Learn Email Marketing - 4 Best Practises for 2022 and Bonus Tips

Learn Email Marketing - 4 Best Practises for 2022 and Bonus Tips

Introduction:

Email marketing is a low-cost form of marketing, that delivers high ROI for organizations. It encompasses digital, customer engagement, and online marketing methods to name but a few. It is also measurable at every stage, allowing the opportunity to track success and build customer insight. 

Email marketing is an extremely effective marketing platform as it allows organizations to directly communicate with their audience in a personable and interactive way. When done correctly it can develop relations, build trust and nurture an audience or customer. 

It is important to note that audiences or customers have to give their permission to receive email communications from organizations, usually through subscribing to a mailing list. This is not to be taken lightly, these are people actively stating that they want to be contacted by companies, giving their attention to the business or company.  

According to Statista, 333.2 billion emails are sent daily in 2022, with this set to rise to 376.4 billion per day by 2025. In conjunction with this, a recent study by MailChimp reviled that the average open rate across various sectors is 21.33%. 

To be within the 21.33% opened emails and to deliver results and utilize the attention of their audience/prospects it is important that your email marketing communications follow best practices. Below are some examples of email marketing best practices. 

1) Set yourself up for success: 

When emailing an audience database, it is crucial that it is done so legally and correctly. Therefore it is essential that customer data is collected properly, adhering to GDPR rules. It should be made clear to audiences subscribing; what data will be collected, how this data will be used, and how it will be safely secured. A link to your organization's privacy policy within the email communications is highly recommended. There must always be an option for subscribers to be able to opt out within the email comms. 

AVOID - avoid your emails from being blocked from subscribers or being blacklisted. Set up double opt-in to verify subscriber information and make sure that customer data is accurate. This ensures that your organization's emails are not considered spam or unsolicited.  

2) Get your shop front in order: 

According to financeonline.com, the average office worker receives 100 emails per day, therefore it is important for your organization to be recognizable and stand out from other emails that your prospects will receive. "Surprise and differentiation have far more impact than noise does." - Seth Godin. Make sure that your organization's emails are instantly recognizable. Use your brand pack or style tile consisting of your organization; logos, brand colours, fonts, and graphics in order to create consistency and familiarity in your email campaigns. 

Avoid - avoid a hard stop for your prospects. Don't let your email be the end of the customers/prospects journey, let it be the start. Ensure to include links and CTA's sign-posting users to your organizations, website, social media accounts, and other platforms your organization might be on. 

3) Be Client centric: 

Send emails with your customer/prospects in mind. Make sure that your audiences are properly segmented so you can send relevant content. The content you send your prospects and customers should add value. Ensure that the content you're sending is relevant, informative, or educational. Newsletters are a very effective form of email marketing as they are a way of communicating with audiences, making them feel part of the organization. Subscriber promotions can be included as long they are not the main focus, people do not like being sold to. Use images, videos, and engaging copy to interact with your audience through email. Most ESPs allow for personalization when sending emails, allowing to use of personal names in the to and from sections of the email. Include an enticing subject line, informing the receiver of the value of opening and reading the email. 

Avoid - Avoid a bad audience experience. Make sure you have sent test emails to check for any issues such as; spelling errors, content not loading, and formatting issues. Although video content is highly engaging, mostESPs are unable to host video within emails. Instead, use a thumbnail image or a gif and link to the video on a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo. 

4) Measure Success - 

As with all marketing, it is important to know what is working and what isn’t. Most ESPs (such as MailChimp or Salesforce) allow for A/B testing and performance tracking. A/B testing enables your organization to have insight into what content engages your audience more. By sending out variations to a percentage of your audience, you can test the effectiveness of many variables such as; subject lines, banner images, the wording of your CTA’s, graphics, and videos.

It is also essential to track the performance of your organization's email communications. Some important metrics to track include; emails sent, hard bounce, soft bounce, open rate, unsubscribes, and CTR. Some ESPs have a click-map in their analytics section so you can also measure the traffic clicking through the links in your email. 

Avoid - Avoid a heavy workload. Creating bespoke emails that add value to your audience can be time-consuming. Where possible, use automation to help manage your workload. Use automated emails when a customer/prospect has completed an action or transaction, these could be “Thank you” emails or “Important information” if your prospect has registered for an event or webinar. Depending on your level of subscription to an ESP, you might also be able to create automated bespoke customer journeys. These consist of automated emails that are sent to customers depending on how they interact with your organization's emails, an effective way to nurture leads along different touch points of the customer journey.