Email Best Practices 101

Email Best Practices 101 with Celsius Marketing | Interactive

When it comes to email best practices 101, we’ve got the information that you might need to up your email marketing game. Creating and sending emails can get a little more detailed than you think and, in this day and age, it’s important to keep your audience and your customers engaged and interested. We compiled a list of some of our best tips and advice for anyone out there that needs a holy grail for email best practices.

Email Lists and Leads

Email is a huge part of marketing efforts today. Think about how many times you’re tempted to buy something or have received great information or a super deal just by opening your inbox! It’s incredible the power that email has. It’s important to understand a few do’s and don’ts when it comes to your email send lists, as well as leads.

Do– Verify that the email addresses you have are valid, using a platform, such as DataValidation or MyEmailVerifier. These apps catch invalid emails that are crucial in helping to keep your emails out of the spam folder!

Don’t– Send to an entire lead list at once, in particular your large lists. Keep this in mind especially when you have new clients or customers. Ease into your IP (Internet Protocol) address and sending reputation.

Do– Segment and target your list. If you can, segment your lists into smaller groups and then target those groups with specific messages. Creating a targeted message can help you receive higher open rates, click through rates, and conversion rates.

Don’t– Purchase email lists from third-party vendors. Business owners and companies might think it’s okay to purchase email lists but doing so can actually have a negative impact on your sending reputation and land you in the spam folder.

Do– Add a sign-up or subscription form to your website. You can collect email address a lot easier by adding these types of forms. Use this to your advantage to get potential customers and clients to sign up for promos, sales, special offers, and other important industry information. Be sure to add a disclaimer to your website stating that the information you collect, could be used toward marketing efforts.

Do– Be sure to do a test run. Email yourself a test email and view it on desktop as well as mobile to ensure that it looks the way that it should. Also make sure to click on all links to check that they go to the proper page.

Engaged vs. Unengaged

What do we mean by engaged or unengaged? Engaged users have typically made or inquired about a purchase or opened/clicked an email within a certain period of time. These types of users are your most valuable leads. Unengaged users haven’t made any connections, purchases, or opened/clicked an email that you sent. Identify unengaged users and setup a different targeting strategy for them and separate them from your engaged mailing list.

Target and Segment

People like when things are personalized to them. For best practice guidelines, follow some of these handy tips to help boost your email campaigns:

Do– Identify key segments. Demographics such as age, gender, location, recent purchases, etc. are extremely helpful when segmenting your lists!

Do– Send targeted emails and content to your segments. By sending an email to those who are interested in, let’s say, a vitamin supplement you are selling, you are more likely to get clicks by that segmented list. Be specific to your segment’s interests, needs and wants.

Don’t– Send to a majority of unengaged lists.

Do- Use personalization! Use a lead’s first name when sending an email and see what a difference it can make in your email open and click-through rates. You can also personalize according to the lead’s location, city, interests, and more.

All About the Inbox

Before sending your emails out, be sure to include a subject line and pre-header text. Your subject line and pre-header text can make or break the subscriber’s decision to open, click, ignore, or delete. For subject lines, make sure to keep them short, between 36-60 characters, using personalization when appropriate. Always use a pre-header text! This is the text that appears below the subject line in your inbox and will help increase your open rate. Make sure that when you are coming up with a subject line, the pre-header copy fits in context. Use the pre-header as your subject line enhancer.

If you feel like you’re struggling with your email marketing, just remember these best practices and create a checklist to help you. Overwhelmed by email marketing? Don’t have the time or resources? We can help. If you’d like to learn more about growing your business with email marketing contact us at info@celsiusmarketing.com. Don’t forget to connect with us on FacebookInstagram, and LinkedIn!

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