Email marketing has found a pitch within PR and marketing strategies as more professionalise recognise its potency as a communications tool. Through consistent and compelling campaigns, businesses and individuals alike are able to capture the attention of their audience and keep them engaged in the long term.
In order to reach this point, email senders must ensure they have completed all the necessary steps behind the scenes to get their emails opened in the first place. In this blog we’ll talk you through the do’s and don’ts of email marketing and how to write a successful sales email, whether your goal is to increase brand awareness, get an enquiry, sell a product or service or simply release new information.
Do’s & Don’ts of email marketing
Do’s:
- Personalise your emails:
Personalised emails have a better track record of resonating with recipients over generic emails. Including their name creates a more tailored experience for the receiver, even though the emails are landing in many other inboxes. The addition of a name involves a minor coding tweak to the template yet is capable of significant conversion and engagement improvements.
- Always test:
Progress can only be made if the journey has been tracked, and measuring email performance is the only real way to see growth. Most email marketing software’s allow for A/B testing during campaign roll out, enabling the trial of different subject lines, send out times and CTAs to find what works well through valuable test insights.
- Provide something valuable:
The concept of being valuable feeds nicely into the next point, which is all about providing valuable content. Regardless of whether the technicalities are in place, if the email isn’t engaging or relevant to recipients, it will most likely flop. Every email that is sent out needs to be informative, insightful or offer some sort of benefit which recipients will find useful. It’s the only way to instil subscriber loyalty.
- Include unsubscribe link:
In order to maintain this subscriber loyalty we just discussed, respecting audience preferences and granting their requests is key. Recipients must have the option to unsubscribe somewhere in the email if they no longer want to be part of that mailing list. Failing to honour their wishes to opt-out puts the sender at legal risk and damages their reputation.
Don’ts:
- Send unsolicited emails:
Sending spam emails does not work on any level and breaches a number of GDPR regulations. Email senders must have permission from the recipients to send marketing emails to avoid legal consequences and generate more meaningful responses.
- Generalised and spammy subject lines:
The subject line is a recipient’s first glimpse of the email, so it has to outline what the email is about in a brief sentence. Generic and spammy subject lines tend to be quite farfetched with their claims and include excessive punctuation or emojis. If your opening statement is anything like this, then it will most likely be notified as spam.
- Send too many:
Email send out should focus on quality over quantity. Campaigns are ongoing, so subscribers will expect to receive emails regularly, but it’s important not to overdo it. Sending too many emails can be counterproductive, as subscribers find the influx of messages annoying rather than something of use. This is where listening to your audience is important, as their preferences and interactions will determine the ideal email frequency for your mail list.
- Neglect visuals:
Message is the most important part of any email, but strong messaging should never be compromised for a poorly designed email. Spending a little more time on the layout can boost engagements, even if it’s something as small as a brand logo. Emails which lack a professional edge can reflect badly on the business and ultimately reduce the effectiveness of the campaign. If you don’t feel confident creating your own, you could use pre-made templates or contact a designer for their advice.
How to write a catchy subject line
If you think about your own email habits, the importance of a catchy subject line becomes abundantly clear. Most phone or desktop users receive multiple emails in one day, but not everyone has the capacity to read and engage with their whole inbox. That’s where subject lines help make decisions, as recipients prioritise the emails which seem the most relevant and interesting to their needs.
Here’s what you need to remember when writing your subject line:
- Understand your audience: knowing who you are sending emails to and why will help you devise a relevant subject line.
- Be clear: summarise what your email is about and how your audience will benefit from your offering. Recipients will learn to trust you from the start and won’t feel misled.
- Avoid spam buzzwords: there are certain words and phrases that trigger spam filters and flag up in the system as scams and other suspicious activity. Subject lines which exaggerate, overpromise and seem unethical are flagged up by spam filters.
- Include CTA’s: make the key benefit or proposition the CTA in your subject line to drive opens.
How long should my subject line be?
Email subject lines need to catch the reader’s attention in just a few words, and it just so happens that 50% of emails are opened on mobile phones, leaving senders with even less room to work with. The smaller screen space cuts off around 30 characters, placing a reliance on clear and concise language to engage recipients in five or so words.
Whilst the general consensus favours shorter subject lines, varying subject line length is an important for the discovery of email openers device activity. A/B testing enables experiments to be had until the optimum subject line length is found for your audience – it might be that alternating the length each time generates a better response for your business. Many email marketers are mistakenly led to believe that short is superior, but if the message lacks impact or appears spammy, then the length becomes irrelevant.
How to write an email to engage your subscriber list
The knowledge and resources around email marketing have reached new levels in the last few years, but no amount of fancy design templates or flash mailing techniques can take away from well-written email copy.
Blatantly skipping past the design element isn’t recommended either, but without a compelling message your email isn’t likely to be opened, despite the visuals. Here are some writing pointers that will make your emails hard to ignore in subscriber inboxes:
- Be relevant
- Focus on the benefits
- Include a CTA
- Write in second person tense
- Break copy down into digestible chunks
- Keep it brief and relaxed
As demonstrated by the figure below, lucrative results are sure to follow when your emails are built on good quality writing, concise and compelling messaging and the adherence of audience preferences.
The punchy subject line and neat email content meant over half of the recipients opened the email (56.23%) just from the snippet that landed in their inbox. A further 52 subscribers went on to click through to the website linked in the email, which could ultimately lead to a sale for the business.
Now having covered the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of email marketing, don’t hesitate to contact WorkPR for specialist advice and support on sales emails. We have the skills and experience to understand your specific business objectives and how best to reflect this via email.
