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The 12 rules of email marketing and the best practices for success.  At this point, we’re all pretty savvy about email marketing. Its effectiveness is well-documented. And marketers continue to find new ways to leverage their reach and impact.

Furthermore, it’s not just marketers who recognize the value of email as a marketing tactic. Consumers are more aware of how their data is being collected and used. They’ve grown wary of over-marketing, spam filters, and newsletters they don’t want.

As a result, people are much more selective about what emails they sign up for now than they were even a few years ago. That said, there are still so many best practices when it comes to using email marketing as part of your overall digital strategy—no matter where you operate or whether you have only one employee or 1,000 employees in your company. So here are 12 rules to abide by whenever you use email marketing as one of your primary tactics:

Always be testing.

Email marketing is not a one-and-done tactic. Instead, when done right, it’s an ongoing engagement strategy that requires frequent testing and tweaks. In fact, some argue that you should constantly be testing every aspect of your email marketing.

From the subject line to the call to action to the type of content you include, the best email marketers continually assess and reassess whether their efforts are working. They regularly look at open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and even the number of spam complaints they receive.

They’re always trying to improve their emails for their audience in terms of their content and design.

Don’t abuse the trust of your subscribers.

This is true whether you’re a B2B or B2C company. As marketers, we must always respect the people on our list and the relationship we’ve built with them. We must always be careful not to abuse that trust.

There are two ways marketers can abuse their subscribers’ trust:

• Sending irrelevant emails. When sending emails that are irrelevant, marketers are putting their subscribers’ trust at risk without gaining any real value in return. This can lead to your emails ending up in spam folders, which can harm your sender reputation.
• Sending malicious emails.; When sending malicious emails, marketers are putting their subscribers’ trust at risk more seriously. This can result in users signing up for a lawsuit or even being reported to law enforcement.

Define what a successful email looks like to you.

Ask yourself some questions as you plan how you want to use email as a marketing tactic: What are the KPIs for these emails? What is the goal of these emails? What metrics do you want to drive with these emails? What does a successful email look like to you?

Is it getting a certain percentage of your audience to open it? Getting a certain percentage of your audience to click on a link? Getting a certain percentage of your audience to take a particular action? What does a successful email do for you, your customers, and your business?

Ensure your emails are responsive for all devices.

People don’t just read email on their computers anymore. They read it on their smartphones and tablets too.

According to one study, about 90 per cent of emails are read on a mobile device—that’s up from about 70 per cent just five years ago. That means your emails have to look good on smaller screens. They have to be formatted in a way that makes sense for the way people are reading emails on their mobile devices.

That also means that your emails must load quickly, so people don’t abandon them. You also need to consider click-through rates and whether people sign up for your emails on their mobile devices.

Meet your customer where they are.

Remember that your customer is busy and probably doesn’t have time to read through an in-depth, in-feed blog post every time you have new content to share. Your customer also probably doesn’t have time to go scouring for your latest newsletter online. But your customer is likely checking their email at least a few times a day—and often many more. That’s the place you want to meet your customer.

That’s why email is such a great marketing channel: It provides a way for you to engage with your customer when they are ready to hear from you and want to hear from you. Email also provides a way for you to be in your customer’s inbox when they’re likely skimming through emails quickly. You don’t have to try to get people to remember to go look for you. You don’t have to try to get people to stumble across you. You don’t have to try to get people to click on a link when they’re not even in the right app to click on a link.

Don’t just rely on email as a deliverable tactic.

Email is not just a tactic. It’s a channel that’s designed to build and deepen relationships with your customers and your audience.

That doesn’t mean that you don’t have a call to action in every one of your emails. It doesn’t mean you don’t have offers or other marketing messages in each email. However, the most successful email marketing campaigns are those that are less salesy and more relationship-focused. You want your emails to be relationship-driven. You want your emails to be helpful or educational, or inspiring. You want your emails to be a two-way street—not just a one-way street where you’re always selling.

Keep your sending habits and cadence consistent.

Consistency is key when it comes to email marketing. If you know that you typically send out your newsletter on the second Monday of each month, then you need to send that newsletter on the second Monday of each month. Every time you break from your established cadence, you lose credibility with your audience. You lose the trust and legitimacy you’ve worked so hard to earn. You want your audience to know what to expect when they sign up to receive emails from you. You want to be predictable so your audience can rely on you.

Be transparent about how you collect, store, and use consumer data.

In our data-driven world, customers expect transparency. They want to know where their data is going and what it’s used for. They want to know how it’s being protected. They want to know what rights they have in terms of controlling and accessing their data. That means being transparent about how you collect and store that data.

It also means letting your customers know what you do with that data. How do you use it? What do you do with it? What value does it provide to your company? How does it help you deliver a better experience for your customers? That doesn’t mean you have to share your exact algorithms or formulas. But it does mean you have to be transparent about the basics.

Don’t be afraid to test different types of content.

It’s true that you need to be consistent in your email marketing. It’s also true that you need to be intentional about the types of emails you send. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try different things from time to time. That means you can’t be afraid to test different types of content in your emails.

You can try different types of subject lines. You can try different types of calls to action. You can try different types of content in your emails. You can try putting out different types of offers in your emails. You can try talking to your audience in different ways. You can try different things, but you need to be consistent in your approach so that your customers know what to expect.

Don’t forget to measure!

Measurement is vital in any marketing effort. The great thing about email marketing is that you can track many different metrics.

One of the most important metrics you should be tracking (if you’re not already) is your open rate. Your open rate shows you how many people open your emails. In email marketing, open rates are often expressed as a percentage. So if 100 people open your email, and you have 1,000 subscribers, your open rate would be 10 per cent.

Summing up

It’s important to note that you’ll also want to track any other metrics that are specific to your business. For instance, you might want to track the number of clicks each email receives or how many people end up filling out a form after clicking on a link in your email.

Email marketing is a tried-and-true way to reach and engage your customers. But what can often get lost in the shuffle is how to ensure you are staying compliant with email marketing regulations. To ensure your emails stay out of the spam folder, it’s essential to keep these best practices in mind.

Further Reading

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