Email Best Practices that Encourage Opens and Clicks
The Inspiring Inbox
HOW
WHY
WHERE
WHEN
WHAT
WHO
how
Why
Where
When
What
Who
should the recipient open this email?
can the recipient convert?
is this email appropriate for the recipient?
is the goal of this email?
will the recipient read this email?
is this email for?
With every campaign, focus on the basics of email marketing best practices.
WHO
Be specific when you define your email segments
Carefully define each of your audience segments.
Where they are in the sales funnel
When they last clicked on
an email
What they buy
(site vs. in store)
When and how often they make a purchase
How much they spend
Loyalty status
Geotargeting delivers custom branding offers to subscribers
Psychographic data
Behavioral data
Firmographics
Demographics
Algorithms applied to subscriber behavior will help find out what they will do next
How they navigated your site
What they do with your products
or services
Behavioral
Demographic
Personal interest
Job function
Job title
Where they live
Gender
Buyer personas will be based on data.
Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) is helping marketers personalize segmentation.
Use research to test an email’s effectiveness.
WHAT
Define and measure your email marketing goals
What goal do you achieve when they complete this action?
Pay attention to the metrics that measure that specific goal.
A/B testing
Content analytics
Heat maps
Decide what action you want the recipient to take
See why email is king in every stage of the customer lifecycle
Step 3
Step 2
Step 1
Turn buyers into fans
Usually part of a campaign with limited time to act
Send specific emails when your subscribers are in specific parts of the funnel.
Also called “triggered” emails like a
purchase receipt
Inspire customers to make additional purchases
Subscribers who require a different nurture journey
Encourage loyalty
Subscribers who convert
Send a welcome email Educate
Cultivate their interest
Provides an opportunity to send a discount code and reconnect
Great for explaining your product and providing support resources
Greeting a
new subscriber
Convert those leads to buyers
Acquire new prospects and leads
Promotional emails
Transactional emails
NURTURE CUSTOMERS
CREATE ACTION PLANS
Initiate your email nurture journey
Abandoned cart emails
Onboarding emails
Welcome emails
Types of automated emails to send to your subscribers:
Your email funnel has 3 purposes.
WHEN
Create campaigns based on your sales funnel
Use tables, not
tags
But use inline styles, not CSS, which isn’t supported by some clients
Keep mobile device CSS widths in mind
Define your font families, sizes, and colors for all text
Write alt tags in case your images don’t load
Avoid Flash
Your emails will be opened on both desktop and mobile devices
WHERE
Optimize for all email clients and all screen sizes
Tips to keep in mind
of recipients open email based on the subject line alone
Personalize it
Be specific
Use emojis and other symbols
Make it urgent
Ask questions
Keep it simple
and short
Have a goal
in mind
of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line
35%
69%
WHY
Encourage readers to open your emails with your subject
Slider and bars
Navbar
Feature box
Welcome gates
Pop-ups
Generic
end-of-post CTAs
Sidebar CTAs
1–5%
1–8%
Varies
3–9%
10–25%
0.5–1.5%
0.5–1.5%
For email capture forms, consider where you place it on your website.
should they do it?
will they know what to do?
do I want the subscriber to do?
ASK
Why
How
What
Tie it to your goal for the email
HOW
Use the right call to action (CTA)
Use these email marketing best practices to engage your subscribers and reach your marketing goals.
SOURCES
marketingcloud.com | zapier.com | emailmonday.com | litmus.com | sumo.com | paulramondo.com | snaptactix.com | referralsaasquatch.com sendgrid.com | growthatrabbit.com | salesforce.com | help.pardot.com | convinceandconvert.com | growandconvert.com