One of the most cost-effective marketing tactics used by brands is automated marketing. Sending bulk emails is inexpensive, and even if only a tiny fraction of recipients respond, it is still cost-effective. However, when implemented correctly, email marketing can yield considerably better results. This blog uncovers some email marketing best practices strategies for 2021. These email marketing strategies can assist you in running successful email marketing campaigns that will yield much better outcomes.
1- Runs A/B tests & Find the optimal time to send your emails
It’s critical to create effective email automation campaigns, and the only way to do it is to test, specifically A/B testing! An A/B test is a simple method that can help you enhance every aspect of an email campaign. To put it another way, you send two separate versions of the same promotion to various demographics. Whatever you decide to test, make sure to keep track of your results. If you’re testing different subject lines, your open rates are crucial. It’s also critical to keep track of your click rates as you experiment with alternative email content.
Find the optimal day to send your communications to achieve the best email open rates while you’re at it. When it comes to automated marketing tools, you must understand how your target demographic operates. Collect data through email monitoring and experiment until you hit that sweet spot.
2- Provide compelling reasons for subscribers to click
Do you want to improve your click-through rates? Then provide incentives for your subscribers to view and engage through your email. Use a powerful incentive in your opening sentences, such as free delivery or purchase one, get one free, and so on.
3- Take it easy on the email frequency
Reduce the chances of your emails showing up in your subscribers’ spam folders by following this marketing automation best practice. As a result, your email’s deliverability improves. Building anticipation for your next campaign will increase your audience’s appreciation for you. Make them eager to receive your next major email campaign. Consider this: A golden ticket is offered to you by an opt-in subscriber: they have entrusted you with their email address. So don’t spam their mailbox or utilize strategies like email blasts. Setting your frequency is simple with Moosend. This is because the platform allows scheduling and automatically resending your email campaign to subscribers who haven’t opened it.
4- Make your landing pages more effective
Consumers are busy nowadays, want to see certain qualities when they click on a call to action in an email. As a result, it’s critical to create a smooth transition for subscribers who open your emails. The consistency of a landing page is consistent with your aims. The content of your emails encourages a pleasant user experience and brand trust.
It’s also critical to use tracking tools. This is to determine which emails and landing pages performed well so you can develop a winning plan. Check out our landing page optimization recommendations if you want to improve the efficiency of your landing page and increase conversions.
5- Make plans ahead of time for significant occasions
Specific calendar occasions, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, provide fantastic e-commerce marketing possibilities for all businesses. They also give ample time to build email lists which is necessary for client acquisition strategies. And the most excellent way to achieve it is through email marketing! Instead of relying entirely on last-minute promotions, plan and create exceptional deals. Even if it means sending out a Halloween email drip campaign in September! Start creating your festive email templates early to save time, beat your competition, and profit on those critical dates. Moosend has an extensive range of beautiful newsletter templates that you may personalize to your liking.
6- Create a drip-email campaign (onboarding)
In the hands of professional email marketers, marketing automation is an effective vehicle. You’ll need a sophisticated drip campaign. This is to persuade your subscribers to behave if you want to automate time-consuming chores while nurturing your subscribers. You do all of this without coming across as spammy. Drip campaigns are a series of emails sent to new subscribers once they join your newsletter using your signup forms. Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of fantastic drip campaign examples to get you started. A welcome email drip campaign is the most popular series. To onboard new customers, you can send them a series of emails with various incentives. A discount for the first order could be included in the first email in the sequence. You may entice them to sign up for your loyalty program with the subsequent one. Finally, the third email can include an introduction to your team or the individuals behind the brand. In this approach, you may humanize your brand and enhance its image.
7- Craft enticing email content
Writing good email copy is one of the email marketing best practices that should not be disregarded. You’ll need to build your brand voice first. Your campaigns will be consistent across all media, not just email, as a result of this. To encourage action and fit elegantly with your CTAs, your email text must be helpful and precise, with actionable words. You don’t want to bore your subscribers with long paragraphs of text. The essential purpose is to underline the importance of opening the email and direct people to the CTA.
8- In your subject lines, make use of the curiosity gap
Have you ever heard of the “curiosity gap”? In other words, you present enough information to pique your audience’s interest. However, until they click, you don’t show enough information to pique their interest. Viral sites like Upworthy and Buzzfeed have recently adopted the technique of generating appealing titles. These titles appeal to our need to “fill in the gaps.” If you give everything away in your subject line, there’s no need for the receiver to open your email. However, withholding specific details while providing enough to entice them in can result in a significant increase in your open rate.
9- Increase authenticity by avoiding a ‘no-reply’ sender address
What good is it to personalize your email message if it appears to have been sent by a bot? Or do you want to leave a blank BIMI record (logo)? It’s a little ironic. A “no-reply@” sender address should be avoided. You must earn your audience’s trust, not the other way around. Furthermore, if consumers feel a genuine person writes your emails, they are more inclined to open them!
