Email services have moved a long way since being only a fast and convenient communication tool for users. Today, they incorporate a number of functions of which email marketing is the most popular and most widely used one.

Namely, email marketing campaigns are both the cheapest and the most efficient. If done right, email campaigns can boost a business’ ROI up to 4400%!

That’s some stunning statistics, you’ll admit… and so will countless brands that use email to promote their offers and services and keep in touch with customers.

Keeping in touch is the crucial point. It is also recommended to heed customer feedback and encourage communication and boost productivity – via email and social media.

Cross-promotions are highly successful in promoting brands and increasing their online visibility.

One crucial thing to remember is – mobile users are the key to success.

Optimizing Email Campaigns for Mobile Users

Some 53% of all emails are being accessed on mobile devices, with the number rising on a daily basis. The trend is only expected to expand, because the number of mobile users keeps increasing.

That’s why you should have a care to optimize your email campaigns for mobile devices. The same goes for your website. Everything must load fast and word counts should not exceed recommendations for mobile devices (these keep changing, so perform research on a regular basis).

For example, subject lines should not exceed 30 characters. While on the topic, if you’re using emojis, you should check how they’re displayed across devices and in different browsers. Test-send your email and check it on multiple devices and in multiple browsers.

Mind the Insights

Insights are of utmost importance. They will tell you so much about your customers that you’ll have no difficulties coming up with the best email marketing strategy.

Minding the insights is a continual process. Even if you think you know your audience, overlooking important information is detrimental. On top of that, audiences change over time. This is a natural process; you should check for changes annually.

In addition to demographics and locations of your customers, other pieces of information can also be used to your brand’s benefit. I.e., browsing and purchase history, the percentage of messages opened, time spent on certain pages and bounce rates will help you optimize not only your email campaigns, but also your website and offer.

Is There a Best Email Marketing Practice?

Not really, but some aspects are absolutely paramount.

Start with the basics. Naturally, you’ll want to increase the deliverability of your emails. No matter the quality of your campaign, if your messages reach recipients’ spam folders, your efforts will have been wasted.

To increase deliverability, choose a trusted email service provider and avoid spam-trigger words (check out the CAN-SPAM Act).

Next on, make certain to include an unsubscribe button to all emails you send. No, it isn’t counterproductive. Rather than having people flag your emails as spam simply because they are no longer interested in the offer, remind them that they can unsubscribe.

Segmentation

When we discuss successful email campaigns, we imply they are all segmented. As stated above, sending emails to random people will only serve to have your efforts wasted. No matter the quality of your offer, your products still don’t interest everyone anywhere.

To illustrate the importance of segmentation, let us just say that segmented campaigns can boost ROI by 760%.

Segmentation is all about using the insights. Find the best way to shape your offer in a way that will speak to your clientele. If you have more than one target group, send different emails to different target groups. Use appropriate offers and appropriate language for each.

Finally, reward loyal customers. Sending very special offers to some people as opposed to everyone is just fine. Loyal customers should know their trust will be rewarded, so treat them with something special (and to their liking, in accordance with insights!) from time to time.

Personalization

Imagine people supposed to care about you addressing you as Mr. or Mrs. without using your name. How would you feel?

Your customers feel the same way. In fact, one of the first things that you should do is use the subscription form to learn customers’ names. Make absolutely certain that all emails you send thereafter are personalized. Always address people by their first names. Last names are sometimes common sense, too, especially if you are dealing with highly specialized offers targeting “important” people or in other exceptional cases (e.g., if you have Japanese customers).

Personalized emails show customers that they matter. They are not only a source of revenue, but living people with their wishes and dreams. Coupled with special deals based on the insights, personalization will give a huge boost to your email campaigns.

Conclusion

Albeit, there’s no universal formula to concocting winning email campaigns, common sense suggests we should address customers by their name, send them only the offers they are interested in (and not too often, at that!), ask them for their feedback and reward their loyalty.  

Emails marketing follows the same rules all other marketing types do: it is rooted in communication. Show your customers that you care and that you’re paying attention to their input and they’ll reward you in turn.