Email marketing is a highly attractive tool that helps businesses communicate with their users, build brand awareness, and increase conversions. But a single email campaign error can ruin your brand image, create confusion, or even create unintended consequences. If you want to make sure your next marketing email is effective, informative and free of errors, here are five things to do before you click the “send” button.
1. Check Your Subject Line & Preview Copy:
The subject line and the preview text are the first things your email recipients see. A catchy subject line will have a huge impact on how many emails are opened and the preview copy can give more context to draw recipients to read on.
When checking your subject line, be sure to keep it simple, concise, and interesting. You can’t make all caps, punctuate, or use false words. When you create the preview text, describe the contents of the email in detail and make sure not to repeat the subject. This preview should entice recipients to read your email.
2. Examine the Content and Design of Your Emails:
It is the first thing that people see when opening your marketing email, so it’s essential that you read it carefully. Consider the following:
a. Spelling, grammar, punctuation: Be sure to check your email for spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes. Misuse of them will leave your brand looking professional, harm your credibility, and erode the trust that someone has in your business.
b. Sound and grammar: Maintain a consistent and appropriate tone and grammar throughout your email in order to communicate your intended point. Try to be informative, yet engaging, without being overly sales-driven.
c. Clearly written messaging: You should write clearly written messaging in your email that appeals to your target audience. You need to revise your text and delete any words or phrases that are not needed, keep the message short and to the point so that you can consume it quickly.
d. Engaging subject line and preview: Write an impactful, persuasive, and attention-grabbing subject line that prompts your subscribers to open the email. Add to this a short, catchy preview text that will pull your audience into the email content for a deeper read.
e. Responsive design: Your email should be responsive and cross-compatible across devices and email providers. Prove your email across browsers, devices, and email providers to make sure your subscribers don’t get sucked into your message.
f. Brand consistency: Stay visually consistent by including your brand colors, typography, and graphics into the design of the email. A consistent brand image drives confidence, connection and engagement.
3. Send your Email On Multiple Devices and Email Clients:
Mail clients should be compatible to ensure your message gets delivered correctly. Try your email in multiple email clients (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail) and devices (desktop, mobile, tablet) to make sure it is consistent.
You can use Litmus or Email on Acid, which will let you run your email through various platforms as fast as possible. This will let you detect and resolve any display problems that might arise, so that your readers can effectively read and consume your message.
4. Filter Your List and Customize Your Emails:
Personalization is the process of tailoring content and messaging in response to individual subscriber information and needs. Personalization could be as easy as adding a subscriber’s name to the subject, welcome or body of the email, or as sophisticated as using behavioral triggers or recommendation engines. Personalizing your email marketing efforts promotes engagement, brand loyalty, and better conversion rates.
If you want to personalize your email marketing campaign as best you can, consider the following strategies:
a. Dynamic Content
Dynamic content allows you to customize portions of your email as they’re opened — according to set subscriber characteristic criteria. These might include pictures, headlines, and calls-to-action that are more accurately aligned with individual target recipients’ interest or actions. You can, for instance, display product recommendations or offers within a specific category, if a subscriber has previously expressed an interest in running shoes. This personalization makes the experience more engaging and in turn, improves click-through and conversion rates.
b. Recommendation Engines
Recommendation Algorithms can really make your email marketing go viral. You have to research everything, what every user wants, what they’ve bought, and how they’ve been using your site before suggesting a product or content. Personalised offers place your emails closer to the customers and audience you’re trying to reach and they’re more likely to pursue an offer they might not otherwise have known existed. Further purchases would be followed here.
c. Behavioral Triggers
As a matter of fact, behavioral triggers are the ultimate way to automate your email marketing but still create engaging content. Creating targeted emails based on user behavior, including abandoned cart reminders, purchase follow-up emails, and anniversary messages, can keep the fire of your email relationship burning. Such timely, relevant messages will reinvigorate those sluggish users and motivate your loyal ones.
d. Location-Based Personalization
Such examples are weather conditions at certain locations, activities going on around them, or where stores are situated. You will also be able to use geolocation-based personalization to make your messages relevant. Location-based emails generate foot traffic to physical stores, and this in turn has an impact on in-store sales and purchases.
5. Analyze Your Email Statistics and Prepare for the Next Campaign:
Once you send the email, keep track of your open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and conversions. Such metrics can give you insight into your audience and what can be done better.
You can use this information to optimize your campaigns going forward — change your subject lines, your email design, and adapt your content to your reader’s interests. Maintaining and improving your email marketing plan on a regular basis will keep your campaigns in good working order.
Conclusion:
Just before hitting “send” on your next marketing email, make sure you go through these 5 key checkpoints. Having a good, error-free, well-designed email can do wonders for your reputation, customer loyalty, and revenue. These are the guidelines that will make your email campaigns work and be part of your digital marketing plan.