You may even want to urge your subscribers to respond. Gathering feedback is critical to the success of your entire marketing strategy. Of course, there’s also the CAN-SPAM Act, which businesses must follow. One of its guidelines states that you should not use “no-reply” or something similar to the sender’s name. Setting up DMARC, allows you to utilize your brand logo on supporting email clients as part of BIMI. It is recommended to increase your communications’ validity. This adds an extra element of credibility to your emails, establishing confidence with your recipients.
10- Make use of high-resolution graphics
Include breathtaking and eye-catching graphics in your communications. Your images must, of course, be of good quality and consistent with your branding (in terms of colors, style). You use visuals to “reaffirm” your email copy and establish an emotional attachment with your readers. GIFs are another option to consider. Be cautious because they can change the tone of your email and aren’t always relevant. Finally, include ALT text in your photographs. It not only aids persons with visual impairments but can also save your life if the HTML fails to render.
11- Use distinct call-to-actions (CTAs)
You must persuade subscribers to take action to run a successful email marketing campaign. If you give them too many options, they may choose the wrong one. Or, worse, become confused and unsubscribe from your mailing list. As a result, your subscribers must understand what they should do next! To accomplish so, you’ll need to combine your wonderfully designed CTA with your email design in a seamless manner. Make it insanely apparent to your users what you want them to do. The design and placement of CTAs are equally important. To accommodate consumers who use mobile devices, make sure your CTAs are both visible and accessible. Furthermore, your main call-to-action should be placed above the fold since otherwise, the bulk of your recipients would miss it.
12- Telling stories might help you create trust
People are naturally drawn to stories. They build profound connections through emotion, bypassing the rational side of our brains. According to research, people are 22 times more likely to remember if they weave anything into a story. To form a deep bond with their customers, successful firms employ stories in their marketing. As a result, there is more loyalty, better engagement, and, most crucially, trust. Stories can assist to humanize a brand by being personable, hilarious, and very relatable to your target audience. As a result, storytelling is a powerful aspect that can be used in content marketing to engage and convert customers successfully!
13- Make the preview text more appealing
Making the most of your email’s preview text might be beneficial. The preview text is often displayed next to the subject line and is essentially a fragment of copy from the body of your email. According to one study, using a preheader in an email can increase open and click rates by over 22%. Rather than relying on Lady Luck to determine the success of your campaign, create an attractive preview text. This text complements and expands on your subject line. As a result, your email will be more tempting to open and will ideally grab the readers’ attention right away.
14- Make your email list more segmented
Customers have varying requirements. You must develop consumer segments to contact them in the most effective way possible. Also, send messages relevant to their needs and interests. It’s not difficult to segment your subscribers. Segmentation begins as soon as you collect your subscribers’ email addresses via your well-crafted newsletter signup forms. You can segment your audience by gender, geography, lifestyle, on-site behavior, and other factors. Basket groups new members based on their buying choices in the example above. You may adjust your communications to your consumers’ individual needs and customize them more effectively if you segment your list correctly. That isn’t all, though.
15- Commit from the start (and keep it)
You can highlight what a new subscriber can expect by creating an online form. Are they going to get a weekly newsletter? When you release a new blog article, do you want a ping? Do you like to be notified about promotional discounts or discounts? Keep whatever promise you make when someone registers up for your newsletter. After all, failing to do so is the most common way to irritate your subscribers. This is since you will be sending them something they have not requested. Stacked Marketer, for example, features an email signup box on their website. Every day at 3 p.m., they vow to send new content. That is precisely what they do.
16- Maintain a clean email list
If your email marketing efforts have too many bounces or incorrect email addresses, they may be flagged as spam. As a result, it’s critical to keep your list clean frequently. First and foremost, you must delete any emails that are no longer valid (hard bounces). The email account does not exist on the server, resulting in a hard bounce. Your sender reputation improves when you remove any hard bounces from your email list. You can set hard bounces to automatically eliminate if you use Moosend for your email marketing campaigns.
Second, soft bounces must be closely monitored. If an inbox is full or momentarily unavailable, a soft bounce may occur. You might not want to get rid of a soft bounce right away. However, if an email address consistently sends a soft bounce, it’s usually worth eliminating it. A three-strike policy is something to think about.
Last but not least, unengaged email subscribers should be removed. How long do you think you should wait? A rule of thumb is that if someone hasn’t opened your emails in over a year, they are no longer interested.
17- Create your list
It should be no surprise that buying email lists is not an email marketing best practice. This is mainly because of the implementation of the GDPR requirements. Healthy open rates are critical in email marketing efforts. If you try to contact people who haven’t given you their permission, your campaign’s success will suffer. Furthermore, you run the danger of having your list rejected by major ISPs (Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, etc.).
