Email Marketing Best Practices

Email marketing, when done right, can be a powerful tool for engaging and retaining customers. However, it’s crucial to follow best practices to ensure the effectiveness and legality of your campaigns. Here’s a guide to the most important practices in email marketing:

Avoid buying email lists

Purchasing email lists is a bad idea for several reasons. Under GDPR and CAN-SPAM regulations, it’s illegal to send unsolicited emails and store people’s data without consent. Unsolicited emails are often marked as spam, which can damage your email sender’s reputation and lead to being placed on an email blocklist. Moreover, most email marketing services won’t work with you if you use purchased lists, as they can harm deliverability for other users on shared IP addresses.

Use double opt-in

Although the double opt-in process adds an extra step for subscribers, it is very helpful for email deliverability. It helps eliminate misspelled email addresses (which cause hard bounces) and spam traps. Double opt-in also serves as proof of subscriber consent, a requirement under GDPR.

Segment your email list

Segmenting your email list means dividing it into smaller groups based on common traits like age, location, lead score, and purchase history. The goal of this technique is to send more relevant and targeted emails to your subscribers. Effective segmentation starts at signup by requesting subscriber details like content and frequency preferences.

Personalization

Personalization in emails goes a long way in making customers feel valued and understood. Some great personalization tactics you can use in your email campaigns include using subscribers’ first names in the subject line and content, considering time zones when scheduling campaigns, segmenting contacts for targeted messaging, using behavior-triggered emails, recognizing user milestones, and sending tailored product recommendations.

A graph of email personalization trends

Subscriber personalization preferences based on a survey conducted by McKinsey.

A/B test your emails

A/B testing involves experimenting with different email elements like subject lines, content formats, and calls-to-action (CTAs) to see what resonates best with your audience. This tactic can help you find out what performs better based on open rates and click-through rates. Always adjust your email marketing strategy based on A/B test results.

Optimize email deliverability

Email deliverability refers to the ability to deliver an email to the inbox.  Good email deliverability ensures that your emails reach subscribers’ inboxes and not their spam folders. To improve deliverability, avoid spammy or overly promotional subject lines, keep your subscriber database current by removing unengaged contacts, only send emails to opt-in subscribers, and always include an unsubscribe link.

A list of email deliverability best practices

Clean your email list

Regularly cleaning your email list can enhance email deliverability and engagement rates. You can do this by removing subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails in a long while. For instance, if someone hasn’t engaged with your emails for four months, consider sending them a reactivation campaign. And if they don’t engage after you send them a reactivation email, delete them from your list.

Track success with email marketing metrics

Tracking the success of email marketing campaigns is crucial, and this is done by closely monitoring key metrics. Regularly analyzing these metrics allows for the optimization of email campaigns, leading to improved engagement and conversion rates.

A list of email marketing metrics

The open rate reflects the effectiveness of your subject lines and sender reputation. The click-through rate (CTR) shows the engagement level of your content, measured by the clicks on links within the email. The unsubscribe rate is a critical indicator of content relevance and email frequency. Finally, the bounce rate, including both hard and soft bounces, measures the deliverability of your emails. By continually monitoring and analyzing these metrics, you can fine-tune your email marketing campaigns for better engagement, higher conversion rates, and improved overall performance.

Automate your email campaigns

Automating your email campaigns can greatly assist in scaling your business. One of the most common forms of email automation is autoresponders, which are used to send personalized emails at different stages of the buyer journey. More complex automation sequences can also be set up for lead nurturing and scoring. Automation is increasingly becoming a focus area for companies, so understanding and implementing it can give you a competitive edge.

By adhering to these best practices, you can create email marketing campaigns that are not only effective but also compliant with legal standards, ensuring a positive impact on your business growth and customer relationships.