12 Tips For Effective Email Marketing

An estimated 3.146 billion email accounts existed worldwide at the end of 2011.

According to Nielsen, 50% of consumers trust information in the emails they sign up for.

What do these stats tell us? In a nutshell – email matters. When used effectively, email marketing provides a valuable way to reach out to consumers and develop a means of consistent communication. The key is to do it right. While a large number of marketing emails drop into consumer inboxes every day, most of them are not done well. As a result, many emails end up in the trash before individuals ever take in a word of your message, glance at your deal or click on your call to action.

Best practices for your organization’s email marketing

Sometime it’s a good idea to go back to the basics to make sure you’re constructing emails with proven best practices in mind. Follow these 12 tactics to make sure your company’s email communications don’t end up in the trash (or worse, the dreaded “Junk” folder):

1. Spend time on your Subject Line – 8 of 10 people will skim your subject line; less than 2 in 10 will read your email.
2. Stick to a Single Message – Be consistent with the email’s theme and messaging.
3. Above the Fold – The most important part of your email is the subject and the first three lines.
4. Use Short Paragraphs (2 to 3 sentences max) or Bullet Points to facilitate quick scanning.
5. Make your Call To Action clear, simple and easy to execute.
6. Hyperlinks should look like hyperlinks – blue and underlined.
7. Use Minimal Graphics and do not make your emails image-reliant – Outlook and other email clients may strip out your images.
8. Tie the theme and appearance of your email to your Landing Page.
9. Include a link to an HTML Web Version of your message in case the recipient has problems viewing it.
10. Make sure Images Load Quickly and keep them to a maximum of 72 dots per inch (DPI).
11. Do not include attachments to your email – link to a page with the information or a download.
12. Don’t Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, or EMBED tags. But if you feel like you have to use CSS, be sure to embed those styles in the HTML file.

Keep your email marketing clean, simple and to the point; and make sure you follow email standards and best practices. When you make a concentrated effort to follow the tips above, you’ll probably notice a significant increase in open rates, clicks and overall results.

What’s your best email marketing tip? Share it with us by commenting below.