Essential Tips For Email Marketing Success in 2017

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Key takeaways

• Avoid spam filters: remove salesy language, multiple exclamation marks and ALL CAPS and purge inactive addresses annually.
• Use standard, widely supported fonts, put creative design into images and compress image files so they aren’t too big.
• Write clear, concise, descriptive subject lines and state the email type (e.g. newsletter, 24-hour flash sale).
• Personalize subject lines beyond names (local events or topics the reader engaged with), but only if the email actually touches that topic.
• Run a last‑chance, highly motivating re‑engagement campaign before purging non‑responders to keep your list clean.

Introduction

There’s really no debate about the effectiveness of emailing or its ability to grab people’s attention, generate more leads and boost sales for a business. Emailing as a productive, results-driven marketing strategy has been proven time and time again, but what has also been proven is that it needs to be done correctly in order for it to work.

With this in mind, the art of email marketing is constantly evolving; people are developing new techniques to make it as effective a form of communication as possible. If you want to be successful at impacting your subscriber list, you need to be on top of your email marketing strategy.

For those who are still developing their strategy or need some help improving it, here are a few ways to climb to the top:

Successful Email Delivery… Every Time

The email spam filter is the worst enemy of the email marketers and must be avoided at all costs. People rarely check their spam boxes for missed emails and if you end up there, your email will probably never be read. To this end, Rick Kranz, contributor to Business2Community, shares a few ways that can help ensure your email remains in the inbox it belongs:

1. Take It Easy On The Salesperson Angle

“Take out any words or phrases that look like something a cheerleader in an infomercial would say. Cut out the multiple exclamation marks. No ALL CAPS. No “BEST DEAL EVER!!!!!” Kranz recommends.

2. Fonts Don’t Make The Sale

“Be creative with your fonts, but not too creative. Obscure, specialty fonts don’t translate well across multiple email platforms. Your design creativity — with the stunning — can be expressed in the images you include (just remember to compress them first so the image file isn’t too big),” Kranz says.

3. Clean Your Subscriber List

“Have an annual purge…of email addresses on your list that haven’t engaged with any of your emails in a long time. Having a high volume of inactive email accounts on your list will red flag you to spam filters. Run the last chance, highly motivating campaign to this segment of your list and then purge the non-responders. A clean, up-to-date list is your greatest asset,” Kranz says.

Get Attention Where It Matters!

From email subject lines to preview text, the successful email marketer knows how to utilize every point of the customer journey to grab attention with email. Here are two pointers from Kranz that can make a big difference to your marketing success:

1. Get Straight To The Point

“Clickbait is dead. The days of teaser email subject lines is over. The subject lines that get the best click rates are those that are clear, concise, and descriptive. Subject lines don’t have to make the case that reading this email will change the reader’s life, just click to find out how!! If the email is your quarterly newsletter — say so. If the email is a 24-hour flash sale — say so,” Kranz recommends.

2. Connect By Being Personable

“Personalize the subject line. This may include using the recipient’s name, but you can also personalize it in other ways. If the email is promoting a local event, indicate that. If you’re sending an email to people who spent a lot of time reading a certain category of posts on your blog, allude to that topic — as long as your email is touching on it as well,” Kranz says.

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