Our updated guide to email best practices will help you get your email program ready for 2023.

Why Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a key component in customer acquisition programs across industries.

You may feel overwhelmed by the number of details you need to manage to make sure your email program is perfect.

We’ve put together our best tips to help you create the most effective email marketing campaigns. What you’ll discover:

• Email marketing: The best practices for 2023
• Email marketing: The latest tips and tricks to reach the inbox
• Best practices for creating engaging and beautiful email marketing campaigns
• How to find the latest email marketing guides, resources, and tools for specific topics

Email Marketing Strategy and Preparedness

1. Learn about your audience

Before you begin sending emails, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the audience. Your audience is much more than a group of demographics. You should answer the following questions as precisely as you can.

• When and how do they prefer to communicate?
• There may be a particular vernacular or even slang that resonates with them more so than others.
• What actions or activities differentiate your audience from other people?

You’re not likely to answer these questions fully the first time. The beauty of email marketing, however, is that you can gather valuable data and insights about your audience over time to make informed program changes.

2. Try out different things to find what resonates.

You should A/B-test every aspect of your email from the subject line to your CTAs. During your testing, you should keep these tips in mind:

• Only test one element at a given time.
• Be sure to use a large sample size for your testing
• Once you have found a winning element, move on to the next test.

A good email marketer will never stop testing. Your product and your recipients are always changing, so you should also be constantly updating your tests. Check out our A/B Testing guide for more tips.

3. Checklist for pre-sending

Create a list of the steps that you should take before clicking Send. You can use our simple checklist, but you should also add your items to ensure a smooth sending experience.

Test your email before you send it. This will allow you to catch any issues with rendering, typos, broken hyperlinks, and spammy elements. Your recipients will not engage if they cannot see or read the email. This can have long-lasting consequences, particularly on your sender’s reputation.

4. Track and measure meaningful metrics

Open rate, Click-through rate, Click-to-open Rate. There are so many metrics. Breathe. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

Determine the purpose of your emails before you decide which metrics to monitor. As an example:

• If you want your recipients to open an email that contains important updates to your terms and conditions (and it is within the body of the message), use a subject line with compelling urgency and measure your Open Rate.
• You should be watching the click-through rate and subsequent visits to your offer.

5. Personalize your emails

Email programs are becoming more important and personalization is not a new concept. Emails sent in bulk won’t get you high engagement and conversion rates.

You must consider the user data that you already have before you can personalize emails. Segment teamed up with us to show you the many ways that data can be used to improve customer experience.

6. Plan your holidays

The holiday season is the most joyous–and unfortunately, the spammiest time of the year. It’s no secret that subscribers expect more promotions and offers in the lead-up to the holidays. However, it is still important to be considerate and mindful about what you send to avoid overloading your users.

Our delivery experts suggest that you modify your preference center during the holiday season so that it includes a checkbox asking your subscribers if they wish to receive holiday emails. It will help you to tailor your holiday emails and set expectations for your recipients.

7. Prioritise quality over quantity (always).

Email marketing is a powerful digital tool, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you should send more emails.

Sending too many emails will have the opposite effect. If your recipients feel overloaded by your emails, they might unsubscribe or, worse still, mark them as spam.

Start slowly and see how your audience reacts to the frequency of your emails. Learn more about preventing email fatigue.

8. Nail your timing

The best time to send an email has become a hot issue. While we can’t give you a silver bullet solution, we have some insight and advice.

According to our tests, Twilio emails that are sent on Tuesdays receive a better response from recipients. Sending emails on Tuesdays can be a good way to test if it works for your program.

Consider sending emails during “off-hours” and not at the top of the hours. Send your newsletters, for example, at 10:07 instead of 10 am. This will reduce the chances that they won’t arrive at their intended recipient on time.

9. Reward your VIPs

Your VIP recipients will be your best brand ambassadors. Your loyal subscribers who open, click, and share your emails deserve to be rewarded for their engagement and loyalty. You can also gain valuable information from VIPs.

Do you have a new template or CTA that you would like to test? Start with your VIP recipients. You can survey your VIPs and learn how to improve your email program (or what you are doing right) and reward them with discounts and special offers. You’ll both benefit if you reward and retain your VIPs.

10. Review your landing pages

You will need to spend a lot of time on the design and copywriting for your email campaign. You also need to think about where you want your recipients to go through buttons and links.

Send recipients to the landing page that makes sense about your email copy and goals. The recipient should have a seamless experience. If you want them to be directed to a specific product, then send them directly to the landing pages for that product and not to your homepage or product page.

11. AI can do the heavy lifting

Many of the tips in this list may seem time-consuming or difficult to implement. With the right artificial intelligence (AI) tools you can streamline your processes and gain actionable insights from data with minimal effort.

