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Create effective digital marketing campaigns to improve customer relationships and boost sales.
Growing your business with email marketing is an excellent tactic. This cost-efficient, versatile and highly effective marketing vehicle sends tailored messages directly to prospects and customers, allows two-way communication and conveys much more information than a social media post or text. However, creating a dynamic email marketing plan is crucial because new strategies and best practices are emerging constantly.
We’ll highlight current email marketing best practices and explore email marketing predictions as marketers take advantage of new trends, strategies and technology. Read through to decide which tactics you’ll use in your email marketing in 2024.
These eight email marketing best practices are long-standing strategies. If you haven’t been following them, make 2024 the year to start.
If you violate the regulations in the CAN-SPAM Act, you risk your domain name being banned, meaning you’ll no longer be able to send emails from your domain. The Federal Trade Commission compiled a CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide that includes the following rules for businesses:
To improve marketing return on investment (ROI), you must understand and pinpoint your target audience. Create a buyer persona to understand and truly speak to your customers’ needs.
For example, suppose your business provides dog training services and one of your target audiences is first-time owners of newly adopted puppies. In that case, your email marketing content may ask these questions:
Then, you might include the following:
This email marketing best practice is called “segmentation,” which involves separating various email subscriber groups into smaller lists broken down by buyer personas. Segmenting your email lists into targeted groups is more time-consuming than sending one email to everyone on your contact list. Still, this extra work can yield a higher email open rate, a better click-through rate (CTR) and, ultimately, more sales.
According to research from eMarketer, people open around 55 percent of email campaigns on mobile devices, so optimizing emails for mobile devices is crucial. Your recipients view emails differently on smartphones than on desktop computers, often scrolling quickly and sometimes paying less attention than they would if they were looking at a computer screen.
Follow these best practices to optimize your emails for mobile devices:
Emails often look different on desktop screens than on mobile devices. Some email clients offer the option to preview desktop, mobile and inbox versions of your email. With this feature, you won’t have to jump from device to device to preview your emails (but it won’t hurt if you do). Using responsive design, which adjusts the design automatically based on the device and screen size, can save time.
Preview desktop, mobile and inbox versions of your email to see how it will appear on each type of screen.
After you build an email list, you must keep updating it. Although this is one of the oldest email marketing best practices, many marketers allow their lists to languish. Here are some risks you take by not keeping your email marketing lists up to date:
Take these actions to keep your list updated:
Your work isn’t done after you send emails. As a good rule of thumb, wait about a week (to give subscribers a chance to open your emails) and then analyze the email campaign’s performance to learn what worked well and where you can improve.
Depending on your email marketing strategy, your key performance indicators may include the following:
Some email marketing tools allow you to reach people who didn’t sign up to receive your emails. However, most experts advise against this approach. Emailing people who did not opt into your marketing campaign could be detrimental to your overall marketing efforts. Sending emails to purchased lists rarely works and wastes time and money while annoying people who aren’t interested in your products or services.
Furthermore, email marketing must uphold digital privacy laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. Follow opt-in email marketing best practices and cater to people who have shown interest in your products and services.
Integrating timely email marketing into your strategy can help boost engagement and sales. For example, for a successful holiday marketing campaign, you might want to detail your discounts and promotions.
Remember that your contacts are moving through the world in real time and are affected by current events. Whenever possible, create that link between your brand and what your audience is experiencing in their personal lives.
Marketers are always taking advantage of new trends, strategies and technology. Here are some email marketing trends to watch for in 2024.
As the name suggests, an automated email sequence is deployed via triggers set forth by email marketers. For example, when prospects opt into your e-commerce clothing business’s email list, you can create emails that go out automatically.
Here are three potential sequences for that scenario:
Without email automation, sending emails at the right times to the right people can be a time-consuming task with little room for error.
You need the right team to strategize email marketing correctly. Make 2024 the year you invest in qualified talent and the right tools to improve your email marketing campaigns and take them to the next level.
Many companies are increasing their email budgets because marketers see email marketing, along with website, blog, search engine optimization and social media shopping tools as one of their top drivers of ROI.
If you don’t think you have the budget for email marketing, consider cutting expenses in other areas. Email marketing is essential to keeping your audience engaged and building brand loyalty.
Instead of having each marketing communication vehicle in a separate silo — with advertising, email marketing, customer service, social media and website efforts all in different departments — consider an omnichannel approach. An omnichannel approach allows your company to communicate with its prospects and customers in multiple channels, depending on the customer’s preference. The company’s marketing communications are centralized, tracked and used to get better insights into customer needs and preferences. Customer-level data enables successful personalization in email and other channels.
