Top 10 Tips for good Email Marketing

If you want to get closer to customers, sending this kind of targeted, relevant and engaging email – messages that your customers love – could be the best way.

Average open rates for emails are about 22 percent for small businesses and click through rates of 2.5-3% are typical. If you want to stand out from the other 205 billion emails sent every day, here is where to start:

  1. Genuinely interesting and useful. Make sure you’re sharing information or offers that are genuinely relevant.

  2. Compelling headlines. The email subject line is like the invitation to a party. Make sure people want to come by being clear about the contents and benefits.

  3. Easy to unsubscribe. Ensure that you have a button on every email that lets people opt out of future messages. Not only is this respectful and, in some countries, a legal requirement, but it stops them adding you to their spam filter and potentially blocking your messages to other people.

  4. Personalised. Emails that use the recipient’s name in the subject line and/or body text have a higher rate of engagement. And don’t send them messages from a generic mailbox. Use your name. If you’re afraid of getting replies, you’re sending spam.

  5. Tested. Test different variants of headlines and offers to see what works (and what doesn’t).

  6. Targeted. Send the right emails to the right people. A CRM application, like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, can help you segment and target your messages.

  7. Well written. People respond better to text that is concise, easy to scan and not hyped and salesy. Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors undermine credibility.

  8. Concise. People don’t spend a lot of time on each email. So cut the waffle and get to the point. Provide links to more information. Make sure the first few lines of your email really make an impact.

  9. Mobile-friendly. People are using their phones and tablets to read emails more than ever. In fact mobile ‘opens’ were up 80 percent in the last six months. So your emails had better work on a small screen.

  10. Not spam-filtered. Avoid spam-like words such as free, discount or bargain and never use ALL CAPS or exclamation marks.