You can use AI to analyze customer data and personalize emails. AI can tell you which email subject lines are the most effective, when your audience is likely to open them, and more.

Your Email List

12. Create your email list

It’s important to confirm that each name was included on the list by choice of the individual and with their consent, whether you’ve started from scratch or received a list.

Remove any purchased or rented email addresses immediately from your list. You’ll have low engagement (many of the purchased emails aren’t real people), and you risk being blocked by major internet service providers. Email service providers (ESPs) may even close your accounts.

It may take some time to grow a large list of email addresses. It is the only way you can build a list of engaged recipients and keep your email delivery rates high.

13. Segment your email list

Email marketing (much like direct marketing) used to be more of a batch-and-blast communication–everyone gets the same message at the same time. You’ll get more engagement today if you tailor your messages to the specific characteristics you know about your clients.

You can segment your email stream based on factors like:

• What have they bought recently?
• Where do they live
• What time does your recipient usually open other emails?

Already set up some segments of your audience? Microsegmentation allows you to get even more specific. Your recipients will be more receptive to your messages if you tailor them to their tastes, interests, hobbies, etc.

14. Do not take unsubscriptions personally

Some recipients will no longer want to receive your emails, even if they previously opted in. It’s okay (and part of the normal email lifecycle) as long as there is a simple system to unsubscribe these users. Unsubscribing from your email program must be simple, instantaneous, and available with just one click.

Do not require users to sign in to any account to unsubscribe. If users cannot find the unsubscribe option, they will (and do!) Find the spam button.

15. Clean your list regularly

Many people ignore your emails for as long as they can. Some will unsubscribe from your list if you don’t want them to open your emails. This can affect your delivery rates, and it may signal to ISPs that they are sending unwanted emails.

You can address this problem by dedicating some time every quarter to removing unengaged subscribers. You can remove subscribers who haven’t opened emails for a few months.

Email marketing design and content best practices

16. Keep your email design on brand and consistent

Your email design should match your brand on your website, whether you use a template or hire a designer.

Your recipients should not be able to tell who sent the message when they open it.

The experience of clicking through to your website from an email should be fluid. Your recipients must know where and how to proceed. This is what you should keep in mind when designing your templates.

Use this checklist to ensure that your email campaign is designed correctly.

• The colors of the brand are aligned with the color palette
• Logo at the top of the page (with a link back to the site)
• The anchor link text should be short and indicate the destination URL.
• The footer contains relevant information about the company and an unsubscribe link
• The balance between text and images is good

17. Write a subject that your recipients won’t be able to ignore

The content of an email is important. Your subject line is where recipients will decide if they want to open your email or continue scrolling through their overcrowded Inbox.

Keep your subject lines short (3-5 words). Write your subject line only after writing the rest of your email. This will help you determine what angle to take. It also helps you to focus on the most important part of your email at the beginning. To drive conversions, you should also convey a sense of urgency and/or action that the recipient can take.

18. Create a friendly and engaging email message

You can write engaging email copy with ease and consistency, no matter how much you dislike or enjoy writing it.

Here are the steps you need to take:

STEP 1

Brand voice

Step back and make sure that you and all other stakeholders have a solid foundation and an understanding of the voice of your brand. This agreement will also help you when you write copy for other campaigns than email.

STEP 2

Write a conversation and not a brochure

Write to your audience on a level of conversation. Imagine yourself at a bar, and write as if you were speaking to your audience in person.

STEP 3

Break the pieces

Each component of the email copy serves a purpose (ultimately to convince the reader to read the next element). When you plan your email copy consider how the various elements, such as your subject line and CTA, work together.

STEP 4

Consistency is key

Your brand voice is similar to your reputation as an email sender. Once you lose it, it is hard to get it back. Using your brand voice becomes easier with practice.

STEP 5

Editorial

First, you should check how well the pieces fit together, as well as whether the email is engaging, persuasive, and warm. It is important to check that the subject line and other pieces of the email still work together.

STEP 6

Measure

You can measure the effectiveness of your copywriting by running a small A/B test (e.g. second person vs. third) and using your winning results for future emails.

19. Incorporate multimedia elements

Multimedia elements that are visually appealing can be the key to engaging your recipients. It can be as easy as using a GIF or a series of products to showcase your range of products.

Boden’s example below uses a GIF to make this email promotional short and sweet while showing multiple swimwear items and conveying an enjoyable summer atmosphere. 

You can also embed surveys, images with rollover effects, and interactive polls into your email depending on its content.

20. Amplify your customers’ voices

Users trust other people’s recommendations, making user-generated content an effective marketing tool. Did you get some great customer feedback? You were tagged in awesome photos of your customers using your products. Use them in your marketing emails.

