Email is among the best lead generation and nurturing solutions, but you may not have the email marketing skills to know how to approach these campaigns. The following are some email marketing best practices to help you get started.
1. Use Double Opt-In Email Sign-Up
You want to make sure each person in your contact list chooses to receive marketing emails. Otherwise, you'll likely annoy people with cold emails that don't connect, wasting your time and resources in the process.
Double opt-in works differently from single opt-in signups. Single opt-in only requires users to fill out a single signup form to add themselves to your contact list. Double opt-in, meanwhile, requires users to complete a form, receive an opt-in email confirmation, and click on a specific link within the email to confirm the signup. This helps ensure your emails go to a legitimate and regularly-checked inbox.
2. Send a Welcome Email
When people first subscribe to you via email, always send a welcome email. This serves as a warm introduction to your brand and can let people know what to expect from future emails.
3. Avoid Using a No-Reply Email Address
Don't use a no-reply email address when possible. This is because no-reply email addresses are more likely to be labeled as spam by spam filters and users alike. No-reply emails also force users to spend precious time figuring out which email address they can actually contact.
4. Personalize Your Emails
People respond more favorably to personalized emails. In fact, personalized emails have six times the transaction rate of emails that aren't personalized. Be sure to personalize every element when doable, including your subject line and message.
5. Write Casually and Conversationally
Don't make your emails too formal, or this could make your brand seem too aloof and disconnected. Instead, keep your emails casual and use your audience's language to speak to them. This will further help your emails stand apart from the many impersonal messages in people's inboxes.
6. Keep Emails Brief
Avoid wasting too much time with your emails. It's best to get to the point as soon as possible and drive home the message you want to send. If your emails are short and concise, this will connect with recipients much more effectively.
7. Make Emails Easy to Skim
People frequently skim emails and don't want to read a long, drawn-out message. Keep sentences short and break up your email message as much as possible.
8. Perfect the Subject Line
The subject line is the first element that people will see, making an appealing subject line critical. Keep in mind that 64% of people will decide whether to open an email based on the subject line alone. Consider including a compelling offer or use personalization to get people to open your emails. Also, avoid making your subject lines too long.
9. Consider Your Preview Text
Emails tend to come with preview text that indicates the contents of the email. Consider optimizing the first few sentences of your email content to provide sufficient context and entice people to read on by clicking through to the email.
10. Have a Compelling CTA
The call-to-action you use in your emails should encourage people to actually click through and complete the action. Make a unique and enticing offer and keep your CTA clear.
11. A/B Test Your Content
Before launching your emails, conduct an A/B split test that helps gauge effectiveness. This involves using two versions of subject lines, messages, or CTAs in separate campaigns. Only change one element and keep the others the same. You can then launch both iterations and see which performs better.
12. Use Audience Segmentation
Email segmentation best practices will also help you reach the right people. Different people in your audiences will respond to different types of messages. To ensure your content resonates with each member of your audience, segment your audience and tailor your emails to connect with each.
13. Make Your Emails Accessible
Your emails should be consistently accessible to recipients. Facilitate this with relevant and compelling subject lines, the appropriate fonts and font colors, easy-to-read content, lists, image alt-text, and meaningful link text.
14. Optimize for Mobile
You must make your emails accessible to mobile users. You can do so by ensuring your email content is easy to view and read on mobile devices through testing.
15. Set A Consistent Cadence
One of the best email marketing skills to have is to perfect your cadence. This involves sending emails at the right frequency to hold recipients' attention. With the right cadence, you'll drive engagement among your recipients and maintain more loyal subscribers.
16. Use Analytics to Drive Your Email Marketing Strategy
To measure the results of your customer nurturing strategy through email, you need powerful analytics. Using the right tools, you can get the data you need about your efforts and determine what you need to improve.
17. Include Share Options for Distribution
Make sure people can share email content using accessible buttons. This will help distribute your content more easily.
18. Use Lead Magnets for more Subscribers
To acquire more subscribers, use lead magnets. A good lead magnet will make an attractive offer that gets people to sign up in exchange for a valuable piece of content. For instance, you can offer free ebooks or whitepapers in exchange for submitting an email address and other contact details. Users can then receive this content while opting into your contact list.
19. Regularly Clean Your Email List
To keep your audience relevant and ensure your emails are only going to those who will benefit from them, clean your email list on a regular basis. Update your list to clear out any invalid or inactive subscribers, which will improve the efficiency of your campaigns.
20. Make it Easy to Unsubscribe
People may become disinterested in email content at some point, which is why you should make it easy for users to unsubscribe as needed. Otherwise, they may mark you as spam which hurts your deliverability. You can make it easy to unsubscribe by including an unsubscribe button at the bottom of your emails.
Connect with a Media Partner with Email Marketing Skills
With the right best practices and strategies, email can be one of the most effective lead nurturing tools. However, if you don't have the time and resources needed to help these campaigns flourish, you may need some help. With a media partner like Mid-West Family Springfield, you can benefit from a strong campaign that yields great results.
