The Do’s & Dont’s Of Email Marketing

Despite how it may seem, email marketing is certainly not dead. According to the most recent statistics, the number of emails being sent and received each year is growing exponentially. In 2020 alone, around 300 billion emails were sent and received worldwide every day. This number grew to around 320 billion in 2021. This daily figure is only increasing, and showing no signs of slowing down. Because of this, as you can see, email marketing is as viable a channel as any for modern marketers. So, in this brief article, we’ll be exploring what email marketing is and how to do this correctly – and incorrectly. Let’s dive in…

What Is Email Marketing And Email Campaigns? 

In a few short words, email marketing is a business (or service provider) that sends emails to its client base, subscriber list, or potential customers. This could be about a limited deal/offer, rewarding customer loyalty, sending reminders, or just general info on products or services. Going one step further, a campaign could be designed for a more specific group of people within your data set or a specific product that would match the demographic within that same data set. For example, if a dental practice is running a particular offer, an effective email marketing campaign would be sent to JUST the customers whom the deal would be relevant for.

What Does A Successful Email Campaign Look Like?

A successful email marketing campaign can be measured when the recipients of an email accept the desired call to action. This could be interacting with your website, making an inquiry directly from the email, pre-registering for a product or buying a product directly from you.

Email campaigns not only put you directly into customers’ inboxes but also into their minds. If your call to action doesn’t resonate with them the first time, it can leave an impression for another time.

Setting Yourself Up For Success

Nobody starts out thinking that their email campaign is going to fail, but the truth is, to do it right, it’s just not as simple as sending it to thousands of people. Email marketing takes a serious amount of thought and effort to work. There are multiple steps you must take into consideration if you want to drive that desired outcome. With your goal in mind, here’s a list of Do’s and Don’ts to consider when planning your email campaign…

Email Marketing DO’s :

✓ Decide On Who Specifically The Email Is Being Sent To…

Depending on how you collected your data in the first place, can you segment the data into lists? For example, can you distinguish between emails you’ve collected from people that wanted to pre-register for a particular product launch, people that have signed up for your newsletter, existing customers, lapsed customers, and customers interested in XYZ? The closer you can get the audience matched to the relevant information that’s going to be contained in the email, the greater success your campaign will have.

✓ Set An Overall Objective For The Campaign…

Always have a desired outcome in mind. An imagined result you want from your recipients. Some consideration points would be the size of the data you’re sending it to and previously sent campaign analytics. This should aid you in your goals. Here are a few example outcomes:

 

• • Increase engagement – regardless of whether you are looking to make a sale or promote a service you offer, this goal focuses on your viewers interacting with your content and any information about your business.

 

• • Providing value to existing customers and subscribers — What is it you would like to offer to your loyal customers? Whatever it is, let them know.

 

• • Bringing lapsed or inactive subscribers back to your business – Have you noticed a decrease in traffic to your website? Let your lapsed or inactive subscribers know what you’ve been up to as a business and about any new products or services you now have to offer.

✓ Decide What Kind Of Email You Want To Send…

Are you promoting the business, offers, special sales or new services? Do you want to send a newsletter to give your subscribers the most recent information or updates about your business? You might simply want to let new subscribers know that their product is on its way. You can even recommend what other customers bought with that same purchase.

✓ Create Great, Eye-Catching Subject Lines…

The first thing your recipient sees when you send the email is the subject line. This is a make-or-break moment as to whether your email recipient will open the email, continue to read the content and act upon your desired call to action. Here are 4 points to help you get to that killer subject line:

 

• • Keep it short. Studies have found that the best subject lines are usually between 40-50 characters. Not a huge amount of characters to work with, so use it wisely.

 

• • Get straight to the point. There’s no point in being misleading, click-baiting, or being vague or complicated. In this case, honesty really is the best policy.

 

• • If you can, try and personalise the subject line. Try adding the recipient’s name – it’s a great way to engage the person from the start.

 

• • Avoid ‘Trigger’ words. These are words that would trick a recipient into reading the email but have no real relevance to the contents. This kind of tactic will result in unsubscribers and could also send your email straight into a junk folder.

✓ Make Sure Your Email Is Short And To The Point…

People nowadays don’t have the time to read long-winded emails explaining every element of the message you’re trying to convey. People just want to know the point and why. So, when writing up email campaigns, always try to keep it short and sweet. Cover what you want the reader to know, but effectively. Quality over Quantity as they say!

Email Marketing DON’TS :

✕ Miss Out The Call-To-Action…

This doesn’t need to be an elaborate request/contact form. It can be as simple as a clickable link. Even if you have the most engaging and compelling content in your email, it’s pointless without a call to action. The worst thing you can do is excite your recipients and then not give them the next step.

✕ Over Use Images…

We seem to use our mobile smart devices for everything nowadays, and it’s no different when it comes to checking emails. One drawback of our smart devices is limits of data usage with people now opting to disable images. You need to be conscious of how image-heavy your email is. Too many images and there’s a risk that your email won’t be read. There’s a possibility that it might not even be seen, due to junk folder rules configured by the end recipient.

✕ Over-Send…

This one’s an easy trap to fall into. When you start getting traction on your campaigns, the worst thing you can then do is bombard your customers. You need to think about the size of your database. How quickly you’re growing that database, and how quickly it will fatigue. Sending too many emails will only turn off your readers and you’ll quickly see those subscribers’ lists dropping. Plan your campaign frequency. Send, wait 3 days, review campaign reports for open rates, and send a follow-up in 3 business days. Once you’ve completed this campaign and have the result, wait approximately 3 weeks before sending the next one. Of course, this is suggested advice you can find online. Experiment what works best with your business and your customer base.

✕ Missing Unsubscribe Button Or Update Marketing Preference Options…

This is a legal requirement under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR for short). People have to be given the option to opt-out if they no longer want to receive marketing information from you. When you get an unsubscribe request, make sure you suppress the record so they no longer receive your emails. Most modern email sending services (Like, Unaro for example…) now track unsubscribes and will make sure the subscriber no longer gets emails from you.

✕ Sell Your Email Subscriber Database…

It’s not illegal to sell your database, however, you will need to review how and where you collected the data and ensure that you have told ALL your subscribers that you could share or sell their data to a third party.

Conclusion

As we’ve outlined above, email marketing is a huge channel for modern marketers. However, the most successful email campaigns require thought and process to get the desired results. Segmented data, personalisation, interest-driven and engaging. More and more people are attracted to campaigns that are going to add value to them. Information related to their job role, facts and figures, industry trends or business insights. Overall, they’re looking for something that’s going to enrich themselves or their business. 

Keep it simple, personalise the communications and keep it interesting for your reader. Stick to these principles and you’ll soon see the results of your hard work.

Here at Unaro, we’ve developed our own email marketing tool, complete with a jargon-free dashboard and pre-made email templates. Take the hassle out of email marketing with Unaro Send and reap the rewards of email (& SMS) marketing. Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you and your business TODAY!