Show recipients what customers are saying about your company to build trust and increase conversions.

21. Stop using no-reply names

What should you put in your From title? At the very least, remove the no-reply response (e.g., “noreply@kobedigital”) because sending an email with a no-reply stifles the impression of having a 1:1 conversation in your email messaging. It’s also unfriendly.

You may prefer to use your name or that of the company. The only way to be sure which sender name will generate the most opens is to run an A/B test to determine the best option.

22. Sending a stellar welcome email

Give your new subscribers an enthusiastic welcome. It might seem obvious. Welcome emails are a great way to introduce yourself, say hello to new subscribers, and let them know what you will be sending.

The welcome email is also a great opportunity to direct subscribers to the preferences center so that they can choose the frequency and the type of emails they receive from you. Starting on the right foot can make all the difference to your subscribers’ satisfaction.

Delivering Email Marketing Tips

23. Use double opt-in

How can your recipients join your email list? You can do this in several ways, such as single opt-in or double opt-in. Pre-confirmed and single opt-in are also options. Double opt-in is the best method to use. This requires that recipients click on a box in your sign-up form and then follow a link within your email to confirm that they did indeed intend to do so.

24. Send messages at a consistent pace

It is important to maintain a good relationship with ISPs by sending consistent volumes. Sending 100 emails Monday and 100,000 Tuesday sends mixed signals. Was the 100,000-email spam campaign all that was behind it? ISPs likely think so.

If you do end up sending high volumes of email, make sure to build them up gradually warming up a new sending Internet Protocol or IP/a>). Sending high amounts of emails is possible, but you should build it up gradually. This is known as warming a new IP. Sending too many emails all at once can cause your ISP to throttle them, which will delay delivery, frustrate users and decrease engagement.

25. GDPR: Follow the rules

In 2018, the General Data Protection Act became a major topic in email marketing. This trend is likely to continue. GDPR applies to any organization in the European Union (EU), or outside the EU, that processes the personal data of EU users or provides services or goods to the EU. Understanding the GDPR is important if you are sending emails to European users. You will also need to know if your program needs to be changed.

Our GDPR Best Practice Guide will give you a deeper look at the law, its implications, and some tips to improve your email marketing program. Final note: Although GDPR is only applicable to EU citizens, it’s a good idea for all email marketers to follow the law.

26. How many IP addresses do you need?

IP addresses are unique blocks of numbers that identify a device communicating over a network. Your IP address can affect your reputation as a sender and the way ISPs view your email-sending habits.

Most ESPs offer the option of sending emails from a shared pool or a specific IP address. You are the only sender when you use a dedicated IP. Your reputation and how it impacts your deliverability are all yours.

It’s best to keep transactional emails separate from marketing emails if you are sending both. Don’t combine your transactional emails with your marketing emails, which are typically less engaging.

The number of IPs that you can add will depend on the volume of emails you send each month. 

27. Keep up with the latest Email Marketing guides and resources

Email is a communication tool that has been around for a while, but it doesn’t stop evolving. Email marketing tips change, as do best practices, regulations, and other factors. It can be difficult to keep up with the many changes that occur in email.

If you don’t already have one. Email is all we do. We publish updated email marketing guides every year.

Multichannel Marketing

28. Diversify your channels

Email is one of the most popular channels for reaching out to your customers. But it’s far from being your only option. Email is the most popular messaging channel for consumers, according to our Global Messaging Engagement report. Email is the most popular channel, but SMS and social media are close behind.

Give your audience choices. They might prefer to receive promotional messages via email and shipping notifications by SMS. Monitor your engagement and experiment with different channels to see what works. 

29. Use your data to its fullest potential

You can use your SMS and customer support data to help inform your email marketing strategy and vice versa. It’s likely that you already have more data on hand than you can use. Now is the time to make good use of it.

Your call center data can be used to help inform your marketing strategies. If your customer calls about shoe sizing, you can follow up with targeted marketing campaigns that promote true-to-size shoes.

30. Coordinate cross-channel campaigns

You may have a headline email campaign, but sometimes it needs a little help to get going. Consider pre-targeting campaigns on Google Search, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

You can then test your messages and announcements. You may discover that your target audience responds best to a particular CTA or message on LinkedIn. This data can be used to inform the subject line of your emails.

Takeaway

It’s not necessary to dread the task of creating creative and effective email marketing campaigns. By following the above tips, you can make your emails stand out and deliver results. I

If you are ready to implement all these tips, Marketing Campaigns is a full-featured service that will help you do just that. marketing campaigns offer a flexible workflow and powerful list segmentation. It also provides actionable analytics.