Email Marketing Top 10 Best Practice Tips

Email marketing can be a great way to get a message to the right audience. We’ve compiled a list best practice guidelines to help you make your emails stand out and achieve the results you desire.

1. Measuring Success- Ensure you outline what your key performance indicators are going to be e.g.:
   • Open rate
   • Click-through rate
   • Click to open rate (number of unique clicks/number of unique opens)
   • Bounce rate
   • Delivery rate (emails sent, measured against bounces)
   • Unsubscribe rate
   • Referral rate ('send-to-a-friend')
   • Number, or proportion of, spam complaints
2. Personalisation - Improve response rates by personalising the email content – try and use more imaginative ways than just using the recipient's first name.
3. Testing - Test your email content with all the top email clients and providers to ensure it can be seen by the majority of users.
4. Subject line – Keep subject lines short and to the point – try to refrain from using words which will be 'junked' by spam filters.
5. Images & Alt tags – Refrain from putting text within an image. Most email clients don’t automatically download images; therefore image content is not viewable on first sight. If you have to use text within images, ensure you use an ‘Alt’ tag reiterating the text within the graphic.
6. Width of email content – Limit email content to 650 pixels wide. Most email clients open email content within a window pane and therefore users don’t automatically see all of your content if you go beyond this boundary.
7. Over spamming – Don’t send too many emails to your audience unless you know they want to receive them. Many people make the mistake of sending daily / weekly emails to their database only to find that consumers quickly opt out.
8. Keep it relevant – Consumers like to receive messages that are relevant to them. Don’t try and sell them something they did not sign up for.
9. Promote key content at the top – Make sure you communicate key messages at the top of your email content. Many email clients don’t automatically display all email content therefore the top content needs to be motivating enough to encourage consumers to scroll down.
10. Calls to Action – ensure the content is clear, consistent and communicates a clear call to action.