Email is critical for both B2B and B2C companies and can be a powerful way to communicate with customers and prospects. However, there are best practices and things to avoid in order to create a compelling email newsletter that resonates with your audience.
While this is not an exhaustive list, these tips will help to set up your eNewsletter campaigns for success. Here are six dos and don’ts for your email newsletters.
DO: Send targeted emails
Instead of sending one big blast to all of your contacts, try segmenting your audience and creating more targeted emails. For example, you can segment your clients by industry and send content that is relevant to that specific audience. This will increase open and clickthrough rates for your campaigns.
DON’T: Use vague subject lines
The subject line is the first thing that your recipients read and can make the difference between an opened email and a deleted one. Be sure the subject line says what’s in it for the recipient. What benefit will they get for opening your email? You’ll also want to keep it short and sweet so recipients can get the message quickly as they skim through their emails.
DO: Have clear calls-to-action
It should be clear in your eNewsletter what you want your recipients to do. Do you want them to download your latest whitepaper? Or view a recent case study? Whatever it is, create a button or image that clearly states the call-to-action and links directly to where you want them to go.
DON’T: Send without testing first
The last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time putting together content for an eNewsletter and then it not work. That’s why it is vital to test your emails before you send them. Choose a few select people in your office to send it to you and make sure all of the links work, there’s no spelling errors and that the images have ALT text. Once you’re confident that it’s ready, then you can send it out to your list.
DO: Optimize for mobile
According to Experian, 50% of emails are opened on mobile devices. That’s why it is important that your eNewsletters are optimized for mobile, or even responsive to work well on tablets as well. Here are a few tips for optimizing your emails for mobile:
– Keep the width within 600px wide
– Include a link to view the email in a browser
– Use call-to-action buttons so they are easy to click on mobile
DON’T: Ignore the results of your campaign
Almost every email marketing tool, like MailChimp or even Constant Contact, includes statistics on every email you send out. For example, they will tell you the open rate, clickthrough rate, bounce rate, etc. Be sure to analyze these stats after every campaign to see how your emails are doing. And then continue to improve your campaigns. Test out different subject lines, perform A/B tests and use different calls-to-action to see what works best.
eNewsletter campaigns can be a great way to communicate with clients and move your prospects down the sales funnel. By following these few dos and don’ts, you’ll begin to set up your emails for success.
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