10 Tips for Email Marketing

Sending an email to market your business. Does it really work? Of course it does. You just need to know how to go about it. It is very common for emails sent by businesses to be treated as spam or for clients to unsubscribe from. We have all experienced that at some point of our emailing life. So to avoid that from happening, here are 10 tips to help you with email marketing.

1. Keep Building and Filtering Your Audience

Even when you feel like you are already sending emails to too many people, you need to know that it is most likely still not enough people. You need to keep patiently building your subscriber list. Leave a sign up option on every landing page from your site, and at every possible space. Don’t be afraid to filter and clean up your list based on your analysis. There is no point in sending emails to an audience that does not fit your target persona.

2. Speak to Your Subscribers as a Person

Nobody wants to read a generic message that is jam-packed with information from a company email. Make sure you understand your target personas and what works as good content for them. Consider yourself an entity that is able to communicate in a more human format. Write the email with a relatable tone of voice, so that your subscribers know that  it’s a two-way communication. Maybe even encourage them to respond if it is something that will work for you.

3. Add a Touch of Personality

Riding on tip number 2, give yourself a personality and craft your email accordingly. Address each recipient by name, and use an email address that uses your name, or at least a name. There are tools available to help insert recipient names into emails, so you can use that. If necessary, craft multiple versions of the same email to address different audiences. People want to hear from you, not an electronic robot from your company.

4. Abide by the CAN-SPAM Act

The last thing you want is for your emails to end up in the spam folder of your subscribers, where they will never be found and forever be forgotten. Ensure that you are only sending emails to subscribers who really did subscribe to you. Don’t try any funny business because it will backfire, and you will lose credibility. If you need more information on how to avoid becoming spam, here’s a quick guide by MailChimp.

5. Keep Your Content Clean, Short, and Sweet

Have you ever received an email that is so long-winded, you lose interest within the first paragraph? Or a title that just does not interest you? Of course you have. That also means  you know what to avoid doing when sending out your emails. Use those emails as examples of what not to do when writing your content. Keep your content concise, and get to the point as quickly as you can. Use shorter paragraphs and bullet points so that your email doesn’t look like anything more than a 30-second to 1-min read. And as we all know, images don’t perform as well as content in emails, so don’t add unnecessary images or use images as background.

6. Don’t Forget Your CTAs

The whole point of getting people to subscribe to your email is so you can direct them to your site and generate traffic, and subsequently create conversion. Hence, ensure that your Call-To-Action is clearly visible and correctly positioned within the content because some readers will only scan through the email, and your CTA link or button needs to be right there staring at them. You may also add relevant links to your content, but be careful not to accidentally misdirect the attention of the subscriber.

7. Add Alt Text Your CTA Button

Some clients block images by default, so your CTA button might only appear as a blank square. Therefore, make sure to add alt text to your images. The alt text will appear as a visible text, in case the image is blocked.

8. Use an Attractive Subject Line

You are not the only person sending an email to your subscribers. They probably receive tens if not hundreds of emails a day. So if you are going to get their attention, it needs to be with an attractive subject line – something that they will definitely want to click on if they see it. Use words that will get the reader excited. Create an enticing string of words so that the client will have to open the email to see what it’s all about.

9. Make Your Content Mobile-Friendly

How is reading on mobile different from desktop? Mobile content will require the reader to scroll more. More impatient mobile scrolling equals more skipping of content. So if you have a CTA or an important link that you need the reader to see, place it also at the beginning and middle of the email. Also, consider the length of your email that will be suitable for a mobile internet user that has an attention span of less than 30 seconds. Here are some tips by HubSpot on how to make your email content more mobile-friendly.

10. Send a Test Email First

For the love of your business and reputation, always send a test email before sending it out to your list. There is no coming back from a sent email with inaccurate or missing content. Sending another email will just make you look like you have no idea what you are doing. Double-check, and triple-check if you must. Do it.

Bonus Tip: Do Not Purchase an Email List

Remember spam? Purchasing a list is how you end up with the wrong kind of audience, and also how you will end up as spam. As much as it may seem like a great idea to start your list with, let it be known that it is not a great idea. Not at all.