As a result, you must organically create your lists. Because establishing an extensive list takes time, employ lead magnets (ebooks, industry reports, freebies,) to entice people to join. Building your list provides a high level of engagement and deliverability. If you’ve “inherited” an email list, it’s a good idea to double-check that each person has given their agreement. Overall, it’s worthwhile to put in the effort. The advantages of creating a list much exceed the dangers of purchasing one. We have a great guide on how to start an email list from the ground up. Take a look at it!
18- Combine email and social media marketing
Social media is a relatively new phenomenon. Memes, massive audiences, and Instagram influencer marketing abound in this sacred country! To contact their pals, everyone has a social media account. But, most essential, keep up with the latest news and engage with promotional material. Because social media is such a significant role, you must incorporate it into your email marketing strategy. You may always include social media links at the bottom of your emails to automate your cross-promotional efforts.
19- Make use of a two-step opt-in process
You can send a link to confirm a new subscriber’s subscription when they sign up for your emails. This is a classic double opt-in, where you take an extra step to validate your subscriber’s email address. While the double opt-in adds an extra step to your subscribers’ journey, it’s one of the most secure email marketing strategies. Prioritize quality before quantity! If you’re still concerned about your list shrinking, consider that employing double opt-in will improve email deliverability.
20- Remind subscribers why they signed up in the first place
On your list, there will be folks who have completely forgotten that they signed up. As a result, it’s a good idea to remind them WHY you’re sending them an email. This is especially crucial if you aren’t a frequent sender. Assume you sent a monthly newsletter to your mailing list on the last day of the month. On January 1st, someone registers. They’ve entirely forgotten about you and your website by the time the 31st arrives. They then pressed the spam button. Reminding people why they joined up is one of the most crucial email marketing best practices you need.
21- Make your email marketing more personalized
One of the most basic email marketing best practices is email customization. When someone uses our name, we have an unconscious reaction. Personalization is using your customer’s first name in your subject lines in its most basic form. According to email automation data, personalized email marketing initiatives generate 1.75 percent of email revenue! However, personalization does not end there. Customers expect relevant content that is to their preferences. You’ll need to deploy dynamic content and deliver unique consumer experiences based on user data gathered via online forms. Personalization increases engagement and conversion rates significantly, thus choosing a user-friendly and dependable email marketing platform might be a lifesaver.
22- Make it simple for your audience to unsubscribe
Some users will wish to unsubscribe, no matter how great your emails are. Maybe they’ve stopped utilizing your product, or perhaps they’ve changed jobs. Unsubscribes are an inevitable component of maintaining a “clean” email list. The standard location for your unsubscribe button in many effective newsletter examples is next to your email address. Normally, the email client adds it automatically (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.). While it may appear to be an unconventional email marketing best practice, unsubscribing must be quick and straightforward. Alternatively, you can place your button at the bottom of your email design yourself. It’s best not to hide it or use small letters on purpose. Also, make sure that users do not have to enter back into their accounts to finish the procedure. Failure to do so will almost certainly result in spam reports, lowering your email deliverability rates.
23- Personalize and automate your messaging
Automation is an email marketing best practice that has to be on our list. Marketers should take advantage of the basic and complex campaign automation tools provided by modern email marketing platforms. On a fundamental level, you must establish automated workflows to save time by automating repetitive tasks. Welcome email sequences, cart abandonment campaigns, and so on are examples of such jobs. However, you should not stop there. To establish stronger ties with your subscribers and enhance engagement, combine the power of automation with personalization. This might be as basic as sending them an email once a year to wish them a happy birthday. Make sure to include a discount coupon or special promotion for their big day!
24- Make your correspondence as time-sensitive as possible.
There’s nothing like a sense of urgency to motivate customers to act. FOMO (fear of missing out) is an essential customer sentiment that every Marketer should try to tap into. Set a time limit for your customers to act, and you’ll notice a spike in clicks and conversion rates. The use of emojis in conjunction with suitable language boosts conversions. Of course, if you want to increase the effectiveness of your efforts, don’t overlook countdown clocks in emails! Only a few email service companies include timers as a standard feature. Moosend, fortunately, provides you with unlimited time(rs) and handy email templates just by registering up for a free account!
25- Reward your email subscribers who have been with you for a long time
Customers who are loyal to you are the lifeblood of your company. They open and click on your emails, then opt to shop at your store (instead of your competitors). As a result, thank them for their commitment and participation. You can accomplish this in several ways, ranging from special discounts or offers to early access to unique products and services. That’s a fantastic approach to show them how much you value them. Isn’t it true that you’re not losing anything? It’s a win-win situation! Some businesses also use reward points.
These seemingly simple tips will turbocharge your e-commerce marketing. In this saturated market, every little helps in helping you target your demographics.
