Email Marketing Practices to Improve Performance
Written by Kunal Sharma
While email marketing is part of the older generation of digital marketing tactics, it is still one of the best ways to acquire more leads and convert potential customers for your business. Email isn’t just for acquiring and converting though, it is probably the best channel outside of personal marketing to help you retain and develop a relationship with your customers.
With this knowledge, we’d like to share the best email marketing practices you should be using to generate leads and convert customers.
Don’t purchase contact lists
This is an obvious rule to follow, but it’s worth repeating that buying a contact list is not something we’d recommend. While you may get thousands or even tens of thousands of emails, the people selling you the list may not be honest about the validity of the list.
There is also a pretty high chance that your email will be classified as a spam account, and this can get you into some serious trouble with your email provider (e.g. MailChimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, etc.). If too many of your email messages are marked as spam, then your account can be closed, you can get fined, and the provider may even pursue legal action against you.
Don’t buy an email list. Just don’t do it.
Use double opt-in
You’ve probably noticed the amount of confirmation emails you get when you sign up for a newsletter. Experts refer to this as a double-opt in process. Adding this extra step ensures that your potential subscribers really want to receive your emails. Not only are you generating stronger leads now, but your subscribers are more likely to be more engaged with your emails, and less likely to leave the email unopened or mark your email as spam.
Macy’s does a great job demonstrating how a double opt-in email should be like. Notice how they also add a discount as an incentive to confirm the email. Keep it short and to the point so your reader can easily navigate the email.
Your emails should be providing value to the people that they’re being sent to.
Write a compelling subject line
Subject lines are the headlines that compel the recipient to actually open up your email. It’s important that you immediately set yourself up for success here.
You don’t need to hit it out of the park on your first try. You can A/B test your subject lines with small audiences to find which subject lines perform best, and repeat the process with every other email that you send out.
Just remember that subject lines should be designed around people who will want to open the email, and not designed to get the highest open rate possible
Send yourself the email
You may be surprised at the amount of people who fail to proofread their own emails.
Sending yourself the email you wrote will help you to ensure that images are working, formatting is correct, and that there are no glaring errors.