Online marketing without email? Hardly imaginable. On the contrary: e-mail marketing is still on the rise. However, the success of this form of marketing is not solely determined by the decision to use it. Rather, the decisive influencing factors are the “what” and “how” of an e-mail. We have already introduced you to the basics of email marketing optimization . Today we want to go into more detail and present you with 16 email marketing tips that will have you creating the perfect email in no time.
1. Address readers with your subject line
An email does not work alone. The subject line of your email is also part of your overall picture. If this is not convincing enough, your reader will not even open your e-mail and you have optimized it for nothing. Therefore, already in the subject line, mention the advantages that await the reader when opening your mail.
A length of 50 characters is ideal. To help, choose the most important keywords and build a simple sentence around them. A personal approach and the emphasis on exclusivity are convincing. If the reader has the feeling of being treated especially, the probability of clicking increases. Action-oriented verbs and the conveyance of urgency further increase this probability.
2. Keep the promise you made in the subject
The subject from point 1 should match the content of your email exactly. If the text of your email disappoints the expectations raised by the subject, then your credibility will suffer.
3. Choose a real person for the sender
Experience shows that the click-through rate of an email increases significantly as soon as it is sent by a real person. The degree of formality of the e-mail determines whether the first and last name are appropriate or whether the first name is sufficient. In B2B emails, the sender name can be supplemented by the company name.
4. Design an attractive preview text
The preview text is the sentence that immediately follows the subject line. It is comparable to the meta description of an article. Summarize the most important things and make your e-mail palatable to the reader.
5. Use consistent branding
The recipient of your email is usually part of your email workflow . That means we’re not just talking about one email he receives, but a whole series. Your recognition value is the be-all and end-all. Use the same or similar images, a consistent color scheme and consistent language.
6. Personalize your email text
You should personalize the salutation in your email. Address the recipient directly by their name so that they start the e-mail with a good feeling. Formulations in the second person, i.e. addressing the reader directly, reinforce this feeling. Personalization tokens , for example in Hubspot, are helpful here .
7. Cluster your recipients
Clustering will certainly sound familiar to you from the development of your buyer persona . So create meaningful segmentations of your contacts in CRM, for example by adding them to predefined lists. You can do this manually or your email newsletter software (like HubSpot , etc.) can do this automatically based on certain predefined criteria.
This is how the right emails reach the right readers. The possibilities of clustering are limitless: Lifecycle phases , buyer personas or previous purchases are just a few examples.
With such marketing automation , you increase the efficiency of your marketing efforts and give your employees more time for other things.
8. Work out the relevance for your reader in the text
Once your reader has opened your mail, you have reached your first goal. Now the work begins with the text. It is important that your reader always has the feeling that the email he is reading is relevant to him.
Statistics can help to clarify the problem that you have identified for your target group and are now trying to solve. Show how much the reader himself is affected by it. Then state specifically how you can solve these problems and work out the advantages of your offer.
9. Don’t beat around the bush
Your reader’s time is precious. So keep it short and get your message to the point. Keep your goal in mind. This helps you to formulate a concise and action-oriented mail.
10. Draft a meaningful call to action
The call-to-action is the focus of your email, because it takes your reader to the next phase of their customer journey . It should be between 90 and 150 characters long and formulated clearly and concisely. The button benefits from an eye-catching design that draws attention. The CTA is sensibly placed after the value proposition. To do this, it should still be in the visible area, i.e. not at the end of the e-mail.
11. Work with images
In order to loosen up your texts, it is advisable to include images in your emails. This supports the uniform branding mentioned above and appeals to the reader visually. However, make sure to reduce the file size as much as possible to avoid long loading times.
Tip: HubSpot uses automatic image compression as soon as you upload an image to the file manager. If you’re not a HubSpot user, we can recommend tinypng or, if you want to downsize very large image files, Website Planet .
12. Include social media sharing links in your email
These links make it easier for your readers to share the email they just read on social media if they liked it. The distribution of your content works by itself. What more do you want?
13. Add a secondary call to action
This second CTA refers to those readers who have made it to the bottom of your email and who are therefore assumed to be interested. You can again emphasize an advantage of your offer or also advertise other offers. It is only important that you do not distract from the actual goal of your mail, but act in a supportive manner.
14. Remember the unsubscribe link
According to §7 UWG , an e-mail newsletter is not legally considered “unreasonable harassment”. With the unsubscribe link you protect yourself against high fines or even court proceedings. Also, if you follow the rules, you will increase your credibility as a sender and reduce the risk of ending up in the spam folder. (Note from a legal point of view: this recommendation does not constitute legal advice.)
15. Optimize your email for mobile devices
In 2019, 67% of all newsletters were opened on mobile devices – and the trend is rising. You should therefore also optimize your mail for this form of reading. This is made easier by a so-called responsive design , which automatically adapts to the screen used to open it.
16. Analyze your mail
As soon as you have optimized your emails, you naturally also want to know how they are received and which factors are decisive for this. Use A/B testing for this . This is a way to test two slightly different emails with your audience so you can get insight into what drives the most interactions. For example, the e-mails can differ in terms of their visual design, their content or their sending time.
Conclusion
You have already decided on e-mail marketing, but have you also optimized your e-mails so far? A large number of emails arrive in every mailbox in the world every day. But is your e-mail one of those that the recipient opens and reads? We have presented you with our 16 email marketing tips – now we are interested in which tips you can add based on your experience. Feel free to write them to us and our readers in a comment.