Email marketing continues to spread in the marketing world. A recent study found that over 70% of marketers now use this channel to relay their message, more than ever before. Communicating via email thus has become an important part of inbound marketing for most businesses.
The continued increase in email marketing can be justified by common sense. As more people spend more time online, email has become a primary method of personal and business communication. Reaching potential leads where they are spending their time has always been a goal of marketers, leading to the predictable increase in email marketing.
For many companies, the challenge has thus shifted from using email marketing at all to using it right. While utilizing email marketing to broaden your marketing outreach, doing so becomes useless–and even harmful–if done the wrong way.
To help you avoid committing a serious blunder, we’ve created these email marketing best practices.
Don’t Be a Part of the Clutter
As email marketing continues to grow, users are continuing to get 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 by using an engaging headline that includes personalization as well as a personal sender address. Email services such as HubSpot allow both easily, and both have been proven to significantly increase your open rates.
Consider the Spam Filters
As email inboxes worldwide continue to get 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. Another factor is good database management. The more recipients mark your email as spam, the more likely future emails are to land directly in users’ spam folders. Targeting and limited sending to only those users who have specifically signed up for your emails, along with an easy-to-find unsubscribe button, all 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’ll know how frustrating it can be. Services like HubSpot automatically generate responsive designs, which is becoming increasingly important in an increasingly mobile-centric internet.
Follow Through With Stats
The best way to find out whether your email campaign has been successful is to look at its statistics. And 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 are meaningful statistics that allow you to improve your campaign the next time around.