The 7 Most Practical Email Marketing Tips for Businesses

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

With the growing popularity of social media, 92% of Internet-using adults are used to maintaining at least one email account, and 59% of marketers believe email is the best way to break into consumers' routines and generate revenue. Yet plenty of businesses still struggle with how to use an email marketing strategy effectively and reach the optimal pool of customers. Check out the most practical email marketing tips SimERP has to offer.

Why Email Marketing Strategies Underperform

Do you send emails in large volumes and at a constant frequency without getting the results you want? It's time to review your email marketing campaign to find what's dragging down your email marketing performance.

• Watch the image ratio

Avoid sending emails with large image files — 70% of recipients delete an email immediately if it doesn't display on their phone. Optimize images for mobile to a standard of roughly 400–600 pixels.

Also, the ideal size for a marketing email is around 600 pixels wide and 1,500–2,000 pixels tall.

• A website not optimized for mobile

Optimizing email for mobile is an essential part of marketing strategies today, but it won't succeed if your website isn't optimized for phones either. So optimize the interface for both desktop and mobile devices.

• Important content is hard to find

Place the important content — discount offers, prize draws, and the like — in the most visible spots, because about 61% of email recipients will exit quickly if they can't find the information they want to see.

• No customer segmentation

Blasting emails out like handing out flyers will never be effective. Get to know your customers — including their interests and habits — divide them into segments, and adjust the content you send accordingly, as follows:

• Based on objective factors: classified by age, gender, and geographic location

• Based on subjective factors: classified by the habits and lifestyle of your target customers; and by the goals of the email marketing campaign

• Not paying attention to send times

Bulk emailing will fall flat if you send it when customers have no time to pick up their phones and read it. So research your target customers' usage patterns — for example, wake-up time, lunch break, or after work.

• An overly complicated buying process

Design the buying process to be as minimal as possible; don't make customers perform too many steps or overly complicated ones. Make sure the links from your email to products are extremely simple, so recipients don't have to search for the product on another platform — that wastes time and creates a bad impression.

>>>> See more: An Extremely Detailed and Useful Guide to Email Marketing

The 7 Most Effective Email Marketing Tips

Build Your Email List

Your customer email list is the first critical piece of information. You must understand who you're emailing and what their basic characteristics are, so you can deliver the most relevant information.

Businesses can build their customer email lists through the following methods:

• Optimize the placement of the signup form

The signup form should sit in a prominent, easy-to-spot location, such as a homepage banner or a pop-up when users visit the website.

Example: In one Campaign Monitor marketing email, the "Log in to your new account" signup form was placed at the top of the email in striking colors and fonts, shortening the path for readers and speeding up signups.

• List the content categories you offer

Have you noticed that the content you write gets missed when new content replaces it?

The best move is to group articles on the same topic into a category. This improves search for readers and increases email signups thanks to the professionalism you project.

• Encourage CTA sharing

The main purpose of sending an email is to drive recipients to your website. So why not let readers share it — increasing open rates and your pool of potential customers.

• Create forums, communities, and experience-sharing events

You don't need to invest heavily — PowerPoint or Prezi for presenting is enough.

Seminars designed for business and product marketing create intimacy and let you nurture personal relationships.

• Show up with a gift

Most customers respond to deals, discounts, or free gifts, so try creating a gift for customers to encourage them to leave their email — making your marketing more effective and persuasive.

Compelling Subject Lines

The deciding factor in whether an email gets opened is the subject line — accounting for 65%. This requires the business (the email sender) to write striking, curiosity-inducing content.

Email marketing tips for creating subject lines include:

• Urgent subject lines that create fear of missing out

The tip here is to craft subject lines around hot topics society cares about, or evoke emotions — excitement, worry, and so on. This both draws the recipient's attention and sparks their interest in clicking through to the content the business is pointing to.

Example: Shopee: "Final Coin Shake — Don't Miss Out!"

• Curiosity-inducing subject lines

Customers have a natural desire and curiosity about mysterious things — they want to explore and fully, thoroughly conquer the unfamiliar. Write an open-ended or cliffhanger subject line, or make readers curious by asking questions and promising something interesting.

• Playful subject lines

With a subject line that makes the recipient chuckle, they'll happily open the email without even needing a reason.

Example: Viettel: "Warm the heart of the single — grab a data deal now"

• Subject lines that stimulate reader desire

Nobody is foolish enough to pass up a bargain, so a good email marketing tip is to create a subject line that makes customers crave the offer.

Example: MoMo: "Get 1,000,000 VND for phone top-ups, shopping, dining… when you refer MoMo"

• Simple, straight-to-the-point subject lines

Use a subject line that is simple and goes straight to the point. Of course, write it concisely and clearly!

Personalize Customer Emails

From the customer list you've collected, personalize the emails you send to customers. This makes customers feel you care about them — and that this isn't just another mass spam email.

Consider the following approaches when personalizing customer emails:

• Personalize the recipient's name

Personalizing the name of the email subscriber is essential. Customers always want to be called by name in emails sent to them. Proof of this: personalized email subject lines are opened 26% more often.

• Personalize images

Personalizing images is a common way to boost email click rates. You can personalize images based on customer data and profiles.

• Personalize offers

Marketers should use customer data effectively to create different offers for different customer groups.

Example — Adidas: rather than sending their full men's and women's shoe collections to everyone, Adidas sends offers targeted to each gender, making recipients feel valued.

Professional Content

Whether email content is professional depends on how you use words, phrases, and keywords, and on making sure it engages the reader. Use images and arrange everything logically.

Language can create powerful emotions in email recipients. Email content should be segmented by audience group — this increases clicks. It's an effective email marketing tip that can add 24% more clicks for your company.

Avoid over-the-top wording that creates unnecessary urgency and pressure, or your email may be marked as spam.

Place Links and Calls to Action

The purpose of email marketing is to drive traffic to the website you're promoting. That means no clicks means a failed email marketing campaign. So the tip here is to give readers an action button — a "chance" for customers to interact with you.

Write your CTA copy specifically about the action readers must take to get the offer (in this example, "Download") and create a sense of urgency (for example, "Now," "Today," etc.). Avoid vague language like "Submit," and try to tie the CTA to the offer (for example, for a live webinar, write "Register for the webinar now" or "Book your spot today").

Mobile-Friendly Display

In the morning, besides turning off the alarm, what's the first thing you do when you wake up? Grab your phone and scroll the web, check email. If your email isn't optimized for mobile, that's exactly when you're missing out on a large number of potential customers (for example: avoiding large file attachments in emails, and so on).

Track Your Data

Use supporting tools and email marketing software to track how many people received and opened the email, click counts, and so on — and use these email marketing metrics to adjust your marketing campaign more sensibly (for example, email software such as MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse, Pro).

• The golden times to send email

According to the results of many studies, prioritize sending in this day order: Tuesday, Thursday, and Wednesday.

Golden sending windows:

• 10 a.m.: A popular late-morning window near lunchtime, but research has pinned the best time at 10 a.m.

• 8 p.m. – midnight: You might not expect this window. Emails seem to get opened and clicked more in the evening.

• 2 p.m.: This is a more successful sending window. People aren't too focused on work at this point and are looking for something to look at.

• 6 a.m.: Good morning. 50% of us start the day by checking email. That's exactly why this is a perfect time to send an email.

Those are the email marketing tips SimERP is sharing with you! We hope this knowledge helps you and your business build an effective, well-run email marketing strategy.

Related Articles