Email marketing remains a powerful tool, but navigating its complexities requires strategy, the right technology, and an understanding of best practices. Here is a comprehensive guide on maximizing your results, focusing on software, list building, content creation, and ethical compliance.
The Power of Email Marketing Software
If you are beginning with email marketing, using dedicated software is highly recommended. While sending through a personal or business email is not impossible, it is significantly more difficult. Email marketing software provides crucial features like templates, compliance with anti-spam regulations, and numerous other tools. Investing in this software is definitely worthwhile.
For instance, Constant Contact is known for being highly user-friendly, making it excellent for those new to email marketing. It is particularly notable for offering over 200 templates—more than any other software researched. Furthermore, it provides strong automations, which are essential for tasks such as immediately sending a welcome email after a contact signs up. Constant Contact also integrates AI, which is specifically helpful for refining written content, image content, and subject lines. (Note: Local View is a Constant Contact reseller, allowing them to offer the software at a lower price, and it integrates easily with their business app Dashcore for existing clients).
Strategically Building Your Email List
When building an email list, especially from scratch, the main objective is to always offer some sort of incentive to entice people to provide their email address. This incentive could be discounts, rewards, or information about the business.
Three primary online tools help build your list:
1. Website Footer Subscribe Box: Add a “subscribe to our email list” box in the footer of your website. This is a standard practice, seen on sites like Chipotle’s, where the incentive is often “get rewarded”.
2. Homepage Pop-ups: You can add a pop-up to your homepage. On e-commerce sites, this often welcomes visitors and offers a discount (e.g., 10% off the first order) in exchange for opting into the marketing list. These pop-ups can also be designed to be less intrusive, such as one placed subtly in the corner of a webpage.
3. Opt-in at Checkout or Scheduling Systems: If you run an e-commerce site, you can include an opt-in button at checkout. For businesses that are not e-commerce, any form that collects emails (like a scheduling system) should include the option for the customer to opt-in to receive marketing emails.
Mastering Your Email Content
The content of your email is where you tell your story and engage the reader.
The Subject Line: Your First Impression
The subject line is arguably the most important part of your email because it is your first impression. The goal is to get people to click.
• Spur Curiosity: Grab the reader’s attention without completely revealing the email’s content.
• Use the Preheader: Alongside the subject line (the bold text), a preheader provides a small snippet of additional information, either pulling from the email content or a custom message.
• Avoid Spam Triggers: Certain elements are likely to put your email into the spam folder due to anti-spam software and laws. Do not use all caps in subject lines. Limit punctuation, especially exclamation points.
• Keep it Short: Use under 10 words so the entire message is more likely to display in the subject line.
Email marketing software often includes advanced features like A/B testing. This feature allows you to send two different subject lines (Subject Line A and Subject Line B) to a small sample pool (typically 20% to 40% of contacts). After 48 hours, the system determines which subject line had more opens and automatically sends the winning version to the rest of your contact list. Constant Contact and MailChimp are known to offer this feature.
Written Content and Call to Action (CTA)
The written content is the “bread and butter” of your email.
• Lead with the Main Point: Place the most important or “juicy part” of the email first. Since the reader clicked based on the subject line, they are looking for that answer immediately.
• Structure Your Message: After delivering the main point, then go into more detail and explain the email’s purpose.
• CTA Placement: Never put your Call to Action (CTA) first. A CTA, which can be a button, a clickable link, an email address, or a phone number, must always be placed after you explain what the product or service is. If you are offering a discount, explain the product or service before offering the discount.
• Consider Longevity: One of the benefits of email marketing is that contacts often stay subscribed for months or years, meaning you have ample time to convey your full business message across multiple emails.
• Optimal Length: Statistics suggest using around 50 to 150 words yields more clicks. Using less than 50 or more than 150 words results in a lower response rate.
Incorporating Images
Images also help convey your story, not just text.
• Ensure Clickability: Always add clickable links to your images. It is an interesting finding that most people tend to click on an image to reach a link rather than clicking on a button or a text link within the email.
• Use Alt Text: Always add alt text to your images. This is crucial because when a contact receives an email from your organization for the first time, images may not load automatically; the alt text ensures they still get the story.
• Optimize for Mobile: Ensure your emails maintain mobile friendliness. Given that open rates are split relatively evenly between desktop and mobile (with a slight favor toward mobile), images should be smaller in pixels to display correctly on both.
Before sending an email blast, send a test email to yourself. Check for formatting errors, and be sure to click on all images and links to verify they work.
Best Practices and Ethical Compliance
To ensure your emails reach the inbox, you must adhere to anti-spam laws and follow general operational best practices.
Anti-Spam Requirements
Four requirements must be met to comply with anti-spam laws:
1. Unsubscribe Option: You must provide an option for recipients to unsubscribe (most email marketing software automatically includes this link).
2. Physical Address: Your physical address must be included at the bottom of the email, even if you operate a virtual business.
3. Accurate Subject Line: The subject line cannot promise anything that the email does not actually offer (e.g., promising free services when none are provided).
4. Permission: Never add someone to an email list without their permission. If your account is frequently flagged for unauthorized additions or unsubscribes, your emails are much more likely to be sent to spam.
General Tips and Topics
• Use Templates: Use your first successful email as a template going forward. This allows you to “plug and chug” new written and image content while maintaining the established structure, saving significant time.
• Resend Strategically: Resending an email is a powerful tool when used correctly. Recommend resending to non-openers two to four days after the initial send, or immediately before a deadline. When resending, you can slightly edit the subject line (e.g., adding “reminder” or “last call”) to emphasize importance, but keep the rest of the subject line the same. Crucially, do not resend more than two or three times, as receiving too many emails is the number one reason people unsubscribe.
• Segmentation: Segmenting your list by client type (e.g., separating website clients from Google ads clients) makes emailing easier, ensuring clients only receive relevant updates.
• Topic Ideas: Good email topics include holidays (sending a few days before the actual date to stand out), discounts or limited-time offers, company news or local community involvement (as many people sign up to see what the business is doing), and highlighting new products or services.
Click here to learn more: Email Marketing: What Works & What Doesn’t