Email marketing offers numerous benefits like lead nurturing, sales, and customer retention, but with so many emails arriving in people’s mailboxes, you must use best practices to break through the clutter. Fortunately, email makes it easy to measure your return on investment (ROI) and metrics like click-through rates (CTR), open rates, bounce rates, and conversions. This wealth of data allows you to optimize your campaigns for success.
Check out these email marketing best practices to improve your campaign’s results for a higher ROI. (Want to grow your B2B email list? Read our post on
B2B email list building strategies!)
Email Marketing Tips for Successful Campaigns
Email is a cost-effective marketing channel that can drive engagement and conversions when done properly. However, competition is fierce and you can’t just send an email to your audience without a strategy. Here are eight best practices to set up your email marketing campaigns for success.
1. Use a real email in the sender’s email address.
A rule in the
CAN-SPAM Act is to never use "no reply," or a similar phrase, in the sender’s email address (e.g. noreply@company.com) because this prevents recipients from responding, and sometimes even unsubscribing. Always use a real email address to avoid being flagged as spam. Plus, recipients are more likely to open emails sent by a real email.
2. Have an interesting subject line and preview text.
Make your subject line and preview text stand out in a sea of emails by using interesting copy and eye-catching emojis. If you leave the preview text blank, it will pull the first several words of the email body by default. Increase the CTR with a unique subject line and a custom preview text that provides context.
3. Personalize the email greeting.
Use your recipient's first name in the email greeting to attract their attention and make the email feel more personal. Email marketing software allows you to personalize the greeting by automatically inserting the contact’s name into the subject line and/or email body.
4. Write engaging email copy.
The email’s body copy can make or break your campaign. It should establish trust, build credibility, and be easy to read. Avoid technical jargon, long run-on sentences, and big blocks of text. Write clear and concise body copy that communicates your information or story succinctly.
5. Use attractive imagery strategically.
A picture is worth a thousand words, which can be good or bad depending on the quality. If your email has imagery such as photos or graphics, make sure they’re attractive (e.g. not blurry, vivid colors) and add value to the email content rather than visual clutter.
6. Place important information above the fold.
Important information, like a call-to-action (CTA) and “View in browser” link, should be placed on the top portion of the screen. This is called “above the fold.” Your main message, CTA, and key information should be above the point where recipients would have to scroll down to see them.
7. Avoid bulky emails.
Your email design should be no more than 650 pixels wide or else recipients will be forced to scroll horizontally to read your email, which isn’t user-friendly. Have your email widths between 500-650 pixels to prevent recipients from ‘bouncing’ (i.e. leaving your email).
Additionally, make sure that your emails aren’t so big that they cause delivery issues or don’t display properly. For instance, Gmail has an email message size limit of 102kb data. If your email is larger than that, your message will be clipped and the reader will see a link that says “View entire message.” Which is again not user-friendly.
8. A/B test to optimize campaigns.
A/B testing (aka "split testing") compares two versions of something to determine which is the better performing variation. You can do A/B tests on your email’s subject line, CTA, design, body copy, and more to optimize your campaigns for a higher ROI.
Get More Out of Your Email Marketing
By applying these best practices, your campaign's open and conversion rates are sure to increase. Kick your email marketing up a notch by partnering with an experienced digital marketing agency.
Sales & Marketing Technologies offers strategy and automation services to ensure your email marketing supports your overall growth goals.