5 Email Marketing Best Practices You Need to Try

E-commerce represents a nearly $3 trillion global market. While e-commerce marketplaces and e-tailers control a sizable share of that market, individual businesses can get in on the action as well.

One of the primary ways businesses do that is through email marketing. Of course, it’s never as simple as sending customers an email saying, “Buy our stuff.”

You must employ email marketing best practices if you want any traction at all. So, let’s dive in and look at 5 of those best practices.

1. Test Version

Before you send your customers anything by email, you should send yourself a copy to a few of the most popular email services. At the very least, you should make sure everything displays properly on Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail.

If your email displays properly for you in those services, odds are good it will display properly for most of your customers.

2. Audience Segmentation

Unless you sell exactly one version of one product or service, the customers on your email list have diverse buying practices. For example, some customers may only buy a product once a year, while others sign up for a monthly service. 

You must segment your email list into customer categories. That lets you deliver targeted information or offers to the customers most likely to want them.

3. A/B Testing

Sometimes, you won’t know which version of a headline, offer, or sales pitch will perform best. That’s where A/B or split-testing proves useful.

You take one of the list segments and send each version of the content to a representative sample of that segment. For example, five percent of the list gets one version and five percent get the other.

Once you see which version gets superior results, then the rest of the segment gets that version.

4. Unsubscribe Option

You probably use an email list management service for marketing emails and newsletters. As a general rule, these services include the mandatory unsubscribe button in the email for you. 

If you run the list off your own servers with your own software, the software may not enable that feature automatically. When users open and click your email, make sure each email includes an unsubscribe option or you risk negative attention from the Federal Trade Commission.

5. Refine Your Subject Line

Your subject line may prove the only thing that recipients ever see. Deliver a lackluster subject line and lackluster open rates will follow.

A good subject line creates interest with an enticing offer or an intriguing message and ultimately improves your email. If your subject lines don’t accomplish one of those things, keep revising until they do.

Parting Thoughts on Email Marketing Best Practices

Email marketing best practices touch on a lot of areas. Unsubscribe options keep you on the right side of regulations, while A/B testing lets you pick the best content. Segmentation lets you deliver content to the most receptive audience, while subject lines help ensure people open the email.

Never forget the test email you send yourself. Emails that display improperly almost always get bad results.

Open Lock Marketing provides a range of brand marketing services, including email campaigns. For more information or to get started with Open Lock Marketing, contact us today.