You might be sitting there asking yourself, “why would I spend the time on email marketing in a world focused on social media?” I’ll let you in on a little secret – things happen in the world of social media! Pages get hacked, blocked, or deleted altogether.

This is why having an email list can be such a powerful tool. According to HubSpot, “79% of marketers list email marketing among their top 3 most effective marketing channels.” There is still power in email marketing, and your marketing endeavors are not dependent on a free social platform. 

Just like with social media, emails are not just for simple marketing. Yes, you can sell products and promote events, but you can also start conversations, share tips, or say a simple hello! Email marketing can create and develop business relationships and share content in a similar way to social media. 

Now that we’ve established the importance of email marketing, let’s establish some email marketing do’s and don’ts! Email marketing is an art of its own. In this ever evolving technological age, there are always new things to learn about email marketing, but we can establish some important tricks of the trade today.

Email Marketing Do’s

1. Get to know your subscribers

Connect with your audience and learn who they are! As with all areas of marketing, prioritize your target audience and dive into their need, problems, likes and demographics. In order to communicate effectively and with impact, you need to connect and resonate with your audience. 

Consider the topics that serve your audience best when planning out your emails. Write topics that aim to educate, inspire, and provide value to your subscribers. 

2. Incorporate brand elements and design

Consider the look and design elements of your emails. Email is making a shift towards more aesthetically pleasing designs, images, and structure. Use this as an opportunity to integrate your brand look and brand elements.

3. Be true to your brand voice

Your tone and voice is an important element that reflects your brand and is how you connect to your audience. How you talk, explain, and promote your business needs to be true to your brand voice and values. Stay consistent with your brand voice and use email as a way to connect personally with your audience. This can be casual, fun, educated, chatty and long, or brief and to the point. 

4. Make It Personal

This goes hand-in-hand with knowing your audience. Tailor your messages to your subscribers and create your emails as though you are speaking with each individual. To start, include the subscriber’s name in the body of the email or the subject line. This adds a friendly touch to your emails!

As you establish your email marketing, you can share more personalized messages and recommendations. It’s like when your local barista remembers your favorite order! We all feel a little special when someone remembers us, not to mention specific things about us. 

Make your subscribers feel special!

5. Always Mobile-Friendly

This one might be a little obvious, but it serves as a good reminder! Most audiences check their email on their phones, and emails can quickly look unprofessional when a graphic, image, or text is off. Email platforms have the option to preview your email on a laptop or phone so be sure to utilize this!

It is also important to note that emails can appear differently when they are actually sent (as opposed to the preview version) or on different kinds of phones. For best results, send yourself and a coworker or manager your test email before sending. The test email is a great way to get a different perspective on your design, and you can check the fine details through multiple phones. This is essential to ensure a polished, professional look for your email on laptops and mobile devices. 

6. Establish a Visual Hierarchy

Busy emails can quickly become overwhelming to audiences and thus accomplish very little. A visual hierarchy in design means that you have an order in which you want viewers to look at the elements in your email. You can control visual hierarchy through size and color. 

Many of us do this naturally: an easy example is the use of titles and subtitles in written work. The size of the text tells viewers where to look first and what is most important. When it comes to email design, you can intentionally place your images, text, and colors to guide viewers through the email and ensure they take away the most important elements. 

Make it easy for your audience to read your email! You can serve your audience and yourself by making emails user friendly through visual hierarchy. This will help them receive your message and do something with it rather than quickly archiving the email. 

What did you think of these email marketing do’s? The first “don’t” is a natural extension of our last point!

Email Marketing Don’ts

1. Don’t be a Chatterbox

In an effort to make your emails user-friendly, don’t bombard your viewers with a ton of text! Unless this truly is your tried and true method to communicating with your audience. Again establish your brand voice and delivery style. However, most businesses do not have success with extended emails. Keep them short, concise, and purposeful. Just like in conversation, it becomes annoying when someone talks non-stop. Bring your subscribers valuable content while keeping things succinct. 

Smaller amounts of text will also help your readers walk away with your most important points. When users open an email and see paragraphs of text, they are much more likely to delete the whole thing without reading. Do yourself and your audience a favor by keeping things short and to the point!

2. Avoid Tiny Text

When you do use text, be aware of text size and readability. This is especially important when it comes to mobile devices. One text size could look readable when you draft the email on a computer but come out way too small on a phone. 

This is another reason a test email is so important! Make sure you check your text size on a phone before sending out the email. As with previous points, small details like text size impact your user experience. As a business owner or creative, you care about how your audience perceives you and your business which includes their experience with your content. 

Both aesthetic and value of your content are important, but be careful not to overlook the fine details of your media outlets!

3. Test the Waters

Email marketing has more variants to it than you might think. It takes time to get the hang of it and make it effective, and there are always new things to learn! Test out different subject lines, design patterns, and topics. Subject lines are very important as they typically determine if someone will open an email or not. See what your audience responds to the most and try to replicate that!

You should also try a variety of topics or types of email such as educational, entertaining, or promotional. Different audiences require different content. 

To reiterate past points – test, test, test! Email platforms offer test emails for a reason. It is necessary to look at your test email. For best results, have multiple sets of eyes look at it on various devices. As we all know, even the most trained pair of eyes can miss a typo or design flaw. Sometimes, you simply need a fresh perspective from a coworker, boss, or friend!

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Did these tips help you? We wish you the best with your email marketing journey! Email marketing is still an effective tool, and mastering it requires more knowledge than many would assume. 

If you are just starting out, give yourself time and grace to figure out what works for your audience! Take the time to experiment a little and learn from the analytics. You got this!!

Are you looking for professional help with email marketing? Don’t hesitate to reach out to Freebird Communications – we’d be happy to help!