AFJ Digital

I started my digital marketing career doing social media, but after graduating from college, one of my first jobs involved a lot of email marketing. I quickly grew to love how simple and nuanced email marketing can be, and at some point, I’d like to be one of the 64% of small businesses that use email marketing.

Like any good email marketer I like to look up best practices and when I do, I notice that many articles are negative. They come across as intimidating and discouraging when they should be empowering and informative so that all businesses want to take a crack at email marketing.

If you’re at all thinking about trying email marketing for your business, here is a positive look at what works.

1. Do Keep it Brief

It’s time to rethink what a marketing email is meant to be. Many businesses mistake it as a place to put all of the information about your call to action when in reality, it’s supposed to be the teaser to it. The copy should reflect that and be brief with one CTA and one link to it.

Let’s face it: none of us has the attention span to read an entire Dr. Bronner’s label. Less is more.

2. Do Stick to One Call to Action

It’s tempting to include multiple CTAs in an email, but resist the urge. The goal is for your audience to hook your audience to the one thing your email is about, and then venture off to a landing page to learn all about it and take action.

If that’s not compelling enough, consider this: emails with one CTA get 371% more clicks than emails with multiple CTAs. Email newsletters with multiple pieces of content are the only exception.

3. Do Experiment with Copy

Email testing can be taxing, but try it because it’s shown to generate higher ROI. If you’re dipping your toes into this for the first time, stick to one thing to test and work your way from there. Some basic yet good options to test for include subject line, preview text, header images, and email layout.

4. Do Monitor Frequency

It’s very easy to fall into a trap of sending too many emails. In fact, it’s better to start out by sending less so you don’t risk of hurting your email stats including open rates, click through rates, and unsubscribes.

Play it safe and experiment as you go along. B2Bs tend to send emails less frequently than B2Cs, but looking up industry standards and carefully experimenting is the right approach, especially if you have multiple email lists with crossover.

5. Do Have Fun with It

Email marketing can be a lot of fun from a variety of standpoints. For me personally, I love playing on words that tie in with the CTA or a theme like seasons, holidays, or industry terms. However, I am careful about using current events. If they’re relevant, appropriate, and non polarizing, the tie-in is fair game.

The other thing I love to do with emails is play with the look and feel of the email, especially for newsletters. If I have the option to get creative with the layout, header images, and how the email is branded, that’s when I go all out.

Emails never have to be boring and if you’re a creative, strategic, and organized communicator, you’re guaranteed to make engaging emails.

But sometimes, despite our best efforts, we don’t have the time or the ability to do all of this on a consistent basis. If that’s the case for you, send me an email and I’d love to see how I can help.