How to create an effective email marketing campaign

Have clear goals and plan your campaign accordingly

Find out the best time to send emails

Ensure click-throughs go to relevant landing pages. Mirror the landing page headline copy to your email campaign so that customers can quickly see the page is relevant

Be consistent

Before sending, test links, appearance, cross browser testing etc. – make your emails look professional and give a positive impression to potential customers

Track results (opens, click-throughs), analyse and amend your approach

Content

• Giveaways are always popular (e.g. a free podcast, e-book, track on iTunes, tickets to an event, etc.)
• Don’t be like most other companies that just send out emails with a hodgepodge of company news, updates, tips, promos in one disorganized message. Instead, spend a little time with your marketing and sales team to pinpoint the purpose of each message so that you can craft the design and copy of the message to the proper list segment.
• Refer back to prospecting research: target your marketing to meet their needs
• Always focus on driving traffic to your website
• Ensure emails display on mobile devices e.g. Smartphones
• Have emails in both html and plain text – allowing people to read the email if it does not display correctly
• Also include a link to a web version of the email
• Relevancy is highly important!! Customers will not open an email that is not relevant to them
• Your tone should be friendly but professional
Design tips
• Give readers the choice of both HTML and text versions of your email.
• Logo in the upper left corner is always a strong placement.
• Make good use of the top 2 to 4 inches of your email design which is prime reading space.
• Keep your message short – keep scrolling to a minimum.
• Don’t use lots of different fonts and colours.
• Make your call to action prominent and clear so that your audience knows what to do.
• Make both images and text clickable.
• Don’t use one big giant image as this may be mistaken for spam – always include some text.
• Make sure copy is easily scannable – web readers won’t read every word.
• Don’t try to make your emails too fancy with Flash as it can be removed by anti-virus programs trying to protect email programs getting infected.
• Include an unsubscribe link in the footer of every email campaign you design.
• Use more text than images (80% text, 20% images recommended)
• Include one primary call to action, but present it as both text links and a simple calls to action graphics
• Use design elements to get recipients to focus on the most important parts of the copy