8 Best Practices for a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

by Meghan Dillow
July 28, 2016

Email marketing is still alive and kicking. It should be a key feature of your marketing plan now and moving forward. Use email marketing to boost sales, generate leads, strengthen relationships and build brand loyalty. Companies using email to nurture leads generate 50% more sales-ready leads and at 33% lower cost, and nurtured leads, on average, produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities compared to non-nurtured leads. Following are some email best practices for you to use to generate more leads.

1.      Determine Your Audience

Without the right audience, your email message means nothing. You need to have a deep understanding of your clients and customers. Think about who they are and where they are on the path to purchase. Put yourself in their shoes and try to understand their motivations and frustrations. Whether your business is B2B or B2C, you need to think deeply about your audience and how you can address them with your content.

2.      Define a Clear Goal for Email

Goal setting is critical to email marketing success and it helps guide the direction of your campaign. Start by sitting down and decide why you are sending this email. For example do you want to drive sales, generate awareness, or increase referrals? Defining a clear goal makes it easier to measure the success of your efforts.

3.      Segment Your Contacts Database

You have built up a great email list, which is fantastic, but it’s important to segment them. Divide your email list into groups based on characteristics such as demographics, company size, role, interests, etc. This allows you to speak more intelligently and directly with your customers, giving them information that they want. Segmented campaigns perform markedly better than their non-segmented counterparts.

 Segmented Campaigns Revenue River Marketing

4.      Write Captivating Subject Lines

Your subject line is your first opportunity to grab your reader’s attention. You want to engage your reader. Give them an indication of what to expect once they open your email and stimulate a sense of curiosity. Your subject line should contain no more than 30 to 50 characters.  You can also think about using an incentive in the subject line to peak your reader’s interest, like “Free shipping when you spend $50 or more”.

5.      Add Your Company Logo to the Email

Help your subscribers immediately understand who the email is from. Be sure to position your logo at the top of the email.  The top left corner usually gets the attention first as our eye path naturally starts there and moves on. You want it to be one of the first things people see when they open your message.

6.      Tie Your Emails to Landing Pages

Whether your email campaign is leading subscribers to watch a video, register for an event, or to sign up for an e-book, landing pages should match your email in terms of headline, copy and content. The landing page should also mirror the look and feel of your email.

7.      Place any Calls to Action Above the Fold

Often times, calls to action (CTAs) may be the email’s only purpose, to get readers to complete a task. When using CTAs in your email campaigns, it’s best to place them above the fold. Busy readers can clearly see it after a simple glance; they don’t have to scroll down the page to respond.

8.      Get Personal

Create the impression that you are speaking directly to your contact. Personalize your emails where appropriate, such as using their first name, last name and company name. Send your email from a real person and sign your name at the end. Be sure to let them know how they can get in direct contact with you. A study by Experian Marketing Services shows that personalized promotional mailings had 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher unique click rates. 

Email marketing is a great way to generate more leads and convert prospects for your company, but it’s only one part of an inbound marketing campaign. Check out these 5 Reasons the Best Strategy is Only as Good as the Content.

 

Jobs at Revenue River

Colorado startup guides

LOCAL GUIDE
Best Companies to Work for in Denver & Boulder
LOCAL GUIDE
Coolest Tech Offices in Denver & Colorado Tech
LOCAL GUIDE
Best Perks at Colorado Tech Companies
LOCAL GUIDE
Women in Colorado Tech