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As people spend more time online, email has become a primary method of personal and business communication. Reaching potential leads where they are has always been a goal of marketers, leading to the predictable increase in email marketing. A recent study found that over 70% of marketers now use this channel to relay their messages. Therefore, communicating via email has become an important part of inbound marketing for most businesses.
For many companies, the challenge has thus shifted from whether to use email marketing at all to using it the correct way. Utilizing email marketing to broaden your marketing outreach can be useless – and even harmful – if done the wrong way. These four areas will help you navigate the ever-growing world of email marketing without committing a serious blunder.
Don’t be a part of the Clutter
As email marketing continues to grow, users are increasingly inundated with commercial messages. The response is often to delete emails without even reading them. But what good is a marketing message if it won’t even reach its target? Avoid being part of the clutter with an engaging headline that includes personalization, as well as a personal sender address. This engages your reader and has been proven to significantly increase your open rates.
Consider the Spam Filters
As email inboxes worldwide get increasingly more clutter, spam laws and filters continue to become more sophisticated. As a result, it’s important for you to keep up with the spam laws, chief among which is the CAN-SPAM Act. The more recipients mark your email as spam, the more likely future emails are to land directly in users’ spam folders. This plays into good database management. Targeting and limited sending to only those users who have specifically signed up for your emails and including an easy-to-find unsubscribe button will help you avoid a permanent place in email purgatory.
Optimize for Mobile
Interestingly, a recent study revealed that while the majority of email readers prefer to do so on mobile devices, only 42% of email marketers optimize their emails for these devices. If you have ever read an email based on a non-responsive design on your phone or tablet, you know how frustrating it can be. Services like HubSpot automatically generate responsive designs, which is becoming more important in an increasingly mobile-centric world.
Follow Through with Stats
The best way to find out whether your email campaign has been successful is to look at the statistics. While open rates are a tempting metric, they say little about whether the email actually succeeded in persuading a potential consumer. Instead, look for the click rates and maybe even include a tracking URL that lets you see exactly what a consumer did after clicking on one of your email links. The result is meaningful statistics that allow you to improve your campaign the next time around.
Following these steps will help ensure that your emails are read and appreciated by an audience of potential customers.
