Email marketing has become a major component of online marketing strategy, and it isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, it is one of the most successful retention and engagement tactics among online marketing channels.
As a marketer and as a business owner, you have to be in the know about email marketing software best practices 2021. This will help you stay relevant in your market and gain more ROI for your business. With all of the evolving tactics, it can be tough to know what you should be doing.
Email marketing has changed a lot in recent years, as consumers get more and more comfortable with unsubscribing from brands that don’t interest them. One of the biggest debates among email marketers is whether to blast everyone or focus on highly targeted lists. But if you’re looking for best practices for email marketing software, it’s possible to come up with a strategy that works across the board.
Email marketing is vital to almost every business because it’s one of the finest tools for building a relationship with your target audience. Below you’ll find everything you need to know about email marketing best practices, including what software and resources to use, when it’s best to send an email campaign, how often you should send them out, and which aspects are the most important parts of any email campaign.
Why Email Marketing?
Email marketing serves as a primary component of customer acquisition programs for companies across all industries.
But if you’re responsible for maintaining the day-to-day details of your company’s email marketing program, you may feel like there are so many elements to keep track of to get your email program *just right*.
To help, we’ve compiled our top tips to empower and inspire you to create your best email marketing campaigns yet. Here’s what you’ll learn:
- 2021’s most important email marketing best practices
- The latest email marketing tips and tricks for reaching the inbox
- Email marketing design best practices for crafting beautiful, engaging campaigns
- Updated information for helping you find the latest and great email marketing guides and resources
Don’t purchase contact lists.
This first tip should come as no surprise, but given the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it bears repeating.
Email campaigns depend on a healthy open rate, and if you’re contacting people whose information you bought – rather than earned from a previous interaction – you’ll quickly see your emails’ performance drop.
The GDPR also requires each European recipient’s consent before you reach out to them, and purchased email lists usually do not come with that consent.
For help reaching your target audience, consider Versium Reach – a platform made for B2B marketers that allows you to own data on your target audience across multiple marketing channels.
Avoid using ‘No-Reply’ in the sender’s email address.
Have you heard of CAN-SPAM? This longstanding piece of legislation is a popular and important guideline for all email marketers in the U.S.
One major rule in CAN-SPAM is to never use the words “no reply,” or a similar phrase, as your email sender’s name (for example, “noreply@yourcompany.com”).
“No reply” in an email message prevents recipients from responding and even opting out of further emails, which CAN-SPAM protects their right to do so at any time.
Instead, have your automated emails come from a first name (for example, jamie@mycompany.com). Your customers are much more likely to open emails if they know they were written by a human being and it keeps you compliant with email regulations.
Stick to fewer than three typefaces.
The less clutter you have in your email, the more conversions you’ll get.
Don’t junk up your email with more than two fonts or typefaces, as that can distract readers and ruin your email’s visual appeal.
In addition, you want to use web-safe fonts with sizes between 10-point and 12-point. This ensures your email will be legible on all readers and devices.
Send welcome emails
The welcome email is the single most effective message you can send.
According to our latest data, average open rates soar above 80% – and click-through rates are around 22-25%.
Welcome emails also help keep your list clean and improve your email deliverability. If someone enters the wrong email address, the welcome email will generate a hard bounce. That then notifies your email provider to remove it from your list.
They also reassure your new email recipients that the signup worked, and the information they want is on its way.
Plus, they help you connect with new subscribers. Offer something valuable or exclusive at the start of their journey and watch click-throughs rise.
Time your email marketing campaigns well
Every email marketer wants their newsletter to be at the top of the inbox.
After all, most subscribers will pick the emails they see first.
So when should you send your emails?
Our latest study shows that the best time to send email is largely an individual thing. It varies across different locations, industries, and audiences.
The best practice is to send your emails using a send-time optimization algorithm like the GetResponse Perfect Timing. These tools adjust the send-time for each individual subscriber automatically, based on their previous behavior.
But if you can’t use a send-time optimization algorithms, you’ll want to keep in mind the following results & most likely send your emails early in the morning.
Pick the right email frequency
Another email marketing best practice is knowing how often you should contact your subscribers.
And that can be a tricky task.
If we look at the mailing frequency data, we see that email marketers who send just one newsletter a week get the highest average open and click-through rates.
It’s a popular approach since 49% of all accounts we analyzed only send one newsletter a week. Bear in mind this data doesn’t exclude marketers who also send triggered emails or RSS emails.
What about other frequencies?
Around 19.5% send two newsletters a week, and 9.32% send three. Just 5.5% and 3.93% send four and five emails respectively.
