Marketing

Improve Your Email Marketing Results With These Simple Tips

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By Jennelle McGrath

3 min read

If your emails are falling flat, there are a few steps you can take to improve your results. Send your emails at the right time, make your emails clear and easy to read, and always follow the rules.

Any good fisherman knows that fishing involves more than casting your line out. How and when matters, not to mention what kind of bait you use. Email marketing is no different. If you don’t send the right emails to the right people at the right time, your messages may be ignored. But never fear - there are plenty of ways for you to improve your email marketing results.

Strike while the iron is hot.

To garner top-of-mind recognition in your client base, it’s important to contact them as soon as possible so that initial connection with your company isn’t lost on them. Within a day of prospects signing onto your mailing list, send them a welcome message with a few tasteful article recommendations, promotions, or other marketing material.

Pro-tip: If you automate this approach, you’ll be able to reach your customers sooner and with less effort. Consider using a tool like MailChimp or HubSpot Workflows to garner more leads in less time.

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Make your emails readable under any circumstance.

Email clients are flighty, finicky things. For whatever reason, your content may be converted to plain text upon its arrival. Depending on your layout, the content could also be received in an ugly, disjointed mess - especially if that layout includes background images (We’re looking at you, Outlook).

To keep your readers reading, even under worst-case scenario-type content malfunctions, take a few minutes to ensure the following:

The links you’ve included have been shortened
You’ve included preheader text for your message (Many email marketing solutions have this built-in; however, you can also do it manually fairly easily)
All your images have alt text, including your CTA buttons
If you use a background at all, use colors instead of pictures

Send short, easy-to-read messages

Like a good resume, readers of your email campaign need to see the benefit of opening the message before they actually decide to click on it. If you want higher click through rates and better engagement from your messages, try the following:

Keep the subject short and actionable
Use a writing style applicable to your audience - should it be personal, professional, or casual?
Avoid “spam words” like the ones in this list
Condense your content

Play by the rules.

The FTC has released some pretty clear guidelines on what message content may constitute spam. By following the rules they’ve published on the page linked above, you’ll improve your email marketing results and stay out of the spam folder. Compliant messages need to contain the following:

A valid postal address
The option to unsubscribe from your mailing list
Clear information as to who’s sending the message, who the recipient is, and where users can contact you, should they have any questions

This isn’t in any way an exhaustive list, and you should always check the FTC’s website for particulars.