So far, 2015 has been Email Marketing’s Year. Which makes incorporating such a tactic into your company’s marketing strategy more important than ever. Not only will it give you the opportunity to connect one-on-one with prospects and customers, but there’s a pretty good chance it will also help you wrangle some sales.

According to McKinsey and Company, email is 40 times more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined. Plus, the rate at which email marketing leads to purchases is 3 times that of social media marketing. The average order value among email subscribers is almost 20% higher than that of social media followers as well.

After seeing those numbers, why would you not want your future email marketing campaigns to excel? Silly question, we know. So let’s dive right into our best practices for implementing your email marketing so that you get the most out of what leaves your inbox.

Find a Responsive Template

For the most part, people love receiving gifts. But a fragmented email in their inbox is the opposite of any gift. According to Fortinet, ‘some email clients fragment large emails to avoid mail server size restrictions’, which causes those large emails to get broken up into smaller pieces. This may sound like an adorable scene from Disney’s Fantasia, but it’s not nearly as exciting for anyone.

Some people check their inbox on an iPhone or Android, while others go on their desktop and laptop computers to do so. Think of all those screens and how they vary in size and shape – that’s a lot of different forms your message will take on.

Then there’s the vessel your recipients use to check their email. Email doesn’t just stop at Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft Outlook, and Hotmail. The actual list is a touch alarming. EmailVendorSelection have counted 393 total email service providers up and running in 2015. That’s an awful lot of possibilities, isn’t it?

The emails you send out won’t look exactly the same on every device or email server, so choose an email marketing software that you know will adjust accordingly. Unless you’ve got more time than you know what to do with, it doesn’t make sense to design your own. Instiller has some tips for making that choice.

Personalize Your Message

This year, 75% of enterprises reported that they would be investing in personalized messaging. Just another bit of proof that marketers have more consumer data at their fingertips than ever. This is the time to really start collecting and recording all of those wonderful details from social media pages. Don’t forget the data goodies on your website, your e-store and even your shopping carts. Use purchasing information to see what your customers are interested in, what price arena they gravitate towards, and what genres they explore. You can also use emails correspondence to find clues on your company’s consumers.

With all that information you’ve been collecting, you can really get to know your subscribers. You’ll be able to target them with specific offers that they’ll actually be inclined to take you up on, instead of just aiming for the sky, hoping you hit something on the way down.

Oh, and save the ‘Blanket Messages’ for companies too big to even fathom lowering themselves to consumer level. Blanket Messages try to appeal to everyone and because everyone is quite different, they end up appealing to NO ONE. Your email recipients will appreciate you taking the time to win their personal attention.

Provide Content for New Subscribers

People receive communication from companies in their inboxes every single day. This means that they probably won’t be rushing to give you their email address and subscribe to your list.

Encourage them to sign up by:

• Providing them with valuable content. Always.
• Offering a free e-book or white paper.
• Giving exclusive information on what’s trending in your industry.
• Telling fantastic and original jokes.
• Offering insight on unique topics that aren’t usually covered.

This content will set the tone for the rest of your communication with your customers, and will demonstrate whether or not your emails are worth keeping in their inboxes. Which means that once you’ve unleashed awesome content, you’ll have to continue to do so. You can’t bait a bunch of subscribers only to send them boring chains of advertisements. The upkeep will require hard work, but in the end it will all be worth it.

Make Content Easy to Digest

Most people don’t have time to read a bunch of long, boring paragraphs. That’s what the Kindle is for…  But today, most folks are reading this information from the screens of their smartphones or laptops. Because of this reason, they want content they can read on the go.

This means that your email copy should…

• Be in bite-sized paragraphs
• Utilize bullet points whenever possible
• Include visuals to enhance the message
• Not drag on and on and on and on

Test to Find Out What Works

Every company out there is scrambling to grab consumers’ attention these days. Which leaves you no choice but to constantly test out your email marketing campaigns.

Use this questionaire checklist to help you along in the exciting process:

• Are emails are actually being opened. If so, how many and which ones?
• How many subscribers have clicked your call-to-action button?
• Were any purchases made because of your emails?

Then try any of the following tactics to see if a change can bring some good:

• Experiment with various subject lines (hint: they should be short, personalized, and not include overly promotional copy)
• Send out at various times of the day/week
• Test different designs, fonts, and images
• Try offering discounts of various value or subject

Your marketing messages cannot be stale. The world is moving faster than we think. Your company must respond to changes going on all around. In Email Marketing, there is not one strategy that will work forever.

Do the Double Opt-In Method

If you’re slightly new to the marketing gamit, opt-ins are a very helpful way to get someone’s email address. A single opt-in is an option where people can type in any email and it’ll be added to your list. The double opt-in method requires a reader to confirm their email address by clicking on a link that’s sent to them. According to a survey from MailChimp, when companies ask subscribers to do a double opt-in for their lists, they see a 75.6% increase in total opens over single-opt in users. In addition, double-opt in lists boast a 114% increase in clicks within the emails when compared to their single opt-in counterparts. If you implement double-opt in, your bounce rate will decrease, since users have to correctly enter their email addresses two times. In this case, less people tend to unsubscribe. Those who make that conscious effort to get on your list have basically proven that they aren’t just signing up for some silly discount.

The Takeaway

Unless email goes the way of phone booths, email marketing has been a great marketing technique for directly connecting with users. By shaping up your email list, keeping things fresh, and figuring out what strategies work best for your company, you’ll be right in the forefront of effective email marketing before you know it!

Do you want to learn about other ways to increase your company’s influence with marketing? Check out our Marqana blog for tips, tricks, and advice on all your future marketing campaigns.

 Header image by Dennis Van Zuijlekom. Embedded images by Hine Mizushima, David C. Wong, Lauren Manning, Lum PhotoBlossom, Corrine Klug.