The Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing

Whether you’re just starting out with your email marketing strategy or have been sending regular newsletters for years, make sure you’re getting the most out of your email marketing efforts by following our do’s and don’ts below:

Do’s

• Use personalisation to help create a relationship with your subscriber. Start by including their name and then look into how else you can add more value to your readers by segmenting your database to provide the most relevant information to them every time.

• Keep your content fresh and consistent. Remember that the inbox can be a very crowded place for a business to fight for the attention of its subscribers, so by making sure your email marketing campaigns always offer high quality content that appeals to your target audience, your readers will start to look forward to seeing your email and be more likely to actually open it.

• Keep your message short. Whatever the goal of your email marketing campaign is, this should be the focus of your copy. By sticking to one call to action, you subscriber will know exactly what they need to do and will not be distracted by any other information or offers.

• Understand your audience. By knowing what your audience will find interesting, you will be able to create campaigns that they will find relevant and be excited about receiving. If you have a large and varied audience, think about how you can use segmentation to target your audience even further. You may wish to segment your audience by gender if you are a clothes store, or location for example, if you own a number of restaurants to target the right offers at the right people.

• Test everything. Whether it’s the format, design or style of content, if you do not test your email marketing campaigns you will never be able to see how much you can truly gain from your marketing efforts. Just make sure you only test one thing at a time to really understand the impact of every little tweak you make.

Don’ts

• Purchase an email contact list. Most email marketing platforms will not even allow you to upload a list if they are able to determine that list has been bought. You will also be targeting completely random people, who have not opted in to receive your marketing information and will not be happy to receive unwelcome communication from you. Don’t risk your brand’s reputation by doing this - it’s not worth it.

• Use overly pushy sales spiel. Spam filters will automatically pick up on any language that they would associate with spam emails and block you from your subscriber’s inboxes.

• Forget about mobile. Make sure you have tested the responsiveness of your campaign template. Are you able to read the copy clearly and can you click on the call to action with ease? If the answer is no, then do not press send.

• Ignore the stats. With every campaign you send out for your brand, do not forget to go back to the reports to understand how effective your campaign has been and see how you can improve. By keeping an eye on your key metrics, you will also be able to create benchmarks for your individual brand which will allow you to quickly spot if something has gone wrong, helping to look after your database.

By following these tips you will be on the right track to creating a strong email marketing campaign.

Check out our free eBook, Guide To Running An Inbound Marketing Campaign, how effective email marketing can work as a inbound marketing stratagy and help nuture your leads.