Best Practices for Email Campaigns

In the digital marketing industry, one of the bread-and-butter traffic boosters we work with is email marketing.Knowing as well as intelligently implementing best practices for email campaigns can be the difference between wasted time and increased success which is why we’re sharing our 3 best practice tips.

1. Keep It Legal

First and foremost when planning any email campaign, make sure you’re not breaking the law. The CAN SPAM Act outlines very specific rules for emailing commercial content and some very expensive punishments for disobedience. Look it up to determine all the details but here are some of the main points:

• Do not use misleading subject lines. The intent of the message needs to be clear and accurately represented in the subject line.
• The message must be clearly identified as an advertisement.
• You must include a valid postal address that is legally associated with your business and follows postal service regulations.
• You have to offer your recipients the ability to opt-out of receiving messages from you…
• …and you have to honor their wish to opt out within 10 business days of their request.
• You can’t sell your responsibility to meet these requirements, either, even if you hire someone to handle the opt-out work for you, so keep an eye on them to be sure they’re not landing you in a world of hurt to the tune of $16,000 per email!

2. Make it Effective

• Start With People You Know. Effectively built circles grow organically and gain true strength reputably. To that end, start your email campaigns by sending messages to people you know, to those that are familiar with your business, and/or to those marvelously intelligent and supportive folks who have opted in to start receiving emails from your company.
• Make it interesting. No one likes to be spammed, so be sure to offer your users something that they’re going to want to read! And not just a weekly advertisement.
• Avoid Text Inundation. Just like writing for websites, writing for email is best done in manageable, scanable chunks of text. One excellent strategy to hook a reader’s attention and get them onto your website (where they have more opportunity to explore - and convert!) is to put a blurb or introduction in the email message that promises to complete the thought, article, or possibly even sales details on your website and offers a link that takes them out of their inbox and delivers them into your digital space for more information.
• Be sure to test how your newsletter appears in different email programs – a design that looks great and is perfectly aligned in Gmail may look like a mess in Outlook because different email clients are just, well, different. It may behoove you to get dummy accounts to check out how it will look on different platforms before you send it to your recipients.
• Track Progress. For indicators of how effective your email strategy is, be sure to track the number of people who click from your email to whatever you are linking to. You can compare this to hard-earned search ranking deliveries to determine how much traffic you’re bringing in through email compared to search.

3. Use the Tools of the Trade

As the industry gets smarter and commercial outfits learn what they need to run seamless email marketing campaigns, marketing program developers are rising to the occasion and offering tools that help run the show behind the scenes.

We have tried out Campaign Monitor and MailChimp, which enable efficient strategies for email campaigns including:

• A/B split testing to more quickly determine which of your email strategies are working better
• Campaign archives so you can easily access and re-use previously distributed newsletters for new subscribers
• Autoresponders that help you write up and pre-schedule messages to your recipients (allowing you to step away from the computer for the weekend – very important stuff, here!)
• Dynamic content tools that allow you to customize content going to certain subscribers that offer details specific to their location or interests
• Subscription management that allows visitors to your website to fill out a form which automatically places their email address into your newsletter client so you don’t have to manage the transition by hand.
• Time-optimized email delivery that allows you to choose what time of day you want your messages sent to subscribers world-wide, regardless of time zone.

The practices of understanding the rules of the game, knowing how to approach your subscribers, and taking advantage of the great tools available for your venture, you’ll be well on your way toward a successful email marketing campaign!