To ensure that your email marketing initiatives are targeted to engaged customers, you could cleanse your marketing lists every 12 months. For example, you might look at your list in April 2018 and remove those individuals who have not opened any of your emails since April 2017. This will help to ensure that you comply with the retention principle of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), namely that you retain the individual’s personal data for no longer than necessary.
To improve your email marketing results, you should take certain steps to ensure your email message will be accepted by email service providers. First, check that you are not on a blacklist. Second, to prevent customers from obtaining a “bounce” message when they try to reply to your message, prompt them to add you to their safe sender's list or address book. Your email provider should also make sure its technologies are up-to-date and compliant with today’s legal requirements. A responsible email provider will also handle bounce codes and feedback loops.
To help improve deliverability and consistency with branding, consider using a sub-domain of your website to send your emails from. For example, if your web domain is chefsclub.com, your email sub-domain could be email.chefsclub@internet.com. When you send an email from your business, it is a good idea to use a from-address alias so that customers immediately recognize the sender. For example, if you are Chef’s Club, your from-address alias could be Chef’s Club. Avoid ‘no reply’ prefixes on your emails; it is good customer service to monitor the inbox for responses from your email marketing campaigns.
It is good practice to avoid using spam words in email campaigns. Examples of spam words are free, cash, $$$, and exclamation marks. Avoid writing in capital letters and make sure there are no spelling mistakes in the subject lines or the main body of your email messages. There is a list of spam words available on the internet that you can use as a guide to preventing mishaps. Most software allows you to scan your email templates for spam issues prior to sending, giving your email a spam rating and flagging any spam words that may cause problems.
The subject line of your email marketing campaign is the first impression that people have of your business. A powerful, engaging subject line will encourage people to open your message and read on, whereas a dull or irrelevant subject line will make them close the email without looking further.
It is good practice to keep email subject lines short (around 50 characters or less). Do not include details of everything that is in your email within your subject line. A subject line that is too long may get truncated, leaving out important details. It is best practice to highlight content that will pique the interest of the customer and entice them to open your email. If you want to catch your customer’s attention, try front-loading your subject line with keywords.
Personalization can help your email campaigns’ open rates. For example, you could include the recipient’s name, organization, or details of a previous purchase, but don’t overdo it. It is also possible to increase open rates by creating a sense of urgency and offering an incentive e.g. ‘Your 20% discount on perfume ends at midnight tonight.’ It is a good idea to test your subject line to see what works best for your email campaigns. Email marketing software can help you easily create A/B tests to see which subject lines perform better with a segment of your marketing list. Subject lines with the highest open rates will be sent to your entire marketing list.
Email marketers can encourage more customer opens by using pre-header text. Preheader text is the text that appears below the subject line in an email. It should complement the subject line but not repeat it. The ideal length for a pre-header is between 50 and 100 characters because this keeps it from getting cut off on smaller screens.
Example of Subject Line and Pre-header Text
From Subject
Chef’s Club Bloomy Thursday- Buy 1 Get 1 Free
A Small Discussion With a Treat Can Make a Moment Special.
You must give recipients the opportunity to stop receiving your email marketing messages by including an ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘opt-out’ option on every email edition you send out.
When customers sign up for your email marketing, describe the type of messages they will receive and how often they will receive them. Aim to send your emails at a time that is most convenient for your audience. You should test different days, times, and email copies to determine when and what works best for each audience.
The best way to make email marketing successful is to test and analyze the results and retest your campaigns. By using A/B testing, you can determine the most effective email subject lines, best design elements, email copy, and the best time or day of the week to send your email. However, ensure you are only testing one element at a time as changing too many factors at once will skew your test results and you will not know which factor or factors made the impact.
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