10 Tips for Better Email Marketing in 2021
By Ben | Mar 26, 2022 (5 min read)
Email was invented way back in 1971 and became a popular way of communicating in the mid-1990s. And of course, as soon as businesses adapted to email communication, so too did marketing.
In the early days of email marketing, open rates were as high as 90% or more. That was because everyone was excited to read their emails.
Today, in 2021, almost nobody is excited about browsing their email inbox. Still, we all continue to check emails up to 15 times a day and can spend over 2 hours a day writing and replying to emails.
This fact may make you wonder whether email marketing is still as relevant as a way to reach your already busy customers. As long as you follow some of the best email practices, you can still stay connected with existing customers and grow your brand trust.
Perhaps the most appealing factor of email is that it is low cost compared to other online promotional tools. Email newsletters can help your business to:
- Increase monthly website traffic
- Expand social media likes and engagement
- Build brand trust and loyalty
- Increase sales through promotions
- Introduce new products and offers
1) Grow Your Subscriber List With Incentives
Without a growing email list, you won’t have customers to engage with. The first step in growing your list is to offer valuable content on your site.
New potential customers will find your articles and videos through online search first, and from there, you can offer them a reason to subscribe.
People are generally not excited to sign up to receive new emails. So you must find ways to incentive them. Offering a special discount for their first order or access to an ebook, video course, or webinar can also be a way to sweeten the deal.
Of course, most people know that you are adding them to an email list, so it’s best to tell them what to expect when they sign up. Explain how often you will email them and what kinds of emails to expect. It’s also important to let them know they can opt-out at any time.
2) Promote Your Emails on Social Media
Another way to expand your email list is to promote your newsletter on your other marketing and social media platforms. For example, you can create a summary post on LinkedIn or Facebook that shares links to your site and the content you are promoting in your emails.
Also, you can include links in your newsletter that ask your customers to follow your social media platforms.
Remember to put ‘share’ and ‘subscribe’ CTAs prominent in your newsletter so new visitors can take action easily.
3) Segment Your Audience
Email marketing and marketing automation tools have come a long way in the past 15 years. New tools like Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, Active Campaign, and EmailOctopus allow you to split up your lists of email subscribers and target them differently.
Segmenting your list enables you to create targeted groups of people with similar interests. You can also divide your list up by locations, and even the actions that they take (e.g., clicking a link in an email). This is often called split testing can can show if your segmented campaigns are doing better.
Remember that your mailing list is made up of individuals, not one big group of people who think the same and want the same thing. Personalized emails will do a lot better, and you can use the marketing automation tools to increase the conversion rate of your emails.
Email segmentation has been proven to create a 760% increase in revenue for some businesses. It helps create personalized content that speaks to your customers’ needs and behaviors. It also makes them more inclined to buy if they feel the information and offers shared are unique to them.
4) Be Helpful (Not Salesy) First
Email newsletters are meant to educate your customers, provide something of value, and earn their trust. Salesy emails will cause people to unsubscribe quickly.
If you have in-depth resources on your website, make sure to share them via email, so people want to continue engaging with you. Your marketing strategy should always aim to be helpful first, and share valuable information with your customer or prospect.
The more you are helpful upfront, the greater sense of trust your customers will have. This tactic will grow sales, referrals, and social shares over the long term.
5) Offer Variety in Your Content
If you only share the same types of content all the time, your audience will soon tire of viewing it.
You must combine evergreen content with news and topical content to create variety.
Also, focus on readability and visual variety. Break up sections of your emails with headers and subheadings. Keep the sentences and paragraphs short. You should always use visuals wherever you can to add more impact to the emails you send.
6) Be Human in Your Language
Nobody likes being talked at or feeling like they are just a number. Whenever you write emails, make sure they are talking like a real human.
Address readers in the second person (i.e., you, you’re). This approach makes your content feel like you are speaking to them directly.
Another way to be human is to ask for feedback and input from your readers. Thank them for reading, and let them know you value their business.
These simple small actions help make your customers build a human connection with your company and brand.
7) Choose The Right Time
What is the best time to send email newsletters?
Every person has unique schedules and times of day, and your target audience will also be unique. A great strategy is to test sending your emails at different times and see which time of day and week gets your best open rate.
Many email automation tools will also offer you to split delivery over different time zones, which makes it easier as well. As you test which times and days work best, you’ll see better email open rates and higher engagement rates.
8) Try Out A/B Testing
A/B testing will quickly reveal what is working in your email newsletter strategy. Being able to test different subject lines and email headers will help you optimize your emails for open rates and conversions.
Here are the key elements to routinely A/B test to ensure success:
- Is your sender name a recognizable person to your subscriber?
- Does your subject line catch your readers’ attention?
- Is your content specific to your readers?
- Is the layout easy to read, with quality images?
- Are the Calls To Actions clear and compelling?
9) Ensure Your Newsletters are Mobile-Friendly
Today, over 70% of users will read your emails on their phone or a tablet, so make sure your newsletters are mobile-friendly. Therefore, if your email newsletters are not optimized for mobile devices. Here are five mobile-friendly design tips to help you increase conversion rates:
- Keep subject lines short: 7-10 words maximum
- Use a single-column layout
- Keep image sizes small to shorten the load time
- Write concise copy with larger fonts for easy reading
- Use CTAs instead of links for maximum clickability
10) Measure Your Success
Are your email newsletters delivering actual results? You will never know if you don’t take time to measure the results.
Here are the best email newsletter KPIs to track:
- Open Rate: This is the number of emails opened out of the total number of emails sent
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that failed to deliver for permanent reasons (an invalid email address) or temporary reasons (a full mailbox)
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): This is the number of clicks you receive from the links in your emails
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of subscribers who complete the desired action (e.g., made a purchase)
- Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of subscribers who opt-out of receiving future emails
Email is Still Key To Communication
Many businesses make the mistake of only sending your email newsletters occasionally, with no consistently. This can be a mistake because customers won’t remember you if you aren’t continually sharing with them.
Make sure whatever you do in your marketing, add email newsletters as another way to keep yourself top of mind for your audience.
Implementing these email newsletter tips will help increase customer responsiveness and engagement, as well as improving your marketing ROI over time.
