EBOOK Your Marketing Playbook - Best Practices for Creating and Deploying Effective Email Campaigns
Best Practices for Creating and Deploying Effective Email Campaigns When it comes to email campaigns, the goal is to direct as many customers as possible to open and interact with the email s message, but in today s competitive online world, getting people to open emails is getting harder to do. On a daily basis, inboxes are inundated with emails that go unread. These are either ignored, deleted, or automatically routed to spam folders. For marketers, getting audiences to open mail can be a daunting task, yet there are tactics industry best practices that if followed can help get email campaigns closer to their desired goal. Just a few years back, all emails were delivered to the main inbox, but email platforms now are more advanced and automatically route a large portion of electronic mail to personalized secondary inboxes - or worse, to the trash. The reason emails are routed to promotional or spam inboxes is because many don t adhere to industry best practices, and in the fast-paced email environment, unplanned and poorly designed campaigns don t stand a chance against the betterprepared electronic pieces competitors create and deploy today. Do you know if you are doing everything you can to get your emails delivered and read? There isn t a magical template to follow that can ensure the success of all campaigns, but there are things to consider when strategizing, creating and deploying your emails. Email providers today are doing everything they can to ensure their customers inboxes are not filled by what their users consider spam. New features rolled out by providers such as Gmail and Outlook make it harder for emails to reach the main inbox. Here are the top five things to consider when planning an email campaign that successfully delivers your message to your customers main inbox.
Getting Your Emails Delivered to Customers Main Inbox Things like sender reputation, email body messaging, layout, and historical user interaction are taken into consideration by providers before determining what inbox your mail piece will be delivered to. These changes make it harder for customer relationship management systems (CRMs) to achieve 100% deliverability rates, but the goal should always be to reach 96% deliverability rate or better. Following industry guidelines will get you closer to this goal. Here are the top five things to consider when planning an email campaign and hoping to deliver your message to your customers main inbox. 1. Request permission/email opt-in. The number one reason your email is considered spam and routed to a different inbox is because you didn t ask for the recipients permission to be added to your email list. No one likes to receive email from someone they don t know, and targeting a list that has not consented is a practice prohibited by reputable CRMs. Purchasing or renting lists is the fastest way to damage your sender reputation and it guarantees you a spot on your customers blocked list. You know that saying... Ask for forgiveness, not permission? Well, when it comes to email best practices it does not apply. For email append projects, requesting permission from prospect recipients is MANDATORY. 2. Avoid spam words. Today anything can be considered spam, especially when repeated multiple times in one single message. There are specific words that trigger spam filters that you should know, and more importantly avoid (especially in subject lines). According to Hubspot, words and phrases such as buy, win, earn extra cash, free, and save money can help you reach the spam inbox faster than anything else. We are not saying these words are never to be used - because eliminating all spam words will leave you with a restricted email vocabulary. What we suggest is cutting down the inclusion of these and carefully place them throughout your campaigns. 3. Set a trustworthy recognizable From Name and From Email Address. Your brand s name and email address is the second thing recipients see in their inbox (subject headline is #1), letting your audience know who the email
is from is essential to increasing the number of opens and directing your mail pieces to the right inbox. Use your brand s name as the from name, not an abbreviation or a nickname. Use an existing, verifiable, and working email account as the from email address. Using inactive email addresses or variations of noreply@brand.com as the from address lets your customers know you don t want to hear from them, nor that you value their opinion. Your customers want to know that if they reply they can get in touch with a human being, not a bot. The from email address is the first step at building excellent customer relationships. 4. Design the perfect email. Content, content, content! What you include in your email is important, and email providers take into account the contents of an email before delivering it to the right inbox. Emails are scanned before they are opened and what is in them (design, images, verbiage, number of links, etc.) makes all the difference between hitting the spam folder or not. In our next section, we will expand on what it takes to build the perfect email, but a healthy ratio of images to text (30:70) makes all the difference when it comes to email deliverability. 5. Use a reputable IP address to send your emails. After designing the perfect email, the last thing you want is to use a CRM with a bad reputation. This will hinder the deliverability of your email campaigns. Spam filters flag a campaign if anyone with the same IP has sent spam in the past. Know your CRM s sender s reputation and adhere to industry policies.
