18 Email Marketing Best Practices
Email campaigns are a powerful tool to improve your customer relations and increase your sales. Simple and effective, email allows you to target your customers and prospects efficiently and at a lower cost. Follow the leader !
The benefits of email marketing
An active part of the commercial strategy, emailing has many advantages.
It is very effective in retaining and acquiring new customers , and very profitable:
the average return on investment for emailing is estimated at €32 for €1 spent (source: DMA – 2019 Email Marketing Attitude Study);
it generates high purchase rates : 81% of SMEs consider it their first customer acquisition channel (source: Emarsys 2018).
Launching an emailing campaign is easy : by centralizing the management of your campaigns on a single tool, designing and sending your emails to your contacts or separate groups of contacts is accessible to everyone.
The shipments are fast , the answers too.
Email marketing allows for precise targeting , and messages are customizable.
To comply with the personal data protection framework, the GDPR , emailing campaigns have been adapted. If a few years ago, we could send messages in a massive way to more or less targeted contacts, we now need the consent of the recipient to send him a message and allow him to easily unsubscribe if he wishes. These constraints have given rise to new challenges:
To create a first list of contacts you can use several methods simultaneously, the idea being to collect as many email addresses as possible:
ask your customers for their contact details at your point of sale or at trade fairs in order to offer them promotions, invite them to events or offer them a loyalty card;
encourage Internet users to subscribe to your newsletter by clicking on a link located on your website;
offer those who consult your site the benefit of free resources (infographics, digital book, invitations, contests, etc.) in
Targeting each of your campaigns will allow you to get a much better return on investment and avoid saturating your prospects or customers with unnecessary emails , which would harm your business.
Two main approaches are possible to segment the targets of your emailing campaigns:
use the recipient’s situation in their customer journey : prospect, customer, ambassador, etc. to provide them with appropriate answers or solutions, with regard to the conversion funnel you have defined ;
Sendinblue is ideal for beginners. In its free version, this French tool allows you to send up to 300 emails per day to an unlimited contact list. Paid features go beyond email campaign management. They offer the possibility of sending SMS campaigns, managing forms, etc.
Sarbacane is also a French software. A one-month free trial is offered for this very intuitive, complete and very good quality tool.
Mailjet , although it also offers other features, is an interesting tool if you have an e-commerce site, to test and send purchase or event confirmation emails. It allows you to send 6000 emails per month for free for an unlimited contact list.
Beyond managing your email sends to your contact list, you can trigger automatic sends to the right target, at the right time , using pre-designed scenarios:
Send a welcome email when subscribing to your newsletter or newsletter;
send a follow-up email following the abandonment of a basket on an e-commerce site;
display dynamic content in your newsletter : if the Internet user has already purchased product A to which a clickable button is offered, a link to product B is automatically displayed;
propose personalized messages in windows opening on your site according to the behavior of the Internet user;
manage SMS campaigns …
Consult 10 examples of automated emails to set up blogdumoderateur.com , and more generally 10 examples of use of marketing automation (araoo.fr) .
Many automation marketing tools (mondedumail.com) offer very comprehensive features.
Discover the testimony of an entrepreneur who doubled his turnover by automating his entire customer relationship .
How to make email messages that have an impact on your target?
Include must-have elements to generate interest in your posts
The subject of the message should draw attention to your email. The recommended length is 50 characters. Mentioning a current topic or integrating emojis (small image representing an emotion) are good practices, conversely using generic titles (Urgent need, Subscribe, Free for you, etc.) can classify your message in the mails junk or spam.
Consult a list of words to avoid in the subject of your emailings (unarticlepourleweb.fr) .
The sending address must reassure with a personalized name associated with the name of your company, personalization generates a greater number of openings of emails.
The summary of your email that appears under the subject must be interesting enough to encourage its opening, the most important information must be placed at the very beginning of the message.
Create engaging content
The content and form of your message must be adapted to your target and your objectives : a simple message will be suitable for an order confirmation email, finding a balance between texts and images will be necessary to encourage the reading of a Information letter.
Discover 50 design newsletter templates to inspire you (canva.com) .
Place your preference action button at the top of your message , it is a very visible visual link, in a color contrasting with the rest of the message, which aims to make your prospect realize this priority action.
Prefer action verbs for the text of your button: I discover, I subscribe, I go, Download, Contact…
Pay particular attention to the landing page (also called the landing page) on which the recipient arrives after clicking on