24 Email Marketing Tactics That Will Make Your Campaigns Sizzle

Don’t forget that email is still the largest social network!

Facebook may have 300 million users, but Hotmail alone has 375 million+ active accounts worldwide. Also consider that to even use social networks, you need an active email address to sign up in the first place.

Most companies are engaging in one form of email marketing or another. Unfortunately, many don’t take the time to optimize their efforts. Email marketing is a proven tactic and one of the more effective digital marketing channels, if you take the time to give it the proper strategy.

With that in mind, we want to help you succeed with your next effort. Following are 24 email marketing tactics the pros are using that will help your next campaign sizzle:

1. Experiment with A/B testing of your email content. For example, perform A/B splits with your list and vary the placement of links or the Subject line. Then monitor to find out which version produces the best results.
2. Pre-fill purchase forms on landing pages. Make the purchasing process as simple and quick as possible for subscribers. Use the information you have about them and pre-fill the forms as much as possible, so they don’t have to.
3. Work to grow your list. Offer email list signup at each touchpoint (where possible) and promote the email list at other touchpoints Your website is a ready opportunity for list growth from existing site traffic. Where you promote the email list, make a clear and compelling case for signing up. Examples: special email-only deals, email exclusive new product announcements. Let users see an example (or the latest) mailing. Sweepstakes, list rental, and list appends are generally not cost effective for list growth.
4. Call subscribers by their names. It may sound obvious, but personalizing messages by including the recipient’s name can enhance the user experience. They’ll feel more connected with your brand and more likely to remain a subscriber.
5. Make sure unsubscriptions are effective immediately. For one, it’s important to stay compliant with regulations for subscription management. For another, it’s just the polite thing to do. Who knows? If your subscribers experience a pleasant unsubscribe process, they may one day become your customer again.
6. Include polls in your e-newsletter. Ask your subscribers to answer a question, then turn the results into content for a future issue. Poll questions can be anything from fun to serious, depending on your subject matter – just as long as they are compelling to your audience.
7. Survey your subscribers to find out what they want. Send your subscribers a questionnaire about the type of content they are interested in, preferred email frequency, etc. But don’t just sit on this valuable information, use it to improve your email marketing campaign.
8. Follow up with a triggered email for related products after subscribers make a purchase. “Thank you” emails following purchases can include links to complementary products or services they might be interested in.
9. Use complete and consistent headers to ensure successful delivery. The “From”, “To” and “Subject” fields are all highly scrutinized by content filters, so be clear and consistent in your messaging.
10. Create email messages with a good balance of text, graphics, and links. Content filters may look for messages that are dominated by images or that do not have an extra message part for text-only readers.
11. Forget opt-out strategies. Although it’s technically legal to email first and ask permission later, study after study has shown that opt-in strategies produce much higher click rates than opt-out strategies. Opt-out strategies might seem like a “get rich quick” scheme, but the statistics say otherwise.
12. Provide immediate responses to opt-ins. Don’t simply send a “thanks for subscribing” message. Rather, send an entire welcome package with offers, additional information and a past e-newsletter issue.
13. If you’re sending out a long e-newsletter, use in-page anchors. First try to cut down your message as much as possible, but if it’s still long, split it into sections and build a table of contents. Use page anchors to allow readers to jump to specific sections.
14. Attempt to revive sleeping subscribers. For subscribers who have stopped paying attention to your messaging but have not opted out, reduce the frequency of your messages to them. They just might notice the change and start paying attention.
15. Send inactive subscribers a reactivation offer. If #14 doesn’t work, send your sleeping subscribers a series of re-engagement offers.
16. Include images or links to videos in your messages, but plan ahead. Images can be an effective tactic to include in your messages, but some subscribers block images, so make sure your message works even if images don’t appear.
17. Stay gender neutral. It sounds like a no brainer, but it’s easy to personify a specific gender when writing copy. Make sure you have both a male and a female copy edit the content to ensure you aren’t leaving out one sex.
18. Don’t use too many links. You don’t want excessive links competing for your call to action, but there isn’t a science to how many is too many. Use testing (see #1) to determine the right amount.
19. Include a teaser to your next issue. Give your subscribers a quick glance at what’s to come. You’ll get them excited for the next issue and keep them guessing at the same time.
20. Use countdowns to create urgency. Is there a product launch or upcoming event you want to highlight? Create excitement by counting down the days or weeks in your e-newsletters.
21. Follow up on complaints. Try to remove from your list those who reported your email to their ISP. Otherwise, you’ll keep getting routed to junk folders and may eventually be penalized. A good ESP provides tools to automate this.
22. Avoid reverse-type text for copy like coupon offerings. If your subscribers need to print out your email to take advantage of an offer, avoid using white text on a black background. Some might refrain from printing because it would take up too much ink.
23. Refrain from unsubscribe form tactics that are not CAN-SPAM Act compliant. Don’t advertise products on the form, ask for login or password before proceeding, or use multiple-step processes.
24. Consider how your subscribers will react. Whether making an offer or asking for information, think beyond getting out the message. Don’t be caught in a horror story about coupons you couldn’t honor because they were too widely shared, or about how badly your message was misunderstood because it appeared pushy or just plain suspicious.

Filed under Email Campaign Strategy, Email Delivery. Tagged: email marketing campaigns, email marketing tactics.