Email marketing has become a staple for so many businesses over the years. Businesses use email marketing as a way to keep in touch with their customers and subscribers, and as a way to maintain engagement with them during the times they aren’t physically in their establishments.
Are you a business with email marketing questions you aren’t sure how to answer?
Well, you’re in luck! Here is a collection of some of the most common email marketing questions we receive on a daily basis.
Do I need email marketing software?
One of the email marketing questions that probably gets asked the most is whether someone actually needs email marketing software to begin with. The answer of course depends on what you are looking to accomplish with your marketing. Are you looking to send regular emails to clients and subscribers or are you looking to send one-off emails to clients individually?
Email marketing software can do wonders for a business’s efficiency – whether it’s a small, medium, or large-sized operation. Having the ability to send bulk email messages to contacts all at once and at a pre-scheduled time reduces the stress put on an organization and gives them the ability to put their email marketing on the back burner – in the sense that they don’t have to worry about it as much and can focus on other business operations.
There is a lot you should know about email marketing software before you make the leap to automated email marketing, so be sure to start by checking out this blog!
How do I target my email marketing to specific demographics?
The great thing about using automation software to conduct your email marketing is the number of really neat features you can use to fully optimize your marketing efforts. For example, some email marketing tools include features to help you easily target your emails so people are most likely to engage with them, such as merge tags and conditional filters. These features pull information you already know about your email contacts and use it in a way to further engage them on a personal level so that they feel valued and respected.
Another way to target your email marketing to specific demographics is through the creation of targeted contact lists. Again, this helps the personalization factor of your emails, and allows you to send your emails to the right people at the right time. The goal of targeting your emails to specific contacts is to increase the likelihood that they will actually open your email.
Check out the following blog for more information on creating targeted email lists to help with your email marketing.
What makes a good subject line?
Email marketers are always searching for that elusive “perfect subject line” that will result in high open rates and even higher conversion ad click-through numbers. So it is no wonder that we often get asked how to write a good email subject line. Writing subject lines can be a bit of an art form and it often takes a lot of trial and error to get them just right.
There are a few things that everyone should know when trying to write a good subject line. Writing for mobile is key, because more than half of emails are now opened on the recipient’s mobile device. Personalization of the subject line can also go a long way to increasing open rates. Including more than one topic in your subject can help it appeal to more readers instead of hedging your bets that all email recipients will be interested in the same thing.
For more information on these tips and more information about creating a good subject line, be sure to check out this blog!
What is an email open rate?
To put it simply, your email open rate is an email marketing metric reflecting the number of times your email has been opened and viewed by your recipients. This metric can be collected in a couple ways. First, this metric can be collected as the number of total opens your emails receive, which will include the numbers for any recipients who may have opened and viewed the email more than once. Alternatively, you can collect this metric as the number of individual opens the email has received by distinct recipients.
Naturally, a high open rate is a good thing. The more opens your email receives means there’s a greater chance it will lead to a conversion. If you are looking for ways to improve your email open rates, look no further than this blog which includes some helpful tips.
What does email delivery mean and how does it affect me?
A lot of the email marketing questions we receive have something to do with email delivery. Email delivery essentially means that the emails you are sending are finding their way into your contacts’ inboxes, rather than bouncing back due to an invalid email address or landing in the Junk folder. Low delivery rates will have a negative impact on your business’s domain, reducing your online credibility and increase your chances of your IP address ending up on a blocklist.
While a blocklist monitor can help notify your business if your IP address ends up on a registered blocklist and provide you with the initial steps for removing yourself from that list, the easier solution would be to improve your email delivery rates to avoid ending up on a blocklist in the first place! The first step to this is ensuring your email marketing lists are current and up to date, and all contacts on these lists have opted in to receive emails from your business.
For some easy ways to improve the delivery of your email marketing lists, check out this blog!
What is a spam filter?
Spam filters have a lot to do with email delivery. They are essentially pieces of software that use different techniques to redirect unwanted mail (i.e. junk mail or spam) from someone’s email inbox. Spam filters can check against a bunch of different criteria, such as your sender email address and the content of the subject line or email body itself.
In short, you don’t want to be caught by a spam filter because it will cause your email delivery rate to decline and when your delivery rate declines, so does your online credibility. Luckily, we have a list of more than 100 of the top spam trigger words and phrases to avoid in your email marketing to help prevent you from getting caught in a spam filter.
Can I purchase a list of email addresses to send to?
Short answer: yes you can but no you shouldn’t.
While there are email marketing lists on the internet that can be bought or rented for sending purposes, it is definitely not best practice to do so. Going back to the subject of email delivery, buying or renting lists of email addresses that may or may not be real; may or may not be up to date; and may or may not be opted in will more often than not have a negative effect on your online reputation as a result of too many bounces.
As well, if poor deliverability is not enough to sway you from using bought or rented email lists, what about the violation of anti-spam legislation? CAN-SPAM and CASL both require that all contacts you send emails to be opted-in or subscribed to receive messages from you. If you are sending to a bunch of non-subscribed (or unsubscribed) email addresses, you are sending spam and are therefore in violation of these legislations.
Click here for more information on why buying or renting email lists is a bad idea.
How do I write a marketing email?
The marketing email. An email created expressly for generating interest and leads for a business’s products and services. Marketing emails generally have a high ROI – if they are done right.
The first thing to look at when writing a marketing email is the subject line; the first thing a recipient sees when they receive the email that basically lets them know whether they want to open it or not. A subject line that uses actionable language (using CTAs such as “Download,” “Reserve,” or “Ensure”) lets readers know what to expect upon opening your email; staying away from spam triggers helps ensure your emails get to the appropriate inboxes; and grabbing readers’ attention by inciting curiosity with the subject line are good starting points to writing a marketing email.
Read this blog for more information on subject lines as well as tips on writing the marketing email itself!
What is the best email marketing strategy?
Now this is one of those email marketing questions that is a little subjective. The best email marketing strategy varies from business to business, depending on the business type, size, location, and so many other factors.
One tried and tried email marketing strategy has always been to make sure your emails contains engaging content and are well-designed. No one will want to read a poorly-written email with an erratic layout and sloppy use of color and images. The key thing to remember is “less is more” and make sure to break up walls of text with catchy images or graphics. Never underestimate the power of a well-written and well-designed email!
For more information regarding this particular email marketing strategy along with several others, check out this blog!
Did we answer your email marketing questions?
Email marketing can be tricky to navigate sometimes but we hope we provided you with some helpful information on how to make it a bit easier!
Click the button below for a demo on how you can get started with email marketing today with SimplyCast’s automated Email Marketing software!
