Do’s and Don’ts in Email Marketing

Email marketing is still one of the most effective forms of promotion, effectively engaging recipients and realistically increasing sales and customer loyalty. The main purpose of the e-mail newsletter is to build a group of customers, create a lasting relationship and sell.

How to prepare e-mails for this communication channel to be effective? We invite you to read.

Sender ID and sender’s email address

These are the basic elements defined at the stage of creating an email campaign and at the same time the two most important factors deciding whether the message will be opened. Therefore, it is necessary to think how to construct them so that the newsletter is interesting for the recipient. The article will present some rules that are worth following.

Do not use noreply addresses

Email communication is, in principle, a form of dialog between the recipient and the sender. If you use a no-reply address, you automatically understand that you cannot reply to this message. First, it can be negatively perceived by recipients, because you cut off their way of communication with you and secondly it may not be respected by email account providers. In the second case, this brings a number of undesirable consequences, such as: A decline in delivery, a decrease in the reputation of the sender, or even the classification of the email into SPAM. 

It is a good practice for the sender email address to be linked to your company, product or service, while the recipient should have no doubt about its reliability. In this way, you will build trust and a positive reception of your messages by customers.

Be sure to prepare the domain for shipment

SPF, DKIM and DMRAC are the 3 main types of anti-phishing security that you should consider when configuring the sender’s emial address.

They are designed to protect in a way that no one can impersonate your brand. The lack of security for the sending and the address itself can cause the domain to be considered as SPAM and lead to delivery problems. The three protocols mentioned above differ from each other in the method of authentication and the degree of advancement in their implementation.

Use a fixed sender ID

Sending an email with the sender ID as fixed as possible allows you to easily identify the brand and build trust. Recipients very often scan the message list with their eyes and seeing the already known sender they are more willing to open the message. However, if you decide to experiment in this area, try to enter a name e.g. "John from Message Flow". Such a procedure causes the feeling that on the other side of communication there is a real person. When testing the effectiveness of the sender ID, it is also worth conducting A/B tests available in our platform to determine which version is better converted for a specific group of recipients.

Subject of the message

Next to the sender ID, this is the second equally important element that the recipient verifies when receiving mail. Therefore, it should arouse curiosity, distinguish itself from other correspondence and encourage the opening of an email. Below I will give you some tips on what to look for.

Personalize

Research shows that personalization increases the open rate even twice! In this respect, it is worth using e.g. name:

However, it happens that not all recipients will provide you with this information by signing up to the database, then for this part of subscribers it is worth using a universal phrase e.g. "Dear Customer".

Use emoticons

Thanks to this element, you can make your message stand out against the background of even dozens of emails which are delivered to the average user every day. The symbol alphabet is very rich, so you can easily choose the corresponding theme of your message.

However, remember not to exaggerate with the amount of additional ornaments - it is worth keeping moderation in order not to be perceived as a sender of SPAM.

Limit the number of capitalized phrases and the number of exclamation points

The subject of the message is to stand out from a bunch of other emails, but not every way to achieve this effect is appropriate. Remember that, for example, the use of capital letters in the title may be negatively perceived by spam filters. In turn, a large number of exclamation marks give the character of the raised tone and can arouse the feeling that you shout at it – and nobody likes it.

In the fight to arouse the interest of the recipient by email, definitely not all the tricks are allowed, it is worth considering what elements can be seen as spam or simply will be unwelcome by the recipient of the email.

Remember that mobile devices have a limited number of characters to display 

More and more often, e-mails are received on mobile devices, so it is worth taking care to make sure the subject is clear in this case. Keep in mind that phones have much less space to display the title, so test your email thoroughly before shipping and adjust it in terms of the number of characters to this limit. It is good practice to use a few words (5-6) – first, the shorter and more catchy the subject, the more willingly the message is opened, second – you will be sure that it will be displayed in full on mobile devices.

Preheader 

This item can definitely be considered the most underestimated when creating an email campaign. Below I will explain to you what we can gain from it, but first a short definition.

Preheader is the first sentence of email that will be displayed by the mail program immediately after the subject of the message. It is most often exposed on mobile devices and also on Gmail, which has the largest share in the distribution of postal accounts on the Polish market.

Preheader is the perfect development of the topic. In a situation where we want to communicate a little more and we have a limited number of words that we can apply in the title itself, the rest of the text should be placed in this element.

It is recommended to define the preheader at the top of the creation in the background color in the form of 1 px font, so that the text is not visible after opening the email.

Email creation 

The content of an email, or the message visible to the recipient upon opening, has the most significant impact on whether the recipient will click on the item of interest and proceed directly to the website.

In an effort to achieve the highest CTR (Click-Through Rate), it is essential to ensure an appropriate layout of the creative.

In this regard, we recommend using a consistent template consisting of 3 elements:

• header – a permanent item where you can place, for example, a company logo or a link that allows you to preview messages online

• content – a variable block in which the main meaning of the message should be included, in the form of graphics and text. Remember that the content should be short, concise and details should be posted directly on the website. It is worth quiting additional ornaments and focusing on transparency so that the email is as readable and user-friendly as possible. Use trusted and secure fonts such as Arial, time New Roman, Verdana.

• footer – a fixed part of the e-mail, you can use its potential by not only placing mandatory elements such as a letter link or GDPR information, but also it is a great place to show off the prizes won, encouraging registration in the loyalty program, or adding a link to install the application.

When designing the creation, remember that at present a large part of emails are received on mobile devices, so it is necessary to ensure that it displays correctly also for this part of the recipients. Responsiveness is nowadays the basis for effective e-mail marketing.

The most important element of the creation opened on the smartphone is the action button. In the case of marketing messages, it is very important because it gives us information about the effectiveness of the campaign based on clicks. Try to expose the call to action button and link it properly. It is worth placing it in the first half of the email, but it may also be repeated in the final part of an email. 

Hygiene of the database

Maintaining the hygiene of the database in the field of news of contacts with which you communicate is a very important element of effectively conducted email marketing. In this respect, it is worth considering a few recommendations, which I will describe below.

Register to database via double opt in

If you enable the newsletter to be registered on your website, it is necessary to program it in such a way that after entering the email address, the user receives an email with an activation link. The user should click to confirm the entry into the database. Thanks to this mechanism, you can first be sure that the person who provided the email on the website actually has access to this mailbox and secondly, you will gain only existing addresses in the database, even if the customer makes a letter, or enters the wrong email it will not go to your collection.

Allow to unregister from the database via double opt out

Each marketing message should contain a link enabling your client to unsubscribe from the database. When defining it, it is worth using the so-called double discharge process. This means that after clicking on the unsubscribe link, the subscriber is transferred to the page where the resignation should be confirmed.

This type of mechanism makes the discharge consistent with the Client’s request and does not only constitute the result of accidental clicking.

Segment the mailing base

Audience segmentation is an important process by which you can divide the database into specific interest groups, which will allow you to perfectly match the content to the user. In addition, you will gain higher CTR and or results and reduce the number of extracts.

To apply this mechanism, you can use various information you have about subscribers:

• declarative data, that is, the data that the user has given you by signing up to the database, e.g. name, date of birth, postal code, city, etc.

• transactional data (any information coming from your purchase platform, e.g. abandoned shopping carts, products purchased or viewed on the website by the Customer)

• behavioral data – information about the behavior of recipients in response to the received email, e.g. opened an email, clicked on a specific product, did not open, did not click.

Summary 

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for effective mailing, each of the industries and databases of recipients has its own rights, however, the above tips are universal and can be a signpost, which is worth following in order to achieve satisfactory results.