Your Email Lists
Segment your subscribers into appropriate groups based on location, age, interests, or other criteria relevant to your business and target audience. If you do not segment your subscribers, you may end up sending irrelevant emails to them and your campaign’s success rate may be negatively impacted
Optimize Your Emails for Mobile
More than 80% of emails are opened and read on mobile devices. If your emails aren’t optimized for mobile, many of your subscribers might not open them, and you might miss out on big opportunities.
Here are some ways to create more mobile friendly emails.
- Make sure your subject lines do not contain more than 25-30 characters
- Use optimized pre-header texts
- Keep it short and sweet. Say more with fewer words
- Make sure your CTA buttons are easily noticeable
- Images and other media should fit into the viewer’s screen. Prevent grainy, blurry or pixelated images
If you pay attention when opening an email on desktop, you’ll likely notice that most of them actually look like they were originally formatted for a mobile device. This isn’t done accidentally and showcases the importance of a mobile-friendly email format.
WSI Smart Marketing offers top notch email marketing services near you, Santa Rosa. We help businesses build and maintain customer loyalty while generating additional leads and sales. To learn more, call (707) 843-3714.