Designing the Perfect Email Campaign As mentioned before, there isn t a magic template to use that will ensure your email campaign will get delivered and read by everyone on your list all the time, but things such as subject line, branding, messaging, images, call to action buttons, and mobile optimization increase your chances at attaining successful email campaigns. Writing an effective subject headline. First impressions are important, and the first thing your audience sees is the subject line. If you don t use the right one, your email will not only get ignored but it could end up in spam. Avoid spam words in subject headlines and use keywords that represent the overall email message. Don t use click-bait, false, or deceiving subject lines. Do use catchy, complete sentences that let your recipients know what the email is about. Pay attention to subject line length the last thing you want is to have your subject line truncated. Many CRMs have a character limit between 140 to 200 characters for desktop view and 40 to 80 characters for mobile device view. A dull, non-descriptive, or truncated subject line only leads to low open rates. According to a 2016 Consumer Device Preference Report, the majority of retail emails 73% to be exact are opened on mobile devices. These smaller screens have more restrictions on subject line length, and knowing what those are will yield better email performance. Be creative with your subject lines. Things like questions, calls to action and a sense of urgency help boost your chances at higher open rates. On the other hand, cliché sentences, overuse of symbols and emojis, or percentage offers can hinder your email s performance. Don t overlook the preview line. Never underestimate the power of the preview line. This secondary line is your third attempt at getting more opens. Remember, email recipients see: 1. Subject line > 2. From name and email address > 3. Preview line. In that order! But many email creators don t pay attention to this line of text because most platforms automatically select the first line in the email. But what happens when the first line of text is view this email on a browser? You ve lost an extra attempt at capturing your audience s attention. Make sure you supply an enticing preview line or that the view on the web link is not what gets pulled on to
the preview line. One more thing, what mobile devices show as a preview line is not always that same as what is shown on a desktop. Email Body (Messaging). When it comes to designing the body of the email, keep in mind that you are designing an email, not a website. Keep it simple, keep it short, be creative, and most importantly optimize your design for mobile devices. Make sure you clearly state in the body of the email what you want and expect your subscribers to do. If you want them to buy a product, sign up for more emails, follow you on social media, watch a video, or send feedback, emphasize that message. Play with font colors or use calls to action to direct and entice your recipients to accomplish your campaign objectives. Email Messaging Do s and Don ts Do: 1. Use branding. 2. Personalize your message. 3. Use calls to action. 4. Include enticing images. 5. Create descriptive text. 6. Use web-safe fonts and colors. 7. Include an unsubscribe link. 8. Mobile optimize your message. Don t: 1. Create one large image file. 2. Include too many links. 3. Create a long email that requires too much scrolling. 4. Include broken links or lowresolution images. 5. Send emails without testing, editing, and proofreading.
A little more on the Don ts 1. Don t create one large image file. Most email providers default to blocking images unless the recipients have already selected this preference. If your email is one image file, this is considered spam, and if for some lucky reason your email does get delivered to the main inbox, recipients will have to change their display preferences before learning what your email is about. Too many required clicks before getting to your message only leads to higher drop-out rates. 2. Don t include too many links. If you re selling a product, direct your audience to just that making the purchase. Your email does not need to include all the links available on your site. The more links you provide, the lower the chances you have at getting your audience to click on your campaign s desired goal. 3. Don t create a long email that requires too much scrolling. You have about 5 seconds to capture your audience s attention. Ideally your email should not require any scrolling because your entire message should fit on the screen, but if you are including multiple offers, make sure the length of these doesn t exceed two to three mouse wheel scrolls. Now, if your audience is an engaged audience and your email content is something they have asked for and expect to receive, long scrolling is fair game. 4. Don t include broken links or low-resolution images. Nothing puts off an audience more than indecipherable images or inactive links. 5. Don t send emails without testing, editing, and proofreading. The online world is full of trolls and grammar police officials. Badly written or designed emails only lead your audience to be turned off to future messaging. Test your emails for various email platforms and devices before hitting send. Sending an email that is not mobile-optimized means that more than half your targeted audience will ignore your message.
