Email marketing is still one of the most popular marketing tools to stay in touch with your customers and to inform them about the company and its services. Attractive and interesting newsletters offer companies the opportunity to impress in the minds of customers, increase trust in the brand and motivate customers to take action.
But in order to stand out and stand out in the flood of e-mails that are sent to customers every day, it is important to convince with appealing subject lines, interesting content and attractive CTA's. We have summarized a few basic rules and absolute no-go's for successful email marketing for you.
1.) Campaign Planning & Regularity
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Even before you start your e-mail marketing activities, it is important to think about how you can get the e-mail addresses of potential customers. There are many possibilities: Integrate a registration form in the footer of your website, link to the newsletter registration form from frequently visited pages on your website, integrate a newsletter reference in your e-mail signature, on your printed matter (flyers, brochures) or on your offers, invoices and delivery notes. Newsletter recipients can also be won via social media. In any case, build your recipient list organically over the long term and do not buy email lists.
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Both long breaks between mailings and too frequent sending of newsletters should be avoided at all costs. The correct frequency also depends on the importance of the information from the customer's point of view. Here, too, it is important to develop a certain feeling for your target group. In any case, by sending e-mails regularly, you ensure that your company is remembered.
2.) Speech & topic
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One of the most important foundations for successful email marketing is addressing the right target group with the right topic. This is the only way for your readers to see added value behind your service, so that higher sales and stronger customer loyalty can be achieved. Many CRM systems do, too 1Tool, help you segment your audience. This ranges from differentiation based on demographic data to the possibility of sending follow-up newsletters specifically to those people who have bought a certain product, attended a certain event or clicked on a certain link in the previous newsletter. A personal salutation with the name of your customers also has a positive effect on reading rates, conversions, etc.
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In any case, avoid mass mailings without any focus or degree of individuality. If the content is not tailored to your target group, this will only lead to more unsubscribes instead of reaching your customers with your core message. However, the topic of segmentation does not only play a role in terms of content: you should also avoid sending all e-mails at once if you are looking after customers from different countries with different time zones. Otherwise, you send out your newsletter at an inconvenient time, so the result would be the same as if you hadn't sent one at all.
3.) Subject & Content
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Choose a subject and preheader (= preview text) that grabs attention and makes your audience curious. Because only those who arouse the interest of their readers will persuade them to open the newsletter and continue reading. And since these lines are the first thing the subscriber sees, they make or break your campaign. You should therefore consider the following tips when creating your subject line:
- In short: A catchy, eye-catching subject line of 40 to 50 characters achieves the best results.
- Clear: get your message to the point and tell the customer what to expect in the subject line.
- Personal: A personal salutation with the reader's name can attract attention
Even if it seems self-evident – also make sure that the spelling and grammar in your mailings is correct. There is nothing worse than conveying the feeling that the newsletter was created unprofessionally in a hurry and without any corrections.
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What applies to the subject also applies to the content: texts that are too long or too many different topics should be avoided at all costs. The motto here is short and concise. Start with an interesting hook that encourages the subscriber to read on. An emotional approach, for example through storytelling, increases your chances of building a bond with the reader and prevents you from being put off by aggressively promoting your products or services. Numbers and statistics are a good way to both inform readers and hold their attention. This way you can break up your content and also provide the reader with useful information. A good headline structure also ensures a clear structure of your topics, whereby no more than 3-5 main topics should be dealt with in one mailing.
Another no-no in email marketing is using too many colors, images, and animations. These should therefore be used sparingly and wisely: a few images that underline and loosen up the content are completely sufficient. If you overdo it here, you also run the risk of losing the layout of your newsletter, especially on mobile phones. This is because images are often deactivated on the cell phone due to the limited use of data, so that they first have to be laboriously reloaded. The core message should therefore definitely be able to be conveyed to the reader purely through the text. With regard to the use of colors, attention should be paid to a sufficiently large contrast. Dark writing on a light background is recommended.
4.) Highlights & Call-to-Action
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Make it as easy as possible for the reader and emphasize the most important points of your mailing with bold letters, links or pictures. In this way, the flow of reading can be easily controlled in your interest and you ensure that the subscriber also sees all the advantages, offers, etc. with certainty.
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Don't forget to include one or more calls to action. The request for action can be a simple link with further information on your website or it can also offer the possibility of making contact. This makes it easier for your customers to obtain further information about your company or your services.
5.) Testing & Analyzing
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Run A/B tests. Such so-called split tests aim to test two different versions of a certain variable (eg: subject line, sender name, image material, text length etc.) to find out which one achieves the better result. By sending out the same newsletter, say with two different subject lines, you can identify what your audience is more likely to respond to and strategize for future mailings.
In addition, you should always keep an eye on important key figures in order to make the success of your newsletter campaigns measurable. Automatic campaign reports, as well 1Tool it offers, evaluate them automatically and present them clearly in the form of diagrams and statistics. The most important key figures include opening rates, number of clicks, cancellations, etc.
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Do not send out your newsletter without testing it extensively. This includes both checking the e-mail display within various mail programs and testing the layout on mobile devices. Of course, the latter is becoming more and more important, since more than 60% of e-mail communication is already handled via mobile phones. A responsive newsletter is therefore urgently needed for successful email marketing these days. 1Tool offers the optimal solution for this: Already during the creation of the newsletter, you can easily switch between the desktop and smartphone view and the content (e.g. columns) can be adapted mobile at the push of a button.
Do you have any questions or would you like to test our email marketing solution without obligation?
Then contact us by phone or at office@1tool.com