#ProTips for compelling and effective email marketing

Email marketing... A blessing? Or just spam city? Well, that depends. While it's great that technology has allowed us to be more connected to our friends, family and loved ones, marketers are able to interact with their audiences in new, personalized ways.

Creating an effective email marketing campaign isn't easy. You could come up with great content that you personally love, but the hard truth is, if your audience can't relate to what's in your email, they won't take any action (and that's if they even open your email in the first place!). In fact, HubSpot found that for companies that sent between 16 to 30 emails over a year, the median open-rate was just 6%. Despite how low this open rate seems, this doesn't mean that email marketing is dead. In this blog, we'll go over some of our email marketing best practices that will ensure you rock your next campaign.

Know your audience

Take a step back and think about your daily routine. You get up in the morning, get ready, eat breakfast, and go to work. And what's the first thing you do when you get there? It might be tackling your email by reading and replying to those emails that came in overnight. But as you're working your way through your inbox, how often do you run into a promotional email? Do you save it for later? Do you delete it? Unfortunately, those same feelings of annoyance you experience when going through your inbox, can be felt from your audience when they come across your email.

Our tip – Look at your audience and a create a list of buyer personas to help you create a relatable, appealing email that your buyer personas will love. By creating specific emails for each of your buyer personas, you won't just see an increase in click-through rates and engagement, but your audience will be more likely to take action on your site, or, in other words, convert. Also, send your emails midday, after your buyer personas have sorted through the email that piled up in their inboxes overnight.

Be sure to write a compelling subject line

'Tis the season for holiday shopping, so we'll use that as an example here. Many consumers rifle through their email looking for those "50% off everything!" emails, or anything else that screams, "This is a great deal! You will save tons of money!" Then they open those emails and determine whether they think the deal is worth pursuing.

Our tip – Be honest about what's in your email by writing in it right in the subject line. Is the discount for this month only? Write out what the discount is and place some urgency on the deal by adding the deadline. Or is it an offer? Is it free? Include those important details in the subject line. Remember, your subject line is the most important part of your email marketing effort because it will often be the sole factor that recipients use to determine whether they should open and read your email. The goal here is to be direct without being cheesy.

Add personalization tags in your emails

Did you know that, with most email marketing platforms, you can add the recipients name anywhere in the email with a simple code? Including in the subject line! These are called merge tags, and they help grab your recipients' attention by calling them by name... Literally.

Our tip – Try to use merge tags in your email's subject line and email. This will not only help with your open rate, but your audience will feel like you took the time to really speak to them. (Learn how to use merge tags in MailChimp here!)

No matter how many emails your company sends out, you hear that voice that doubts the quality of your email. So if you do hear this voice, pause, take a breath, and try to read your email objectively. What are you trying to accomplish by sending this email? What action do you want your audience to take? Are you being too salesy? If you answer these questions honestly and apply our best practices, tell that voice to put a cork in it and send that email!