As a marketing automation software company, we focus on the importance of sending trigger-based marketing campaigns and engaging leads through targeted communications. Email marketing is an important component of these campaigns, so we wanted to share a few tips, best practices and reminders about how to make sure your emails are getting noticed…for the right reasons.
1. Email subject lines.
Keep them snappy. Subject lines should ideally be 50 characters or less, although one of our own email gurus says 70 characters is an acceptable length, so long as the subject line conveys a very timely and relevant message.
Tell the truth. Keep your recipients engaged by using your subject line to convey the subject matter and value contained within the email. No one likes “tricky” emails that promise something in the subject line, but don’t deliver relevant content.
2. From line.
Make it parallel. Check to be sure your company name makes sense in the context of your subject line. Nothing screams, “bogus” like a subject line touting “10 Smart Marketing Tips” with a sender name of FreeLove4Less.
Be personal. Using a real person as the sender’s email address is much more credible than the generic info@ or sales@. Also, if you are adding a personalized signature, make sure it matches the name in the “from” line.
3. Content.
Triple check spelling and grammar. Yes, we should all know this one by now, but we still see plenty of misspellings in email copy and even subject lines.
Say something interesting. It’s hard to keep recipient’s engaged, and even good offers only go so far in terms of cutting through the inbox noise. In addition to offers, make sure your content is compelling or gives recipients a reason to open your email, interact with it and come back for more.
4. Images.
Think balance. While images can reinforce the message and add visual bling to your email, it is important to find a healthy balance of text and imagery. Too many large images tend to send emails into Spam Heaven, and because many email clients suppress images upon delivery, your message needs to be clear with or without the graphics. One other important phrase here: ALT text. Don’t forget it!
Check it out. An important function of email quality assurance is testing your email in different operating systems, browsers, email clients, etc. For example, a couple of months ago Gmail made a change that caused images and templates to break. A search on Google revealed several companies including Alchemy Worx suggested adding the following to every image tag: style=”display:block” to correct the problem. The important takeaway – until this past May, the images had always displayed correctly in Gmail so a consistent testing process is key.
5. Links.
Kick those tires. Double, triple or quadruple check all of the links in your email. From personal experience, especially if you recycle newsletter templates, check the footer and image links. It is very easy to roll out new website pages or navigation, and forget those template links aren’t current when it comes time to launch the next email.
Let them opt-out. Not only is an unsubscribe link your legal responsibility, but also it is important that your unsubscribe link be prominent enough to be easily seen. Most email service providers and marketing automation platforms add them automatically to the bottom of the email so there isn’t an issue.
We hope this list provides some helpful reminders about ways to keep your email marketing looking good and generating great delivery and response rates!
