10 Email Marketing Best Practices to Increase Open and Click Through Rates

Email marketing is one of the best marketing strategies you can implement to boost your business’s reach in the online world.
Email marketing is a mixture of content marketing and email automation that involves sending customized email content to audiences that fit your ideal customer persona.
Good email marketing lets you promote your products and services directly to people who are already interested in knowing more while allowing your customers to get direct deals and offers that they’ll love at the same time.
A properly planned and efficiently executed email marketing campaign can effectively boost your revenue. However, we get that this is easier said than done, which is why we’re sharing our ten best email marketing practices.
#1. Use a Clear, Concise Subject Lines
Even before readers open emails, the first thing they’ll see is the subject line.
A well-written email subject line can help capture the recipient’s attention and encourage higher open rates. MailChimp reported that the average email open rate is at a dismal 21.33%, so you really have to make your subject line pop.
Once the email is clicked, there’s a much higher chance that audiences will follow through, ultimately leading to more conversions and revenue for your business.
BONUS: Adding engaging preheader snippets will also give your email clients a better idea of what your message contains.
A good subject and preheader will give readers the information they need without having to spend a lot of effort, hopefully putting you above the average open rate for promotional emails.
#2. Segment Your Email List
Grouping your email list into specific interests, needs, behaviors, and demographics allows you to market more effectively to those groups.
It gives you a clear idea of what content marketing approach they might want, and avoid sending out broad-ranging content to your entire list. This increases the relevance of the things that you send out, which can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Segmenting also allows you to conduct A/B testing of different marketing campaigns for different groups. By measuring your results through A/B testing, you can optimize your approach accordingly.
#3. Optimize for Mobile Devices
Mobile devices are permanently integrated into the fabric of consumerism, and that includes email marketing. According to Litmus, mobile accounted for 49.7% of all email opens from their clients for the year 2021.
When people research or buy things, they use their phones. Thus, your emails must be readable on small mobile screens rather than just being made for wide desktops.
If your emails are not optimized for mobile devices, they may be difficult to read or interact with on a small screen, leading to low open rates, poor engagement, and suffering conversion rates.
Having easy-to-interact with email creates better email deliverability, as many email service providers use mobile optimization as a criterion for filtering out non-optimized emails.
Without mobile optimization, your email is more likely to come across as spammy and not arrive in their inbox at all.
#4. Use a Clear and Visually Appealing Design
Visual design isn’t just an optional cool perk that you can add to your email—it’s essential to make your offer stand out and your content more palatable to your readers.
Nothing turns a potential customer off more than a badly designed email offer; they won’t even bother giving your content the time of day.
Most email providers allow you to customize your designs and let you make templates.
Consider a simple layout that uses images, videos, and other visual elements to make your message more engaging and memorable. If you want to improve accessibility, you can also provide a text alternative, or use a high-contrast color scheme.
But also, use caution. It’s important for emails to look presentable and align with your brand, but also not to overdo it.
#5. Personalize the Email With the Recipient’s Information
Personalization is a must when creating marketing copy for your email marketing campaigns.
According to a 2021 report by McKinsey, 71% of customers expect personalization in their online interactions, and 76% of them are frustrated when they don’t find the personalization they’re looking for.
Your audience cares about their customer experience, and they want to know that you share those feelings as well. Personalization is a great way you can show you care enough about them to deliver hyper-relevant content and tailor-made campaigns that fit their needs perfectly.
You can include the recipient’s name in your copy, create a subtly different subject line for every email, and send them an email copy relevant to their current needs.
#6. Use a Clear Call to Action
A clear call to action (CTA) is an essential component of any email marketing campaign because it tells the recipient what they should do next.
A well-written and prominently placed CTA can increase the chances that recipients will take the desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a service, or visiting a website. It can also increase your website’s click-through rate (CTR), which increases traffic.
The best call to action is specific, action-oriented, and easy to find. Making your CTA visually distinct also makes it stand out among the other content, and creating a sense of urgency can also help galvanize individuals to take action.
#7. Test and Optimize the Subject Line, Layout, and Content
You can optimize the effectiveness of your copy by testing every aspect of your emails.
Email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp let you A/B test specific parts of your email to your target audience to see what sticks.
Testing a good number of emails is crucial. It lets you refine the quality, relevance, and even appearance of your email so that you can deliver the best type of email for your audience.
Email marketing monitors also make it easy to test whether benchmarks that you’ve gained from other campaigns will apply to your own.
#8. Use a Consistent Sender Name and Email Address
You reinforce your brand by every little thing you do in its name, even if it’s something as small as your sender name and email address.
Using a consistent sender name and email address in email marketing is important for building trust and recognition with your audience. Familiarity is key, especially since the people in your contact list receive hundreds of emails every day.
Being consistent in your sender name and email address also helps you avoid spam filters.
#9. Follow Spam Laws and Best Practices
The spam folder is where all poorly designed email content goes to. According to a report by HubSpot, promotional emails comprise at least 70% of spam complaints from readers; because a lot of email marketers don’t know enough to follow spam rules.
To help you avoid the spam box, follow these simple rules.
- Only send marketing emails to formal email subscribers.
- Avoid using too many emojis in the content of your email.
- Don’t use misleading subject lines
Regularly sending spammy and unwanted emails will damage your sender reputation and will make your precious email list want to unsubscribe.
#10. Regularly Clean and Update Your Email List
Regularly cleaning and updating your email list helps to maintain the accuracy and effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Removing invalid email addresses or inactive subscribers improves the deliverability of your emails, as well as the overall performance of your campaigns.
Regularly evaluating your email subscribers can help you identify and remove any addresses that have been obtained through spamming or other unethical means. This can help to protect your brand reputation and avoid any legal issues.
How Interrupt Media Can Help With Email Marketing
Email marketing can be a very rewarding marketing strategy that directly connects you to your consumers, but it’s tricky to implement.
It also requires a significant amount of time and effort to get perfect, but the rewards are astounding if you get it right. Plus, it can easily and instantly connect you to your target audience, giving them high-quality and relevant offers that they care about.
Interrupt Media can help you develop a strong email marketing campaign that can benefit both big and small businesses alike.
Are you ready to take your email marketing to the next level? With state-of-the-art solutions and a white glove client services approach, we can provide the support and guidance needed to make sure that your email campaigns reach their full potential.
Speak with a strategist today to get started.