10 E-Mail Marketing Tips For Better Results

It’s not much of a newsflash that more and more consumers are viewing e-newsletters and e-announcements on their mobile devices, but are your e-mails mobile-friendly? Do you have a mobile strategy in place that ensures your users can always access your message and that it looks great?

These are important questions to answer since about 65% of all e-mails are initially opened on a mobile device – and this number is only going to keep growing. So start getting noticed and get the ball rolling with these tips for better e-mail marketing.

1. Create a Mobile-Friendly Template

This type of template is built with mobile in mind, meaning that your e-mail will resize and reorganize to fit the mobile window it’s viewed in. It’s a good idea to have your e-mail setup as one column, as this is easier to read and resize. Or, have two columns that when resized for mobile become one column.

If you’re using a service like Constant Contact to build your e-mails they have some great mobile templates ready to customize and use. Or you can build your own – just keep the max-width of your overall e-mail to about 600 pixels.

2. Have a Recognizable “From Name”

Be sure your “From Name” is something that your audience will recognize. More often than not, this is going to be your company name. Also, have your “Reply to” e-mail address as a company e-mail; something like promotions@companyname.com.

3. Write A Compelling Subject Line and Preheader

Grab your audience’s attention with your subject line, and give them even more of a reason to learn more with a great preheader. Your subject line should be less than 50 characters. On iPhones, the subject line is cut off after 32 so emphasize the first 32-38.

The preheader, also called header text, teaser text, or top content, is that line of text that appears beneath the subject line in a mobile inbox. Most mobile inboxes display 75–100 characters, but focus on the first 5-8 words to catch the reader’s attention.

4. Focus Your Message

Try and limit your copy to about 20 lines and keep it simple for your consumer to scan over. Break up paragraphs into quick sentences so people know what you’re doing, what’s important, and what action to take. Include call-outs for the important pieces.

If your e-mail is getting too long maybe you need to rethink your goal of the e-mail. A good way to look at it is if you could get across one piece of information, what would it be?

5. Make it Easy to Read

Your e-mail is supposed to communicate something to your audience through images and words. If your e-mail is hard to read, no one’s going to read it.

Use fonts that are large enough to read on mobile, especially if you have an older audience. And, don’t use too many different fonts – it can make your e-mail look messy. Try and use no more than 2 fonts, and just use the italic and bold weights for variety.

Also, use ALL CAPS (and exclamation points) sparingly. ALL CAPS is difficult to read quickly, and it can seem like you’re yelling or angry (which isn’t a good thing). Excessive use of exclamation points can also seem like you’re yelling – especially when they’re used together. BE CAREFUL!!!!

6. Drive Action

Have clear directions on what to do next. Make it crystal clear what you want your consumer to do – click a button, visit your store, watch a video, interact with you on social media, etc.

If you clearly lay out what you want them to do next you’ll get the response you’re looking for. Remember, your audience is on their phone or tablet so they’ll be using their finger to click or scroll. Do your best to avoid stacking multiple links or putting different links too close together. It’s a good idea to use a button that’s easy to click.

7. Add Relevant Images

Include 3-5 images to increase interest, but make sure those images are relevant and make sense with the copy, links, and call-to-action. Keep in mind that on many mobile devices, images don’t automatically display and some people have images turned off by default so don’t overload your e-mail with multiple images. Include text to provide the details people need and always add alternate (ALT) text to your images in case they don’t automatically display.

8. Build Automatic E-Mails

Have as many automated e-mails as possible – reward your loyal customers and say hello to the new ones. Automated e-mails are perfect for welcoming new subscribers, wishing your customers happy birthday/anniversary, engaging them in a campaign, and more. Did you know that welcome e-mails have 4 times the open rate and 5 times the click-through rate of other e-mails?

9. Stay Relevant to Your Audience(s)

Being relevant to your audience is important. A good way to do this is by segmenting your audience list. Break your main list into parts such as men and women, ages, married or single, specific location, etc. This way you can be even more targeted in your campaigns.

Every so often you should ask your subscribers to update their e-mail preferences. This is your chance to get new information specific to each person, maybe they want to be on a different e-mail list, or they want to receive specific information (where are they located, only get specials, or events and specials only). With this new information, you can deliver content that they’ll find the most relevant and useful to them.

10. Personalize Your E-Mails

If an e-mail with relevant offers and a specific call-to-action feels more tailored towards a person, they’re more likely to respond and do what is requested of them. Add the recipients’ name to the welcome/hello message, let them know about an event you had that they went to is happening again, give them offers based on past buying behaviors, etc.

Get Started Today

With these tips in mind, you have a good starting point. Keep them in mind and your e-mail is more likely to stay in the inbox and out of the trash. If you have any questions, thoughts, or want our help with your 2016 e-mail marketing, send us an e-mail, or give us a call at 608-519-3070.

Happy E-Marketing!