Email Marketing Keys to Success

Email campaigns are important because they engage your audience in your product and they engage them longer than social media engagement; they are also important because email campaigns are direct, so the timing of email campaigns can be crucial. Creating successful email campaigns involves a few different processes.

First Steps

To get the most out of your email marketing campaigns there are a few unwritten rules to obey. The most important ones, as you might know, are having the basic details of the email correct, such as the “From” line, contact information somewhere in the email body, an unsubscribe link to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, and a “view in browser” tag. This will help the reader get the full experience of your email message if they cannot see everything in their inbox.

Creating Email Campaign

When you create your email campaign, try to put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers. When you receive an email, what catches your eye? What makes you want to investigate further about a product or service? Things such as adding design features like animated GIFs can help differentiate your campaign from others. If you create hyperlinks for your offers, it can help drive traffic to your website and get the customer engaged. Also, you will want to make sure your email is mobile friendly; to do this, you will want to send a test email to yourself and look at it on your phone. Finally, double check that everything displays correctly and nothing is cut out.

Keep It Personal

Adding personalization to your email campaign can help your email stand out amongst other campaigns. Having the customer’s name or (in the case of automotive advertising) their car information can give the reader an overall better experience. For example, having “John Doe, Don’t Miss The Memorial Day’s Sales Event at ABC Dealer,” gets the customers attention right away and gets the message across quickly.

Test and Retest

Testing your brand new email campaign out before you send live is essential to a successful campaign. This test allows you to see what the email will look like in your inbox, as well as other email client’s inboxes. You will inevitably notice some changes to make before you send it live for the first time. The most common mistakes I’ve noticed are misspellings, broken images & links, and sizing issues. A/B testing is another function of testing that can helpful. Testing of content in the email or subject lines can you help differentiate what is most popular among your customers, which in turn, increases open rates and clicks.

Sending Live

Once you are ready to send live to your list, give your email campaign one final look through to make sure you did not miss anything. Make sure all of your variable data is in the correct spot and everything reads nicely. Picking a day and time to send your campaign can be another critical step in the success of your campaign. Industry standards state that anytime Tuesday-Thursday in the morning hours typically have the best open rates. Other newer studies show nighttime sends can be successful due to not many email being sent at those times. A/B testing different times of the day can help you pick which is best for your campaign. See more beneficial advice to help your email campaign succeed at http://blog.mailchimp.com/ and https://www.campaignmonitor.com/