Best Practices for Successful Email Marketing in 2021

The number of resources, tools, channels, and platforms currently available to a marketer is nothing short of incredible. But there is one category that consistently performs well: email marketing. Emails are incredibly powerful and have attained a permanent space in our daily conversations.

With the evolution of all social media marketing strategies, people tend to think that email marketing is dead. The truth is, email marketing is the highest ROI generator for marketers. No matter which social media or E-commerce platform you log in to, you are bound to enter your email address. It’s like email is the heart of the web. Worldwide, the number of email users is estimated to be at 4.1 Billion users by the end of 2021.

So how do you create a better email strategy that can successfully help your email campaigns convert buyers into leads? By following the best practices.

Know your audience

Knowing your audience will help you understand aspects like – Preferred Channel where they would like to be contacted, the preferred time when they actually check the emails, what type of actions or activities distinguish them from the general population. Considering such aspects will help you strategize and plan better how you can keep your customer invested in your brand. Once you know them, you can make them feel special on special occasions, by offering them discounts or giving them freebies. Your email offers them something they can’t get in a store.

Have a clear purpose

Once you have a known audience, it’s time to associate a goal with your email campaigns. The key is not to broadcast to a crowd but to always ask yourself what’s in it for your audience, what is the value of your message so that they can relate to the content you are providing; it’s like having a one-to-one conversation with them. Goal-Based Marketing makes it easier to measure the success of your efforts. You can keep in mind a few key points.

• What action(s) do you want your subscribers to take?
• Segmenting your audience based on certain attributes they have in common – demographic, age, earnings, etc. For example, you wouldn’t send a registration email to someone who already registered, nor would you send a free trial coupon to someone who’s already paying for your service. Segment your lists appropriately.
• Designing unique customer journeys to increase efficiency

Personalize to create more meaningful relationships

71% of consumers say a personalized experience would influence their decision to open and read a brand email. Personalization isn’t necessarily new for 2021, but it is the most common practice.

• Personalizing using the customer’s name is the most basic yet effective form of personalization. You can use it in the subject lines, which have 29% higher unique open rates and 41% more unique click-through rates.
• Personalizing by segmenting. You can start segmenting your contact list based on specific contact properties or actions your customers have taken. You can group your audience with similar job profiles, company size, priorities & pain points, and then craft emails with personalized content that will appeal to each group.
• Hyper personalize addressing specific pain points. It’s more than just adding the reader’s name to the email. It requires extensive research and analyzing the data collected from customer feedback and other informational sources to ensure that the message is tailored precisely to make it as relevant as possible to a particular reader.

Greet your readers well!

Your subject line serves as your first and many times last impression. We often write subject lines as afterthoughts. Technically they’re actually more important than the body copy of your email. After all, the greatest email in the world is worthless if it never gets opened, right? There are a few tips that you can implement.

• Adding the element of personalization
• Use Numbers- Numbers are compelling.
• Create a sense of urgency. – Eg- Something big is coming your way.
• Put up a how-to? Or listicles.
• Avoid using ALL CAPS.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

So how do you read every email that lands in your inbox? Do you read every word or quickly scan through them and then read further if it matches your interests. The key here is to structure your emails to ensure the key message is delivered and remembered. Break them down into smaller, more easily consumable chunks. Here are a few tips to make it happen:

• What are you offering? — Headline – The goal here is to grab your reader’s attention quickly.
• How will it help the reader? — Message body –  Readers might consider the information over here as secondary, but you can still draw them in by incorporating images, using bullet points, and keeping copy simple
• What should be their next action? — Call to action- action-oriented text, driving users to take action.

A / B Test: Gain Valuable Insight Into Your Marketing Efforts

Email marketing is not just sending out emails and be done with it. It requires analysis, understanding of what is working out and what isn’t. It’s always great to test your emails. Break down everything that can be A/B tested. Use common sense and go back to your previous campaign, what link was clicked and why. You can test the following.

• Different Placements and design of a CTA –  Did a CTA perform better than another based on its shape and color, or because of the clear sense of urgency and Message, or simply because it is well-positioned in the email. Important CTA and registration should come at the top of your email. If you analyze the CTR of your link in your emails, you’ll likely find out that the more you go down, the least people are likely to click on links or CTA.
• Send times and days of the week – You need to test what works for your audience and work with real data based on your own leads and segments to schedule email on days and times with the highest open rate.
• Featured image or copy – While crafting email copy for your new product or feature announcement, make it conversational and ensure it’s something you’d be happy to say to your friends.

The customer data you collect through your testing efforts will help you learn how to stay top-of-mind, create engaging content and increase your ROI.

Create CTAs that works

CTAs have a very specific goal: prompt someone to click. But how do you do that? 

• Use simple, action-oriented text in CTAs to draw users’ attention. If possible, skip words like submit, enter, and even click. Instead, try using – Get, Reserve, Try.
• Make it larger and legible. Do not make the reader search for the CTA. Design it as a bright, beautiful button that’s easy to find and click.
• Create a sense of urgency. Subject Line acts as a teaser for what is there in the email for the user. If they like the teaser, they will be curious about what’s there in the email for them. For example, you could use button text like:
  • Sign Up and Get 50% Off Today Only!
  • Something Big is coming your way!
  • Download the Build Apps E-Course for $30!

• Enough WhiteSpace and Contrasting Colors. Include plenty of white space around your CTAs so that they do not blend in with the rest of the text or elements. It will draw the reader’s attention right where you want it. Using contrasting colors is the easiest way to do this.
• Test your CTAs. Before you send, double-check your work by sharing the email with your team. You can perform the A/B test- color, copy, placement, and style.

Do Not Spam… Duh! But How?

Before you send your email, put yourself in the reader’s shoes and understand if it’s relevant and brings them value. Do not Spam. You might hit spam traps, and your entire email program could be blocked—which is bad for your reputation. You can follow a few practices to avoid ending up on the spam list.

• Make Unsubscribing easy – Make the unsubscribe link big enough so that people using mobile devices can easily click on it. You should avoid using dark patterns or tricky copies on the unsubscribe page. 
• Avoid particular trigger words – ‘100% Free’, ‘Best Prize,’’ CASH’ have been blacklisted owing to their association with the spam mail. Recall all those emails we used to get that offered a free prize in the subject line deceiving the user to just open the email. You can find a list of few words below which you should avoid.
• Avoid Spam filters – They consider a long list of criteria when judging the “spamminess” of an email. They’ll weigh each factor of the spam you receive or send and add them up to assign a spam score, which helps determine whether a campaign will pass through the filter.
• Use a familiar sender name – Attaching a sender’s name to your email help your readers recognize you. This way, you can pass through the whitelist filters. The filter delivers messages from specific senders. I mean, you add addresses to the list, and those addresses are identified as trusted.
• Do not purchase email lists. Purchased lists are associated with extremely high unsubscribe and spam rates. It’s misleading and breaks the CAN-SPAM act. With GDPR in effect, digital marketing strategies, especially email marketing campaigns, were universally affected. It’s best to gain explicit consent from the users before continuing to send emails to them. This calls for a stricter subscription process, involving a double opt-in and easy opt-out feature and excluding involuntary or required opt-ins.

As a marketer, you have multiple channels available to connect with your customers, but you need to prioritize your efforts based on the available resources and budget. And email marketing has proven to be the most efficient and cost-effective channel to drive sales and revenue. These tips will help you to start maxing out and optimize your email marketing potential.