Good email marketing practices: tips for better campaigns

It is not easy to speak of good practices in a market as saturated as Email Marketing. We receive dozens of emails a day, how can we get to be seen by our users?

Today I have a complicated task, the task of trying to make this not just another post on good email marketing practices .

First of all, let\'s start laying the foundations for which this post will be useful to you:

• you know what email marketing is
• you know what a newsletter is for
• you use a legit email marketing tool
• you have already sent several campaigns
• you have read our post about creating perfect campaigns
• You have already read other similar posts and you have realized that most of them count the same

Perfect, if you meet the above points, you are "meat" of this post. Go for it! Let\'s start with the list of good practices that I have organized in 4 steps: avoid spam, openness, design and content.

4 good email marketing practices

Getting to the right tray: avoid spam

The first step in any email marketing campaign that wants to achieve good results is to get to the inbox . If we are not able to even sneak in there, convert or talk.

There are a series of praxis that can make us avoid this tray or block our IP and we cannot send more emails from it.

One of the key points to avoid ending up on one of the IP blacklists is to keep our database clean . Scoring systems based on the reputation of the users (emails) of this list are usually used for this.

For example, if your email list has many emails that do not exist (invented) or many users that never open your emails, your reputation will not be good.

Not to mention if you buy a database of emails , whose opening rates tend to zero. In fact, the last case I saw of a database purchase ended in 4% opening and 0 orders. The database cost € 400 + VAT.

From here, we already entered what would be the content to avoid the spam tray. It is essential to send text messages , not just images. And do not overdo the weight of the images, since that can quickly send us to the spam tray .

Finally, it is very important to configure DNS records (DKIM and SPF).

Reaching the user: openings

Here we will talk about the good practices that will make us get openings in the campaigns we send . The opening ratio is the gateway to get a good click rate.

It is very important to target the subject of the email where you must make the offer or benefit that you are going to tell the user very clear. If in doubt about what works best in your database, you can do A / B tests and check which issue gets the most openings.

Two tips here:

1. Be sure to clearly identify yourself , there is nothing more impersonal than an email sender with an unidentified or unattractive name.

2. Segmentation is key . We are not all equal and it is important to create groups of users with similar affinities, such as people who buy groups of similar products in our online store.

If we have a pet store, we can segment those with dogs, cats and birds. It seems like a lie, but there are companies that keep sending me offers of cats when I have been buying dog food for 1 year and they know that I only have one dog.

I will always remember that email with personalized offers that Ulabox sent me right after buying one of my son\'s first diaper packs. That is segmenting and customizing. And it worked.

Tips on designing your emails

There really is no guide to what an email design should look like for it to be successful. I wish I know. But each user is different and each one likes different things . What is clear is that this design has to adapt to the device for receiving mail (the famous Responsive ), something that is becoming more and more important every day in a world dominated by mobile phones.

An important point that is often overlooked is not to enter the relevant text of the email as an image . How many emails have you received with a dwarf text because it is embedded in an image? It\'s not just that it can\'t be read, it\'s that it generates rejection!

Another point that is often overlooked is the identification and contact information , in addition to the unsubscribe link. For me it is an essential point: to easily know who is sending me this, why and how to reach her. That text of "we sent you this newsletter because you registered in our database" or "because you bought in our store" can save us more than a scare. And more knowing that now Gmail makes it very easy for us to say "look, this email I think is spam", even if it is not.

The content: How to write a copy for emails?

Basically we have 3 parts:

• email introduction
• the argumentative text
• the call to action

The introduction should be clear and concise . For me, it should be an extension of the subject of the email and should not exceed two sentences. The text can be emotional , but it must also have a rational part in which we make clear what is the offer and the benefit of this communication.

Next, let\'s talk about the content . It is not only that people by default do not read, but, in addition, they will receive dozens of emails like yours , so get to the point and do not go overboard with the text.

You can use visual aids like bullet points and title hierarchy. We can even ask a rhetorical question to the user who is reading the email. Lastly, and although it is obvious, do not use capital letters in excess . The capital letters disturb and generate noise in the reading.

Now reaching the call to action or call to action (CTA) you  must meet a series of requirements:

• look like a call to action (if it\'s an action button, it should have a button shape)
• be concise
• it must be very clear
• may contain accelerators (only 24 hours, only until Thursday)
• And, finally, it must send the user where it touches. That is, to the product file or post that you want them to read

I hope that these good practices are interesting and useful for your future email marketing campaigns. If you want information about free email templates, then visit our blog :)