Many people mistakenly think that email marketing has decreased in effectiveness as a digital marketing channel simply because email has been around for decades. However, despite the fact that email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, it is still incredibly effective, even in 2021.
In fact, in 2020, 93% of digital marketers used email to distribute content. Additionally, 73% of millennials prefer business communications to come through email. Further 99% (!!) of consumers check their email every single day. With statistics like these, it is easy to see why digital marketers still favor email marketing.
Despite the fact that rumors of email’s demise still circulate from time to time, the truth is that more than ever, email marketing is critical. Email is not only highly trackable in terms of analytics, but it is also one of the single best ways to directly reach consumers.
Here are the top five best practices for email marketing in 2021.
Use these practices to boost your company’s sales and ROI this year:
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Send emails at the right time to increase your conversion rate
Sending emails at the right time of day can dramatically increase the likelihood that they will be opened. If you send your emails at peak email reading hours, then they will be at the top of the recipient’s inbox when they go to check their emails.
Peak email reading hours are 9-11 am and 3-5 pm. So, make sure that you schedule your emails to go out during this time.
If you fail to send your emails during peak email reading hours, there is a much greater chance of them disappearing down your recipient’s inbox and into the abyss of old emails that were never read.
Don’t let this happen!
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Don’t purchase contact lists
There are multiple reasons why email contact lists are problematic. The first is that they tend to perform poorly because the people on the list are not organically interested in your company, its products, or its services. When people are not already fans of your company, then they are far less likely to care about the emails that you send them.
The second reason contact lists are problematic is because the General Data Protection Regulation requires every single European person’s consent before you can reach out to them via email. Contact lists do not come with consent for European email recipients. This is a major problem and a reason why you should avoid purchasing contact lists.
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Perfect the frequency
Frequency is crucial for optimizing your email campaigns and getting your email subscribers to open your emails at a higher rate. If you send too many emails, then your recipients will get annoyed and unsubscribe, however, if you send too few, you might not get on their radar enough.
The key is to send enough to get on your recipient’s radar without overwhelming them and making them want to unsubscribe. It is similar for social media advertising.
Data shows that sending between 1-3 emails per week tends to be the sweet spot for optimizing engagement without boosting opt-outs too drastically.
So, you should start with this frequency. You can also split your email list into two groups and send one group one email newsletter a week and the other group 3 email newsletters a week and see which works better.
Then stick with the option that gets you the best results. Make sure your subject lines are interesting as well to keep open rates high. Then, just let email marketing automation work its magic.
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Use in-mail video
Using in-mail video is one of the single best ways to boost engagement and click-through rates. In fact, using in-mail video tends to increase click-through rates by 150%.
Many email subscribers find in-mail videos to be entertaining to watch, and a good way to process information. In other words, watching videos can be much more interesting and enjoyable than reading text in an email for recipients.
Cincopa helps businesses embed videos directly into their emails. Cincopa is compatible with many of the top email platforms such as MailChimp, ConstantContact, and GetResponse.
Cincopa’s technology allows companies to collect user data and analytics when they watch the videos. It also allows viewers to be guided to certain actions. All of these things make it an incredibly useful tool for any business that is doing email marketing.
Shazoom is another tool worth exploring. The former lets you easily record videos, customize your branded message on your videos, share them with prospects or coworkers, and get notified in real-time about views and interactions with your videos.
Using Shazoom and Cinopa to create custom in-mail videos can help to dramatically increase email conversion rates, returns on investment, and help you to send much more effective emails.
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A/B test different subject lines and calls to action
Until you A/B test different subject lines and calls to action, you really will not know which ones work the best. However, if you want to optimize your email marketing campaigns, then it is crucial to be able to tell which of your subject lines and calls to action are working well, and which ones are not.
Top digital marketers and the top online stores always A/B test subject lines and calls to action. This is because they want to make sure that they are only using the best-performing email marketing strategies in order to optimize their ROI. You can also A/B test things like font sizes and colors that you use in the emails.
The results of A/B testing are often surprising. So, don’t assume that you know the right answer until you complete your A/B test, because you could be completely wrong with your assumptions for your automated emails.
Conclusion
Businesses need to stop making the mistake of underestimating the power of email for digital marketing success. Email still remains one of the top most effective digital marketing channels. If you can incorporate email marketing best practices for email on a regular basis, then you can enjoy even more success with your email marketing campaigns
Sending emails at the right time, not purchasing contact lists, getting email frequency right, using in-mail video, and A/B testing different subject lines and calls to action, are all best practices you need to incorporate to boost open rates.
Once you start using these email marketing strategies, you should see your email success and returns on investment start to increase significantly.