At the same time, since most marketers want to maximize their email campaign ROI, instead of average CTRs we should look at the total number of conversions they generate.
Based on that assumption, you might be better off sending two or more emails in the same week.
But to say for sure, we must take into account some other factors: extra revenue you’d make from sending an extra campaign, how many subscribers would leave your list after receiving too many messages, plus the cost to replace those leads.
In fact, one study, conducted by Return Path in 2015, focused on the consquences of both undermailing and overmailing.
In short, undermailing leads to missed revenue opportunities, lower lifetime value, lack of inbox presence, poor or inconsistent sender reputation, inability to maintain a clean list and avoid spam traps, and counterintuitively – increased complaint rates.
Overmailing, on the other hand, leads to decreased engagement, increased opt-outs, reduced visibility for all subscribers, and more total complaints.
As for the most optimal mailing frequency, there wasn’t one clear winner.
The primary email recipients (those who accounted for 83% of all email reads), were able to tolerate up to about five emails per week from a given sender before their complaint rates increased dramatically.
If you ask me, that number is a bit extreme and I wouldn’t suggest that you go out and start sending your email campaigns five times per week.
This all depends on your market and products.
Divide your audience into two or more groups, and see if sending one extra email campaign boosts your results – both in the short and long term.
In his article, Tim Watson dives deeper into how you can establish the right mailing frequency for your business.
If you’re not interested in experimenting, you can also ask your audience to manage their own frequency, using an email preference center.
Remember that while it’s easy to control how often you email, it’s often harder to see how many triggered emails are sent to your contacts each week – especially if they’re sent in response to an action.
Experiment and deliver your emails at the right time
What’s the best day and time to send your messages to get the best email open rates?
Internet search results indicate Tuesday at 10 am as the answer. Despite being written on some of the best marketing blogs, this piece of advice has been circulating the web for years now, and naturally, inboxes get bombarded on that day and time. So it has the opposite effect.
Our analysis of over 10 billion emails sent through our platform showed that the best day and time to send your emails is Thursday between 8 and 9 am.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean this will be right for YOUR email list. When it comes to sending emails, you need to know how your target audience behaves.
The easiest way to do that is to collect data through email tracking and experiment until you find that sweet spot.
Establish the appropriate email frequency
According to our data, the optimum frequency (to get your emails opened) is 2-5 campaigns per month.
Following this email marketing best practice, you can minimize the chance of your campaigns ending up in your subscribers’ trash folder. This, in turn, promotes your email deliverability.
Building up hype for your next campaign will make your audience appreciate you more, and look forward to receiving your next big email campaign.
Think of it like this. An opt-in subscriber has given you a golden ticket: they’ve trusted you with their email address. So don’t abuse their inbox or resort to tactics such as email blasts.
With Moosend establishing your frequency becomes effortless since the platform allows scheduling as well as automatic resending of your email campaign to the subscribers who didn’t open it.
Give subscribers compelling reasons to click
Want to get better click-through rates? Then give your subscribers incentives to open and click through your email.
Consider using a strong incentive in your subject line, such as free shipping or buy an item and get one free, etc. Here’s a winning example from Starbucks.
That’s a great subject line right there: “You could win Starbucks for life!”. The email instantly catches people’s attention and stands out in the inbox. People are bombarded with promotional emails, so you have to make yours “the one.”
Remember, these are must-follow email marketing best practices
If you know marketing, you know best practices can be a dime a dozen. But these email marketing best practices aren’t ideas to try or strategies to test—we compiled the 15 email marketing best practices that you need to follow. Here’s a review:
- Send welcome emails
- Focus on personalization
- Plan ahead
- Stick to consistent branding
- Optimize your subject lines
- Standardize dimensions
- Include a “view in browser” link
- Make sure it renders correctly
- Avoid spam at all costs
- Make sure people want your emails
- Put CTAs above the fold
- Clean up the code
- Compile a QA sheet
- Test to develop your own best practices
- Report on your email marketing campaigns
Conclusion
As a marketer and as a business owner, you have to be in the know about email marketing software best practices 2021. This will help you stay relevant in your market and gain more ROI for your business. With all of the evolving tactics, it can be tough to know what you should be doing.
Email marketing and automation can be a powerful lead generation engine for your business. Some companies that have implemented email best practices 2021 have seen average open and click-through rates of 12 – 16%. This is roughly 4x the rate typically achieved with cold, hard direct mail. Even then, it’s still considered email marketing best practices to test your messaging before writing the code to send it.