15 Quick Tips to Help You Master Email Marketing

by Caitlin Haines At Sendlane, we’re just as focused on helping you master your email marketing strategy as we are on building the ri...

by Caitlin Haines

At Sendlane, we’re just as focused on helping you master your email marketing strategy as we are on building the right tools to help you do it.
And while email marketing and all that goes into can seem a little scary, the truth is, it’s really not! We’ve already written the ultimate guide for you and now we’re giving you 15 quick tips to help you master the game!

1. Be a Human and Write to Humans

Talk like a soulless robot and people will stop reading before you can say C-3PO. Use their name and be personal. Don’t write like you’re a faceless brand. Instead, remember that you are sending an email to a real-live person! Create buyer personas to help understand your audience and write content that they will actually be interested in!

2. Go Mobile

With 78% of people reading email on their mobile device, optimizing for mobile can make or break your email marketing strategy. Be sure that each and every one of your emails not only looks good on mobile but is easy to read. 

3. Stay Social

Include links back to your social media channels in every single email. Oh, and if you don’t have social media accounts for your business, well… now would be a great time to create them!

4. Give ‘Em Something to Do

Include a call-to-action (CTA) in every email that will subtly move your reader closer to the goal you have set for them. And it doesn’t always have to be related to buying something, either! Want to get more email addresses for your email list? Give them a way to download a helpful Infographic just by sharing their email. Looking for increased traffic to your website? Send them a sneak peek of a new product and include a CTA that links back to your site. Want them to pull out their credit card? Use a special incentive like 10% off or free shipping that expires in 48 hours. Whatever it is, your CTA should be bold and beautiful… and naturally complement the message above it.

5. Always Be Testing

In the land of open rates, click-thrus and the dreaded unsubscribe, you’ve always got to be willing to try new things to capture and keep your email reader’s interest. Split testing everything from your subject line to the images to the actual message and content in your email is a great way to try new things and test out what works best.

6. DON’T CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING

It makes people feel like you are SHOUTING at them. And while we’re at it, let’s cool it with all the exclamation points too…

7. Use Images and Stay On Brand

Not only do images add a pinch of pizazz to any email, they’re actually easier for our brains to process than text! A well-placed image of your product (or even a perfect meme) will be a hit with your readers and keep them opening your emails to see what’s next. 

8. Make it Scannable

In today’s world of instant news and three-second videos, pretty much everyone has a short attention span. Use it to your advantage by making content short  and scannable. Turn long paragraphs of text into bite-sized pitches. Break up text with images. Do anything you can to keep that thumb scrolling to the CTA!

9. Make it Easy to Subscribe

You can’t  have a successful marketing campaign if you don’t have anyone to send it to. Make subscribing to your email list easy as 1-2-3 …
1 – put opt-in forms throughout your website including pop-up light-boxes like The North Face.
2 – Reach out to your social media followers, offer them something cool in exchange for their email address
3 – Only ask for their email address. If you need more contact info, you can get it later. The last thing you want to do is ask them so many questions that they give up and don’t tell you anything.

10. Avoid the SPAM Folder

The dreaded SPAM or Junk folder. You can’t ignore it and just hope that all your emails end up where you want them to. You’ve got to pay attention and take active steps to avoid it. From understanding the law to asking permission before you send, we’ve got everything you need to know about staying away from SPAM here.

11. Consider the Subject Line

The subject line of an email is like your first impression. That’s why the tone and message of that one little line matters so much! A good trick of the trade when it comes to writing good subject lines is to write your email first and then go back and create your subject line (just don’t forget to do it before you send!). That way, you can capture the tone and message of your email and give readers a true sense of what’s to come when they click open.

12. Segment by Location

While there are lots of ways you can segment your email marketing campaign for success, doing so by geographic location may be the easiest. With just five little numbers (a zip code of course!) you can personalize your email marketing for different areas so that people get tailored messaging and you get even more credibility.
Sendlane makes this easy peasy! Check out this step-by-step tutorial for segmenting your list HERE

13. Be Consistent … But Not Annoying

There’s a fine line when it comes to email marketing between not enough and too much. On one hand, you don’t want subscribers to forget about you, but on the other you don’t want them deleting every email you send because you send so many. That’s why it’s good to set expectations up front. When people sign up for your emails, tell them how often you plan to send them a message … and then stick to it! If you say it’s going to be once a month, email them once a month. No more and no less. Make them expect to and get excited about seeing you in their inbox without getting annoyed that you show up everyday.

14. Profred Proofread

It seems like a no-brainer but it has to be said. Sending out your email without reading it over is a recipe for typos and a recipe for disaster. You may even want to grab another co-worker to look it over with a fresh pair of eyes. Because let’s face it – if Santa says to check it twice, we’re not going to argue.

15. Take Chances

At the end of the day, there’s no perfect science to email marketing. There’s no one right way and what works for someone else might not work for you. That’s why you have to be yourself and take chances. Try out new things and change it up if they don’t work. Figure out who you are and dream up new ways to share it with the world. If done right, email marketing should be just as much about creativity as analytics!

Ready to put these quick tips into practice? Sign up for a free 14-day trial of Sendlane and you’ll be on your way to becoming an email marketing master in no time!


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