With a 3,800% return, email marketing continues to be a marketing method that works and is extremely effective.
When your company uses email marketing best practices, your bottom line will thank you.
How do you know when you’re using the most effective strategies for your email marketing campaigns in 2019? Continue reading this article to learn what you need to succeed with email marketing this year.
Email Marketing Best Practices for the Win
While there are many breakthroughs and changes happening in online marketing leading up to and coming into 2019, one fact remains – email marketing works. Use the following tips to create a winning strategy.
1. Pay Attention to Content Length
When you create your email marketing content, you need to know the length of the content your audience responds to. While some audiences might like long-form content, others are glad to have a small dose for the day and be on with their lives.
Whether you are thinking about blog content length or email content length, you have to keep your reader in mind. The best way to know what content is working is to check your analytics.
Your goal is to get the people that open your emails to take the next step and click on one of the links in the email. Do split testing to see which content length gets the most clicks.
Some audiences may be more likely to click without a lot of information, while others may need long-form content to get their attention and persuade them to click on the link.
2. Never Buy or Rent Your List
If you think there is a shortcut to email marketing success, the bad news and the good news is that there is no shortcut. Buying or renting email lists isn’t effective, and can get you banned from your autoresponder without warning.
One of the major reasons that buying or renting a list is not effective is that there is no relationship. If you don’t have a relationship with the person on the other end of the email, they aren’t very likely to trust you or want to do business with you.
Creating an authentic relationship of trust and value is important to have true success with email marketing. In 2019, more now then ever, people demand a relationship and authenticity.
3. Copywriting
If you have to pick an area to spend money on, it is copywriting. The copy in your email will make the difference of whether you will get the clicks for the sales you need or not.
Failing to pay attention to the copy in your emails and sloppily sending out a random update email will be a top regret. Bad copy may not only result in low click-through rates, but people may even unsubscribe from your list.
The copy in your emails should help guide people toward a decision that will help them. People have a hard time making decisions, so your copy needs to let them know why they should take the next step with your company.
Whether you are writing copy for promotional emails, pure value emails, or other types of emails, you need to be an expert at that type of copy. Not all copy is written the same way, and there are skills that must be built to send effective emails.
If you look at the order of importance, learning to write great subject lines is first. If you don’t get anyone to click on the email, it doesn’t matter what is inside.
4. Design
Open your email inbox and look at the onslaught of emails that await you. Think about what you’re feeling right now. You’re most likely feeling like hitting the delete button and starting all over again.
If one of the emails does grab your attention and causes you to click the catchy subject line, the next thing you see is the email design. You’ll notice how the photos are laid out, where text is positioned, and whether it is easy to read and navigate. If the design isn’t put together well, it is likely you will click away from the email and delete or even unsubscribe.
Research to see what email designs people in your niche use. Make sure you subscribe to email lists of companies that are leaders in your industry. Understanding how they design their emails will allow you to implement some of the same design elements and get some of the same results.
5. Holidays
When holidays arise, you might be ready to run off and spend time with your family and friends, but you need to be prepared. Set up your email series for a holiday in advance and you can still enjoy your time off with family and friends.
The holidays are a great time to send promotional emails. On holidays like Valentine’s Day and Christmas, you’ll be able to increase sales greatly if you set up your email campaigns properly.
Many retailers make more money than they make in a whole year during Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Don’t miss out on the money you can get during this time – get creative.
If you’re afraid your email is going to get lost amidst the sea of promotions, try to do something out of the box. Run a contest or offer a cool bonus when someone purchases from your company instead of another company.
Optimize Your Email Marketing
Continue to optimize your email marketing efforts. Email marketing offers one of the highest ROIs, so it should not be ignored. Even an improvement of 1% each month can lead to major gains over the year, so keep optimizing your campaigns to get the best results possible.
Need Some Help on the Back End?
We understand email marketing best practices and other technical issues that your company struggles with. You don’t have to deal with them on your own because we can help.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business with design, development, email marketing, or any related areas.
