10 Tips For Better Email Marketing
Marketing to customers through email is one of the most simple and effective ways to stay relevant to your customers while increasing site traffic and revenue.
According to a 2019 study by the Direct Marketing Association, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the expected return is $42. With email marketing software’s like Klaviyo and Mailchimp, sending beautiful emails is quick and easy.
That is, if you do it right!
Not all emails are created equally. Skim through your own promotions folder in Gmail, and you’ll find a wide array of good, bad, and downright evil email designs.
If you are wanting to understand design basics for emails, follow me for my other blogs, and we’ll cover that topic too. But for now, let’s get familiar with these best practices for effective email marketing, and get you the $42 return on investment quickly.
1. Use Fewer Links
Linking products in your marketing emails is crucial.
I mean, if people can’t see, click, and start shopping, you’re probably not going to sell much.
So why do I suggest using less?
Just like social media has algorithms, so does your email inbox. Any email with an overload of links is more likely to appear as spam and get filtered out. Nothing is less helpful than all your time, effort, and expense going into an email to only end up in the spam folder of your potential customers.
To play it safe, reduce the amount of links in each email to no more than 10.
2. Use Catchy Subject Lines and Not Too Many Emojis
Before subscribers even open an email, you have to hook them with an intriguing subject line and preview text line.
An easy way to grab their attention is throwing in emojis!
Using emojis to add a pop of color in the subject will separate your beautiful email from the rest.
For best practices, don’t use more than two emojis, as using too many can make your email look like spam.
Along with a relevant emoji, great subject lines can be questions, a pop culture or current event reference, something funny, or something a little mysterious!
3. Don’t Send Too Many Emails
Email marketing is a little bit like dating.
It’s okay to play a little hard to get!
Nobody wants to respond to the person who’s called you five times after you only met two days ago.
So with your emails, only send 1-2 a week.
This will have potential customers wanting more, instead of being annoyed.
4. Optimize For Mobile, Desktop, and Light/Dark Theme
One of the biggest obstacles for email marketing can be optimizing the view for mobile, desktop, (and now on mobile), both light and dark themes.
Each email app has their own protocol for how to treat emails when the phone is set to dark mode, but some of them (Gmail, for one) will invert the text colors, changing the look of the email and sometimes, making text completely unreadable. Be sure you are optimizing on this feature.
To avoid these issues, use text colors that will look good against black and white, or place all your text on images so the app can’t change the colors.
5. Smaller File Sizes for Images
Have you ever opened an email and just stared at a blank screen?
Large images will often take 30-60 seconds to fully load in an email, and for most email subscribers, that means frustration and exiting the email before it ever loads.
To avoid this, try to keep images at a lower resolution, specifically between 800-1200 pixels wide.
6. Better Product Photography
A common mistake small businesses often make is poor product or model photography.
Luckily, with today’s technology it is relatively easy and affordable to take high quality photos to use in your online marketing.
Make sure your camera lens is wiped clean of smudges, stage in a well-lit area, and tap on the product so the image is in-focus and sharp.
Set up your photo in a nice lifestyle setting, or use a plain background so you can easily remove the product from the background in Canva or Photoshop, then place it on a fun pattern background for extra flair.
Adding a light drop shadow to products will really make them pop!
7. Create A Cohesive Look and Feel, Using Repetition and Variety
A main principle of design is repetition and variety.
This means using elements which are clearly related, but have enough of a difference.
This can be achieved through repeating patterns but changing colors.
Or use the same fonts throughout, as well as color palettes.
It’s important to not have too many patterns, colors, or fonts, as too many variations of art style will overwhelm and confuse the reader.
Stick to 2 fonts, 5 colors, and 1-3 patterns that clearly go together.
8. Use Merge Tags
While this isn’t a very exciting tip, it is crucial to your open rates!
Research your email marketing software’s merge tags, and use them to personalize subject lines.
For example, you can use a first name tag in the subject line, so it will appear with your subscribers name in the subject, making the subscriber think the email is sent personally.
If you only have a subscriber’s email and not their first name, set up the merge tag to default to something like “friend” or “there.”
9. Use Segments/Targeting
If you have a large subscriber list and pay per email sent, make sure your emails aren’t going to waste by only sending emails to a segmented list of your total subscribers.
Most email marketing software has a way to rate customers based on data; like spend history, how many and how often they open your emails or, if they used to spend money with you and don’t anymore.
This allows tailoring specific emails to only those customers, and with more accurate targeting there will likely be an increase in sales.
For example, consider sending a 10% off coupon email only to customers who haven’t purchased in the past 3 months and exclude customers who order regularly without a coupon.
10. Optimize Best Times and Days To Send Email
An often overlooked but of high significance when sending emails, is make sure they are being sent on days and times your audience is most likely to open them!
Most email marketing software build this in as a feature, study the analytics on yours and see which days and/or times result in the most opens.
One practice for example, would be to send email on Friday at lunchtime.
Most people get paid on Friday and check their personal email during their lunch break increasing the likelihood for your email to be seen and opened.
Combining these 10 Best Practices with thoughtful design and knowing how your target audience reacts to email, your business will thank you with increased revenue!
Above everything be straightforward in your messaging, always keeping your customer in mind.
Find something helpful?
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If you have tips for email that are working well for your business, drop a comment or email me-
I’d love to know what Best Practices make your email marketing run smoothly.