1. Choose the Right Time to Send Your Email
When it comes to email marketing best practices, the timing of an email is very important. You can set your email to arrive in inboxes at a certain time. Sending an email in the first or second hour of a typical workday is a smart idea. It’s best to send email between Tuesday and Friday. Email sent on a Monday may not get the full attention of people who are recuperating from a busy weekend and catching up on the emails that arrived on the weekend. Sending email in the evening from around 7:00 to 10:00 can also be beneficial. People are relaxing after work and may be more inclined to read through what you have to convey about your business.
Here at Cowlick Studios we find that sending emails just after lunch seems to have the best effect. After we write our email content we schedule them to go out around 1:00 or 1:15. Most business owners are returning from lunch at this time and tend to check their emails first.
2. Provide Incentive for Sharing Your Email
Encouraging your email recipients to share an email is a common suggestion on most email marketing best practices lists. However, most people are so familiar with seeing the share button on emails they are likely to ignore it. For this reason try providing an incentive to make it worth a person’s time to share your email. For instance, offer a discount on your merchandise to anyone who shares your email. Or, offer them free shipping if they share your email. Having incentives for sharing will grab the attention of those who receive your emails.
3. Collect Information to Create More Effective Email
Collect as much information as you can, in various ways for your email marketing. For example, if you own an online shop that sells pet supplies, ask your customers to fill out a quick survey about their pet. Another idea is to record and organize data on what your customers’ purchase on a regular basis. If the pet supply store has a customer who raises toy poodles and purchases a certain type of dog food every month, you have the information you need to tailor an email to the customer that will appeal to them. You can send a reminder email just prior to the time they would normally buy food. Your email may suggest different supplements to help in the muscle development of toy poodles. Or, you may offer discounts on the specific type of dog food the person buys.
Taking the time to collect information about a customer allows you to create personalized emails. This will definitely grab the customer’s attention and will increase customer loyalty. It’s important when using email marketing best practices involving information collection that you keep customer information secure.
4. Test Different Types of Email
Writing and structuring your emails differently helps to test effectiveness. This is known as A/B testing. For a certain amount of time, you structure your emails a certain way and compile the data. Then for the same amount of time you structure and write your emails slightly differently and compile the data. Once both “tests” are complete you compare the data to see which email structure received the most clicks and engagement.
Trying different types of email is a great way to find out what appeals to your recipients. An example of this is that in email A you may have a call to action in the subject line. For email B you may just include an enticing description in the subject line. One of those emails will get more engagement than the other. Then you can try again with slightly different changes and see which email works best. In this way, you can write and structure your emails to get the best engagement.
Once you find what appeals to your recipients, you may want to try email automation to reach more people. Be sure to change it up to keep it fresh and new for your customers.
Other email marketing ideas to try when creating your message:
- Use humor to convey a point
- Include the recipient’s name
- Use capital letters and bold lettering
- Ask questions to engage your recipients
If you would like some more ideas check out these email marketing golden rules.
5. Get Straight to the Point in Your Emails
Most people spend just a few seconds scanning an email. So, the trick is to convey what you have to within the first few lines of your email. We like to follow the idea that you need to answer three questions very quickly; what do you?; what’s the problem you solve?; and how do I buy it? In this case, it may be how do I read it.
Follow email marketing best practices by making every sentence in your email succinct and clear. If you stir up a recipient’s interest in the first few sentences of your email, he or she is likely to read on. The idea is to get them interested right away.
The point of email marketing is to offer valuable information and grow your email list in order to increase your sales. Providing timely, relevant information to your list is what builds loyalty and increases sales. Trying one or more of these email marketing best practices can increase your customer base and maintain your loyal ones.
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
