Tips and Tricks for Good Email Marketing

Above all else, an email should be well-structured, straightforward and catchy.

A person has a smaller attention span than a goldfish nowadays: only 8 seconds are enough for us humans to lose interest in what we see. That means that when a person sees a promotional or transactional email in their inbox, they’ll ignore it if the subject line and preheader don’t look interesting or informative.

So, how can you make people think that opening your email will help them in some way? Here are some steps to try.

Use a familiar sender name

Although it is polite to use at least the first name of the sender in an email, it is a better recipe for success if you include your company’s name in the “From” name. For example, John Smith could be anyone, but John from ManyPixels will ring some bells.

That way, you can make sure the contacts in your email list don’t ignore the email thinking it is spam, or a random person trying to contact them.

Write a catchy and descriptive subject line

A witty, funny or simply informative subject line will help your open rates greatly. Depending on the type of email, you can assess the situation and use a tone of voice that suits it well.

Still, using a catchy subject line, or one that immediately informs the reader of what the email is about will encourage them to open the email, and hence improve the success of your campaign.

Write an attention-grabbing preheader

The preheader of your email should either complement the subject line or add extra information about the contents of the message. So it should work together with the subject line.

It is also important to know that the preheader shouldn’t be too long, because it will be clipped in the inbox view.

In case of a dilemma about whether or not you should use a long preheader or not, it is better to leave that field empty, than to add an inconclusive and confusing one that will be clipped in half.

An email banner might not help you with the open rates, but it certainly does with the read-through rates.

A well-designed banner that supports the email copy and adds a preview to the product you are marketing will be an additional element that informs and is also ornamental. So it will make the whole email look more professional and good-looking.

Keep the body text simple

As much as you might want to add a lot of text in your email campaign and inform the readers about everything that’s going on in your company, you need to focus on just one thing. Are you promoting a new product? Write about that. Do you have a flash sale? Talk to them about all the possibilities. Is it just a newsletter? Write a few sentences about the blog posts you are including and let the rest speak for itself.

An oversaturated and confusing email won’t bring you a good result, so make sure your email copy is optimized and well-structured. You can search for email templates to get an idea of a good structure.

Use the right CTA button

The right button will attract the readers to take action in an email. Make sure it is the right size and color, and that the font is noticeably different from the body text, but not too far from the rest of the email’s look. Take some time to think about the right placement too. Should it be flat, rounded, three dimensional? Base these decisions on both your brand image, art direction and basic psychology (it should be noticeable, first and foremost).

Finally, take some time to decide on the best call to action. “Buy now” and “Learn more” are very repetitive and uninspiring after a while, and your copy could probably use more creativity.

Optimize for mobile devices too

According to 99Firms, 42% of all emails in 2019 were read on mobile devices. This data is showing that your email campaigns should definitely be optimized for mobile too: email banners, headings and buttons should look as well on your cell as they do on a laptop.

So, unless you don’t want to risk more than 40% of your readers missing the point because they need to zoom out or rotate their phone to read your email, make sure you optimize them.