Email is a significant part of an omnichannel strategy. Typically, it’s used to promote website or blog content, build relationships and deliver customer-specific communications like invoices and support replies.
Some iOS and Android mobile users view their devices in “dark mode,” a dark background with light text. Dark mode is easier on the eyes and preserves mobile battery life. To accommodate this preference, email marketers should design their emails in light and dark so they display correctly regardless of the user’s settings.
Emails cannot convey information and communicate with recipients if they find it difficult or impossible to understand the message. That’s why it’s crucial to design emails accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities.
Designing for accessibility includes using certain font sizes and text alignment and incorporating HTML coding to ensure everyone can read or hear your content. It is the right thing to do and ignoring this best practice can hurt your brand’s reputation and reduce your campaign’s effectiveness.
Marketers are using emojis more in the email subject lines, preheader text and body. Incorporating emojis is an easy way to inject an element of fun without too much coding. But use emojis with caution ― if a subscriber has images blocked, using too many emojis will turn your email into gibberish.
Personalization is a continuing trend in which companies use customer data to personalize emails. Personalization includes using the customer’s name and referring to their purchase history. The best CRM software lets you personalize email campaigns easily with valuable customer insights.
Email marketers can use feeds from their websites and social media accounts without adding information manually. This way, content stays up to date in emails even when it changes frequently. In addition to keeping content fresh, this method makes it easier to create the emails in the first place.
ML can identify impactful subject lines and phrases for your email copy. According to research from Oracle, using ML in this manner can improve marketing results significantly. Many marketers also use AI tools like ChatGPT to write emails.
Here are a few examples of how marketers can use ML and AI tools in their email marketing efforts:
STO uses historical data on email opens and clicks to determine the optimal time to send emails. You can examine results on a macro level by looking at your list or list segments and determining the timing of the highest incidence of opens and clicks throughout a day and week.
If your email platform can process and analyze large data sets, you can determine the optimal times for individual subscribers and send to them when they are most likely to open and engage with your emails.
Your optimal send timing can also be determined for different types of content and goals. For example, your subscribers may be more likely to fill out a web lead form at 1 p.m. but more likely to purchase after they get home from work at 6 p.m.
Studies have shown that email is one of the top forms of marketing. Consider the following statistics:
An effective email marketing strategy is important because it can help you accomplish the following goals:
Here are three major benefits of developing an email marketing strategy:
Building relationships to earn loyal customers can help keep your business afloat during tough economic times. One way to do this is to send emails to see how your customers are doing, how you can help them or how everything went with their order.
This email from Stellar Villa, a wall art company, is an excellent example of how to build relationships with customers:
This email is effective because it shows that the company cares enough about its customers to ensure that they received their order and are satisfied with it, notes Patrick Connelly, co-founder of Stellar Villa. Second, the email asks customers a question and prompts them to reply.
“This starts a conversation in which you not only further engage with your customer, but you create a memorable, positive experience for them,” Connelly explained. “Also, in the rare event there is an issue with a customer’s order, they can let you know, which will give you the opportunity to fix it right away. This prevents negative experiences.”
Connelly added that because the email is not promotional and contains mostly text, it does not get caught in spam or promo folders.
The subject line reads, “Re: Your Order from Stellar Villa,” putting the brand front and center. The company also inserts the customer’s first name, when available, at the start of the email to personalize it.
With many people working at least part-time from home, your prospects may not be in the office to receive your business-to-business company’s direct-mail piece. They may not be on the roads to see your billboard ads or reading the newspaper to look at your print ads.
They are, however, looking at their mobile devices wherever they go. As a result, your audience can access your email marketing content from anywhere, anytime.
Email marketing should fit within your comprehensive marketing strategy. Speak in your brand’s voice and stay on track. You should also find a way to take advantage of email’s personalization options.
When you reach someone’s inbox, you have direct contact with them. You can track metrics such as open rate, CTR and conversions to determine your audience’s engagement with your campaign. By identifying your target audience’s demographics, wants and needs, you can refine your email marketing content to relate better to your ideal customer.
How can you gauge the success of your efforts? Improved engagement rates suggest your content is hitting the mark.
To develop content that resonates with your ideal customers, consider building customer personas to represent the people purchasing your goods and services. How old are these customers? What is their employment status? What are their problems, concerns and goals?
Adjust your buyer personas as you get real-world feedback from your customers and use your buyer personas to refine your marketing strategy.
Email marketing services give you a platform to segment, grow and maintain your email lists. You can also easily create attractive, responsive email designs and track your campaign results.
Here are a few of the best email marketing services to consider: =