Other Tricks of the Trade Remain CAN-SPAM compliant. In 2003, the government instituted the CAN-SPAM Act establishing requirements for commercial messages and giving recipients the right to have you stop emailing them. This act also spells out tough penalties for violations. Under this act, businesses must: Collect email addresses only from subscribers who have given their express consent to be emailed. Offer customers a verification attempt of opt-in. Once a customer opts-in to receiving emails from your company, you need to send a follow-up email requiring them to opt-in again. Your emails most clearly state who you are and include several ways a customer might contact you (including a phone number, address, social media accounts, etc.). Your email must make it easy for your customers to unsubscribe from your emails. There should be a clear link in the body of the email for anyone who wants to remove themselves from the mailing list, and the process should be seamless. Track your emails & monitor progress. Once your email campaign has started, don t just forget about the process and your customers. Don t continue to send additional emails without paying attention to unsubscribes, bounces and blocks. Familiarize yourself with campaign analytics, study the behavior of your customers, and make adjustments to your campaign based on your findings. Automating the outreach process builds and maintains your lists. Sending emails for milestones like welcome emails, thank you for subscribing, reminder emails, post-purchase messages or unsubscription verification emails is key. All of these can be behaviortriggered emails, but you still need to understand and follow up on analytics. Don t just automate and forget. Pro tip: Mobile optimization is a must. According to a Gartner survey, 74% of smartphone users check email on their phones.
A Healthy List is a Happy List Clean your email list. After following up on analytics, revisit your contact lists. CRMs automatically stop targeting anyone that has unsubscribed, but to help maintain your sender reputation in good standing, do an occasional list cleansing. Purge any contacts that have unsubscribed, blocked you, or who have not interacted with your emails in 3 to 6 months. Doing so will help you keep a healthy list and you will always have an engaged list at hand. The success of your email campaigns depends on the health of your lists. While it is important to grow your email list, it is essential to target only active emails accounts. Keeping inactive and uninterested users on your list will only hinder your emails performance. Instead of blindly targeting email accounts that have had little interaction with you in the past, consider changing your email approach for those users. Send them re-subscription emails, ask them for their interests, and personalize the email s content for those individuals so that you can keep the users interest and engage them with your campaigns. Best Times and Days to Deploy Emails Studies have shown that sending emails on Tuesdays through Thursdays between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. was the equivalent of hitting the jackpot, but that was based on historical data from years past. Time and technology have changed how consumers digest and interact with emails. In 2012, Experian conducted a multi-industry email marketing benchmark study and found recipients email activity was surprisingly high at night. Unique open rates averaged 21.7% from 8 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. and 17.6% for 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. Three years later, their quarterly email marketing report showed that 54% of emails were opened on mobile devices, and a 2014 ExactTarget mobile behavior report found mobile activity peaks between 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. When it comes to best performing day of the week, studies show Mondays have the highest ROI, Tuesdays and Thursdays continue to draw the largest number of
opens, but Friday emails have a higher click through rate. Weekend emails are not popular, but in certain industry niches they have the highest engagement and conversion rates. The best time of day or best performing day for your campaign depends on your audience and the devices used to view emails. 8 a.m. through 10 a.m. is still considered the most popular time frame, but 8 p.m. through 10 p.m. yields great results as well. Before committing to blasting your campaigns on industry known best days and times, testing is essential. Find out when your audience engages the most and use your findings to schedule your blasts. Do keep in mind that email reading preferences change constantly. Holidays, season changes and personal finances affect email behavior and user interaction. To wrap things up, here are 10 additional studies on best time and day for email deployments: 1. MailChimp - Send time optimization analysis. 2. Customer.io - The best day to send emails. 3. GetResponse - The best day to send email. 4. WordStream - The very best time to send email newsletters. 5. GetResponse - The best days to send email newsletters. 6. Experian - Email marketing benchmarks. 7. CampaignMonitor - The best time to send email campaigns. 8. GetResponse - Best time and day to send an email. 9. HubSpot - Best time to send a business email report. 10. MailerMailer - Report on email marketing metrics. SourceLink is a highly respected Direct Marketing agency headquartered in Chicago, Illinois that utilizes data intelligence and an omni-channel approach to maximize return on investment for clients through improved customer response and conversion. The company deploys client programs across the channels in which their customers and prospects are most responsive, including; direct mail, email, digital media, social media, and statements. SourceLink s expertise spans a variety of end markets, with an emphasis on financial services, healthcare, retail energy and utilities, insurance and retail. For more information, visit www.sourcelink.com