15 Things Your Small Business Needs to Know About Email Marketing

When it comes to online marketing strategies, email marketing is no doubt a favorite oldie which has still retained its relevance today. Whether it’s your bumper black Friday offer or the launch of the latest wonder from your store- email marketing is your way to go. The post below offers 15 best lessons about email marketing that you would need to succeed.

  1. Proper segmentation of email lists

Not all your subscribers would be interested in every type of offer from your store. For example, if you have just introduced retiree or senior discounts of late, there is no point in sending the message to the young niche. Make sure to follow a proper segmentation of email lists so that your target audience gets relevant emails- which further results in higher open & click-through rates.

  1. Mobile-friendly emails

With smartphones governing 75% of online browsing today, it would be really unwise if your email messages are not mobile-friendly. It’s advised to go for mobile-optimized marketing messages with easy vertical scrolling features so that you don’t miss out the huge chunk o the smartphone audience.

  1. Text-only emails

You might feel that it would be really dramatic to add pretty images to your email marketing messages but the problem is there are several email clients such as Outlook which can block the images- rendering unsightly broken images for the reader. Thus, it’s better you go for text-only emails featuring brief descriptive paragraphs containing active links to relevant web pages. However, you can use one of the plagiarism checker tools here to check to ensure that your message content is just unique and does not include the same words from another content online.

  1. Compelling subject line

The subject-line of the message is a deciding factor here and you have to be really careful. The experts always suggest taking to a very compelling & irresistible subject line such as “massive 50% discount on latest apparels”- that would compel your audience to readily open the email and seriously think about taking some action.

  1. Personalized emails

‘Please do not send generic emails rather personalized messages’ is the maxim here. Customized emails help people to resonate with your message and respond accordingly. Moreover, not just the name, it would be better if you can tailor the message as per the name, unique browsing habit and interests of your audience.

  1. Clear CTA

Your email marketing message must contain a clear CTA so that the readers get the needed direction on what to do after reading the mail- it could be “subscribe” or “buy now” or “learn more”.

  1. Readable & informative preview pane

Most of your recipients will first check the preview pane before opening the actual message and hence you have to ensure a readable & informative preview pane- the CTA and key points must be placed on top left side of your email so that the reader can view them at a glance.

  1. Test everything

Before you send the email messages, test everything about the email, including the header, subject line and content to check their potency level.

  1. Invest on email marketing tools

There are email marketing tools today that will help you with various aspects of the email marketing campaign. You have tools for tracking the email marketing trends, email campaigns testing them on how the messages look in various devices & inboxes and so on. Then, some of the tools will also help to compare the performance metrics of your different email marketing campaigns.

  1. Teasers for huge contents

If the message is really huge, it’s better not to mention the entire thing on your email. Rather, you can offer attractive teasers for the messages, followed by links to relevant web pages- that will compel the readers to click on the link for more information.

  1. Be careful of timing

If you are looking for the most effective response rate to your email marketing campaign, you have to be particular about the timing of sending the mails. For example, women & young people are usually active at night- so if you have got something cool for them, it’s better to schedule the mails for late hours.

  1. Pay attention to pre-header text

The pre-header text must create a sense of urgency with phrases like “expires tonight” or “ends soon”- so that the reader is much inspired to take actions immediately.

  1. Easy management of email subscriptions

You must allow your audience to manage the email subscription easily. This would mean enabling them to choose the frequency of receiving emails or putting an “Unsubscribe” option and so on.

  1. Track the emails

You must track the visitor engagement rate of the email marketing campign to evaluate your success rate with it.

  1. Update lists regularly

You must make sure to update your list regularly to ensure the list contains only the active and prospective addresses.

There is a cut-throat competitive world out there and a successful email marketing campaign would need you to be really strategic.

Lisa is a designer by profession and writer by choice, she writes for almost all topics but design and Fashion are her favorites. Apart from these she also Volunteers at few Animal rescue centers.