Email is a great way to get personal with customers. It’s also an easy and effective way to share useful information, build good customer relationships and boost conversions. But first you have to know the right email marketing tactics that are going to get you those increased open rates and loyal customers.

Email Marketing Best Practices

If you’re looking to send emails that work—emails that will help increase open rates, leads, conversions and your email marketing ROI—here are the email marketing best practices to follow.

Focus on creating unique subject lines.

If there’s one thing you want to spend the most time on, it’s subject lines. Email open rates are directly proportional to subject lines. Approximately 33% of email recipients decide if they’re going to open an email based on that short, 50 characters or less line. And according to an Experian email marketing study, the email campaign test that has the biggest impact is subject lines. So if you want to increase your email open rates, remember the following:

• Be descriptive, yet concise.
• Add personalization by using the recipient’s name.
• Ask a compelling question.
• Start with an action verb.
• Tell readers what’s inside.
• Don’t mislead or make false promises.
• Avoid super salesy words and multiple exclamation marks.
• Create a sense of urgency.

Don’t be generic.

Sending an email with a random assortment of products is generic. Email marketing is a chance to get personal with people. Generic emails won’t entice consumers to take action. Know what past purchases a customer has made or the type of products your segmented email lists like. With this information, you can be more specific. You can send a personalized email highlighting a new product or a certain outfit style that suits them. Tell and show in the email how this product or these products will benefit the customer, how they’ll look and feel using or wearing them, etc.

Keep the email copy clear and concise.

Like your subject line, keep the content inside your email concise, easy to read and easy to digest in a short sitting. This isn’t the time, and emails don’t really have the space, for being super cute, clever or punny. Provide clear value to customers by getting to the point. And don’t forget to make your call-to-action clear. That’s going to get you a higher click-through rate as well.

Use irresistible incentives.

As consumers, we all love us a good eCommerce incentive. It’s hard to say no when a favorite retail company offers you free shipping or 40% off your next purchase. In fact, 70% of consumers surveyed said they used a coupon or discount from a marketing email they received in the last week, and eCommerce emails that have coupons have higher open rates, purchase rates and click-through rates than those that don’t. If you want to drive sales and open rates, use those types of incentives.

Strike a design balance.

To make your emails attractive, they need more than a blob of words. You have to be visual in your email design. The right colors, images, videos and interactive elements are what consumers want. But don’t go overboard. Find that perfect balance of text and fun, interactive design elements.

Companies That Get Email Marketing

Now that you know the email marketing best practices you need to start following if you aren’t already, let’s take a look at some email marketing gurus who can show you how it’s done.

1. Charming Charlie

  This email is personalized and tells me exactly why I received the email and offers a free gift plus free shipping if I order online. It’s effective at getting consumers to click through to their website and take advantage of their offer. 

2. Dollar Shave Club

[Image: reallygoodemails.com]

Dollar Shave Club is known for their clever, funny videos. But they also excel from an email marketing standpoint. This email is clear and concise with an easy to see and click CTA button. It also tells you exactly what you need to know, while creating a sense of urgency. If I’d received this and hadn’t gotten my dad or husband a Father’s Day gift yet, I can confidently say this email probably would’ve inspired me to get them a gift card right then and there.

3. J.Crew

[Image: reallygoodemails.com]

While this email is a little on the longer side, sending it to women who have purchased something animal print or a skirt from J.Crew before is genius. It not only shows the skirt’s versatility, but it provides other products of theirs to complete each outfit and makes it easy for you to buy the whole outfit. 

4. Brad’s Deals

In terms of subject lines, Brad’s Deals does a pretty nice job. They’re always short and gives you a snapshot of what’s inside each email. And then they do a good job of mixing up their regular emails to customers by creating urgency and occasionally using appropriate emojis in their subject lines.

5. Dote

[Image: reallygoodemails.com]

Abandoned carts kill eCommerce businesses. The money is there, but people just aren’t buying. That’s why sending awesome abandoned cart emails is super important to reducing abandoned carts and getting that money. The best practices here are to remind customers what they left in their cart in a timely manner and then make it easy for them to return to their cart and buy that product. Dote did a great job of all that with this email. And their added humor was a good bonus.]]>