Email Marketing can be a quick way to reach out to a large group of people when it's done appropriately. As with all digital marketing, email marketing requires a clear set of goals, strategy for achieving the goals and a plan for measuring success. If something isn't working, make changes and measure again.
If you're struggling to find success with your email marketing campaign, here are six best practices for email marketing:
- Take the time to format a nice template for your recurring email marketing efforts. Not only will it help your readers identify what you're communicating - monthly newsletter, industry alert, etc. - it will also reinforce your brand's professionalism.
- Graphics and formatting will only go so far, content generation is the key to successful email marketing campaigns. Your audience wants to receive information that's interesting, useful and relevant to them. If you email campaign isn't successful, it's probably not because of your formatting, graphics or the time of day you sent your message. In the words of Seth Godin, "Don't waste time looking for a better pencil--learn to write better."
- If you have to choose between having "Dear [name]" on your emails or not having personalized emails at all, go without the personalization. There is nothing that turns readers off faster than seeing your sloppiness and laziness in the very first line. If you're not willing to take the time to go through your list and check the contact information for every individual it's unlikely your readers are going to spend the time to read your email.
- Avoid fancy HTML images and use text in your emails wherever possible. Yes, the HTML looks very polished, but your readers have to download the images in order to see what you're trying to communicate. Create content that is easy to digest and doesn't require work on the part of your readers. Additionally, if you're going to archive your work online, text is SEO friendly whereas graphics need to be properly tagged to appeal to search engines.
- Before you ask me to do something for you, ask yourself if it's fun, if it's worth my time and if I'm going to being compensated appropriately. It's unlikely you'll get a high rate of participation if the answer to two out of those three questions is "no".
- Set expectations about how often your readers are going to hear from you and what you're going to say, but most importantly, live up to those expectations. If you're publishing a monthly newsletter, send it on the same day of each month, e.g. (the first Wednesday, Second Tuesday, etc.). If you're sending out a security alert email, have a criteria for how serious something needs to be before you send message out.
