5 Email Marketing Best Practices

Digital Marketing / January 26, 2023

Companies across all industries rely heavily on email marketing for customer acquisition purposes. Since an email is often the first direct line of communication with potential customers, getting it right is crucial to building long-lasting customer relationships. 

In this blog, you’ll learn the fundamentals of what makes email marketing potentially so powerful, along with helpful tips to take your emails to the next level. 

Best Practice #1: Optimize the Subject and Preview line

This is the first thing anyone reads of your email. With this in mind, it is important to capture the attention of the reader right off the bat with catchy but concise subject and preview lines.

There are a few ways of going about doing this, some of our favourites being:

1. Use personalizations! Call out someone’s first name to get their attention right from the user’s inbox. 
2. Use emojis! 💛 Emojis were deemed 2020’s most successful form of captivation engagement. Use them appropriately in your subject lines and watch your open rates skyrocket. 
3. A/B testing: Try out different combinations of wording, emojis, or even send times to see how your audience engages with each. 

Best Practice #2: Simplify Subscription and Preference Page 

For businesses who communicate with customers in multiple languages, some limitations of ESPs (Email Service Providers) like Klaviyo and Mailchimp stem from the subscription & preferences page options. 

When users update their preferences, go through the double opt-in process or unsubscribe, most ESPs do not have the capability to assign these users to pages in the language of preference. 

Not allowing users to opt in or out and manage their preferences will end up alienating your audience, painting a negative image of your brand and probably ending up being flagged as spam mail. 

It means putting in a little more effort on your part, but it’ll be well worth it as you’ll be left with an engaged audience who actively wants to receive what you’re sending which will in turn improve your metrics and drive sales. 

Best Practice #3: Optimize Your Email Campaigns

There are a few ways to optimize email campaigns with the goal of increased open rates in mind. Here are some of the easiest yet most effective solutions you can implement to achieve this.

1. Add countdowns to emphasize any important dates
2. Add personalizations to the emails – i.e. First Name, Last Name, region etc. 
3. Simplify whenever possible. Add promo codes/coupons in “copyable text” format (instead of just an image) so that users on their phones can copy and paste the text to apply toward their next purchase. 
4. Use gifs! Gifs are a great way to build engagement and boost click rates. 

Best Practice #4: Authenticate Your Domain

When it comes to staying in the email marketing game for the long-term, authenticating your emails is a simple task that produces a long-term impact.

By doing this, email spoofing is prevented and messages are delivered safely.

“Someone” must send every email. A person’s email address is used to identify them as the sender when sending an email from a personal account. As shown in this example, every email address has a prefix, @ symbol, and domain:

Using an email service provider (ESP) like Mailchimp or Klaviyo, however, means you are by default sending emails under their domain that everyone else shares. 

To read more on domain authentication and the benefits derived from this tactic, we’d recommend clicking here. 

Best Practice #5: Use Rewards

Incentivizing clicking on emails by using rewards in the form of discounts, coupons, loyalty programs or personalized offers can drastically increase your email marketing success. 

With statistics like 68% of millennials reporting that they will only be truly loyal to a brand if they have some kind of loyalty program, it’s no surprise why so many companies are implementing this technique into their email marketing efforts. 

Instead of only ever pushing promotional content on your readers, try implementing some kind of rewards every once in a while to keep your customers engaged and looking forward to your next email!

When it comes to email marketing, there is no denying that getting the best results requires trial and error. However, by using these tips, the process should become a bit smoother and help remove some of the guesswork. If you would like some extra guidance with any of this, our email marketing experts at Bloom are always ready to help.

Contact us today to get started!