Email Marketing Best Practices for Engagement and Conversion*

While we live in a time where everyone has an email address, this doesn’t make it any easier to get in touch with them. While we all have a way to be contacted via email, the amount of emails people receive can seem overwhelming and email opening rates are down in comparison to what they were just a few years ago. 

With this in mind, you don’t need to get disheartened or wonder whether an email mailing list is necessary, because it’s still super important, you just need to be smarter with the way you send them. The secret is to follow the best practices for engagement and conversion to not only get people to open your emails in the first place, but also interact in the way you hoped for. Keep on reading to find some top tips on this and how you can make more sales and generate a greater level of engagement. 

Photo by Torsten Dettlaff: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-gray-digital-device-193003/ 

Why is email marketing so important?

It provides a direct communication channel with people who are already aware of your brand

The first thing to note about email marketing is how it’s a more direct marketing channel than other forms. With things such as social media or paid ads, you’re reaching out to a wide audience who might not be interested. People on your email list have already subscribed to hear updates from you and will want to receive these into their inbox. Therefore email marketing provides you with a direct way to speak to those that want to hear from you. It can often feel a lot more personal and tailored than other efforts to engage with your customers. You could work for a law company for example, letting employers know about the federal laws on work breaks. Emailing directly through a mailing list get the message across directly.

It’s cost effective

Let’s face it, marketing is expensive and when it comes to finding ways that don’t cost the earth, you’re going to want to find them. Email marketing is one of the most cost effective channels, with you only having to potentially pay for your email host. Other than this, it really takes care of itself. 

You can easily measure results

A great thing about email marketing is that you can easily measure results, something that you can’t necessarily do with other marketing channels. Through email analytics, you can see things such as how many clicks your emails have had, what’s been clicked on and the time that people have opened your emails. You can see who has unsubscribed and if there’s things that work well and identify what doesn’t seem to work so well. You can then use this information for your future campaigns to help build on your success and improve future marketing efforts.  

It can increase your brand awareness and improve the sales of your products or services

Email marketing can increase your brand awareness, which in turn can improve the sales of your products and services. By sending emails to your subscribers, they’ll be reminded of you and click into your website or get in touch with you to discuss your offers. Having people recognize and know your brand is one of the most important things for any company and can really help you to get ahead of your competition. Ensure you have your logo in clear view and that you stick with your brand colours throughout to have a really cohesive and recognizable design.

What are the email best practices for engagement and conversion?

Ensure you have a quality email list

As the old phrase goes, it should be quality over quantity and this goes for your email marketing tactics too. There’s no point having a large mailing list if no-one opens it. Instead, focus on having a quality list of subscribers who you can really tailor and personalise your emails for. This means you know they’re getting the content they want and you’re more likely to get conversions and sales.

Create compelling subject lines

The subject line is essentially the book cover – it’s what will make them decide if they want to open your email or not. Ensure you make it snappy, engaging and tease them about what’s to come in the email. This will make them want to open it and learn more about what you’re talking about. It’s a simple but effective way of helping to increase your subscribers.

Ensure it’s optimized for mobile

You’d be surprised how many people nowadays don’t ensure their emails are optimized for mobile. With more of us than ever opening our emails on mobile devices, you need to check they look just as good on this as they do on desktop. Ensure you do plenty of checks and don’t send until it’s been tested on both iOS and Android devices to be completely sure. 

Monitor the metrics and see what works and what doesn’t

As mentioned above, metrics are key for analyzing your email marketing campaigns and their success. Use these to see what works and tailor your future campaigns based on this. By working off past mistakes and successes you can help it to not happen again.

Maintain consistency and frequency

People need to know when they’ll be expecting their emails, so to keep them interested, have a regular schedule where you’ll send them at a similar time each month or week. Test the frequency to find what works best for your customers and use that going forward. This can help you get results.

These are just a few things you can do that can help you ensure you get the most from your email marketing as possible. Ensure you regularly send emails to your subscribers and always think of ways to innovate and capture your audience’s attention. It’s important to not get complacent and always send your newsletter at a consistent schedule. This means people know when to expect an email. You should strike the balance between sending too many that your audience switches off and not enough that they don’t open them. What are some top tips you have for email marketing? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!