Email marketing is one of the most conventional and fruitful modes of digital marketing. From crafting strategic emails to grouping and scheduling, there is much work that goes into managing email marketing campaigns to find success.
So, what measures do marketers need to take for better results? Here, we will discuss a few top do’s and don’ts that every pro and beginner needs to know to achieve their targets through effective email campaigns.
The Do’s
To understand what you should do in terms of email marketing, you need to know what trends are currently bringing the best results. Here are few innovative strategies that you can try out.
1. Conduct A/B Testing and Track Matrices
Assess your current performance to determine how well you are doing against the set goals over time. With this research, you can also identify the areas which you can improve by paying more attention to them. By focusing on the data gathered from your current and previous mail campaigns, you can run a theoretical analysis through A/B testing, which can help answer many questions related to your efforts vs. results.
The primary parameters to check in terms of the performance metrics:
- Email open rate
- Bounce rate
- Click through rate
- Unsubscribed rate
- Inbox placement rate
For A/B hypothesis testing, the primary fields to check include the:
- Subject line
- Image placement
- Design
- Mailer group
The more data you can gather and analyze, the more strategies you can devise and deploy for better returns.
2. Segmentation of mailer lists
Sending the same email to the same people over and over again can be considered as spamming. If emails are not targeted at specific users, they are likely to reach the inbox of an uninterested user who will not even bother to open or read it! To tackle this, you have to segment your lists properly. This segmentation can be done in a single big database based on different parameters such as:
- Geographical location
- Age group
- Ethnicity
- Product/service interests
- Interest in special offers and updates
Such segmentation will help you to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time.
3. Monitor the bounce rates
In addition to observing the bounce rates to make well-informed decisions about your email marketing strategies, you also need to pay special attention to it. If the bounce rates are high, the chances are that your domain may be marked as bad by the users and the search engines, which may ultimately adversely affect your online promotion efforts.
4. Make it easy to opt out
As per the Best SEO Agency in Virginia Beach consultants, you need to pay close attention to the ‘opt out’ feature. It is legally mandated that you should offer an opt out option along with promotional emails. Even if it is not mandated, it is a good practice to let your prospects be happy by seeing your professional approach. When you do so, also make sure that you help them do it as easily as possible.
The Don’ts
1. Forget about mobile
As you know, responsive is the new buzzword when it comes creating a website. With this in mind, the biggest mistake email marketers make is that they forget about those who access emails through mobiles. If you only optimize your email content for laptop or desktop monitors, you are instantly missing out a large number of prospective audience. Data reveals that about 50% of the times, emails are accessed through mobile phones. With the small, large, and medium screen sizes in mind, the best method is to go with responsive designs, which now help increase email clicks by about 130%.
2. Break spam rules
The US Congress passed CAN SPAM ACT, which enforces many restrictions on email marketing. There is a compliance guide, released by Federal Trade Commission, which enforces the marketing laws. Some of the significant regulations include not using any false or misleading information, including a valid and recognizable address, and allowing opt outs.
3. Buy lists
Buying email lists in bulk may be tempting as an easy and quick mode of getting more leads in less time. However, with most of such providers, you will not get the bang for bucks spent for it. Buying mailing lists may also negatively impact the repute of your domain and successful deliverability of your emails.
Email marketing is only effective if you deliver an informative message to people who are really in need. While you buy lists, the people you send emails to may not always be familiar with your brand and will be receiving junk information which they have not ever asked for. So, this will not turn out to be effective communication. Moreover, as you know only very little about those who are on the list, it is challenging to make the content relevant and attractive to them.
With all these do’s and don’ts in mind, you should also remember that technology keeps on changing every day and the best practices change at a breakneck pace as well. So, to keep your email marketing strategies and SEO on track, you should educate yourself and keep updated about the latest technological developments and market situations.
Guest article written by: John Covey is an SEO consultant who is running a reputed SEO Agency in Virginia Beach. He used to write blog articles on the latest SEO and digital marketing practices for the professionals to try out.