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Did you know that 49% of consumers say they would like to receive weekly emails from businesses? Email is a reliable marketing channel, but it can sometimes feel difficult to achieve results. And even if your emails are getting a good response, you can maximize every campaign with a few simple adjustments.
So let's take a look at the 7 things you need to check off to ensure your email marketing is a success.
Related: How to start using email for marketing your small business
1. Protect your email list
Your database is a major asset in email marketing, and how you maintain it can dramatically impact your results. First, you need to build it the right way, but it's not enough to just collect subscribers responsibly.
A significant portion of these subscriber contacts are lost, and on average, 20% of email addresses become invalid each year. Poor data quality is the main reason for low click-through rates, as bounces cause email deliverability issues. To avoid that and get your campaigns delivered to your inbox, validate your database quarterly.
2. Create different emails for each target segment
Sending the same email to all your viewers is not a good way to increase engagement. Customers and prospects are at different stages in their interactions with your company, and each stage requires a different approach. Segmenting your database and targeting those groups with specific messages increases open rates by 14%. Segmenting your email list may seem difficult, but once you've set it up, you can adjust your strategy to improve clicks.
Related: How to build your email list the right way
3. Set up welcome email
As an entrepreneur in the email industry, I subscribe to many company newsletters and was surprised to find that many of them don't send welcome emails. If you don't, you're missing out on the opportunity to connect with new subscribers right away.
Welcome emails are so popular that most people expect them. Therefore, do not leave new viewers alone. Send us a short email packed with great resources or just a simple “thank you” for allowing us to receive them in your inbox.
4. Adjust the subject line
Before you send your next marketing email, ask yourself if your subject line is appropriate. Are you getting your message across while still encouraging people to click? 64% of people say they judge an email by its subject line, so it pays to spend more time honing your subject line. Also, if your email provider allows it, be sure to include some compelling preview text after the subject line. Sometimes that short copy can be more meaningful than the subject line itself.
5. Adjust sending frequency
Sending regular emails has two benefits: it increases brand awareness and improves email deliverability. For example, if you have an email newsletter, it's best to send it on the same day of the week or the same month. However, there are some things to keep in mind when it comes to sales-oriented marketing emails, such as drip campaigns. Such email sequences can be burdensome for some subscribers. Even if your content is high-quality, if your users can't keep up with the number of emails you send, they won't engage.
To test whether your audience is experiencing this fatigue, consider sending fewer emails for three months. Once performance improves, you can proceed to the correct sending schedule.
6. Test your design and email deliverability
We all test our emails to see if they look good on both desktop and mobile. Design issues can not only create a bad impression, but also cause recipients to abandon your email within seconds.
Apart from design, you can also test the deliverability of your emails to see if your emails reach the inbox. Inbox Tester also allows you to get detailed results on performance with different email providers. So, if your email goes to spam, you can try to resolve the issue so that you can successfully contact your subscribers.
7. Perform email blacklist checks regularly
Email providers (such as Google and Outlook) and anti-spam organizations maintain lists of IP addresses and domains that are involved in sending spam. Although the purpose of email blacklists is to block spammers, legitimate senders can also be blocked. The hard part is finding out if your IP or domain has been flagged.
If your clicks suddenly drop, it's a sign that your emails aren't reaching your customers. But instead of guessing and worrying, use our email blacklist checker to get a real-time status assessment. If you find that you are blocked, you can make changes and follow the protocols to exclude yourself from the blacklist.
