Refresh your email marketing by following these simple rules

As we approach the beginning of the new financial year, many businesses will be reviewing their marketing strategies, and looking at how they can generate a greater ROI by creating more leads. One effective way to do this is through email marketing. Email marketing can often have a bad reputation for spam, but when handled properly and by sticking to best practice methods, it can be a very effective tool, welcomed by recipients. Here are some simple rules to follow to refresh your email marketing strategy:

Issues with email marketing

The most well-known problem with email marketing is that emails can get filtered into Junk by a spam filter, even before they’re read by recipients. With the amount of junk mail that is sent worldwide, it’s a common feature of many Email Service Providers (ESPs) to filter out unwanted emails. This can be bad news for genuine businesses contacting prospects and can render whole campaigns ineffective, as a large volume won’t even be opened. However, there are ways to prevent this happening.

Compose your email with thought to get around the spam filter

The composition of your email will have a significant impact on how it is received. Getting around a spam filter involves staying up to date with the latest algorithm changes and ever evolving spam phrases. Using these “trigger” phrases, words or formatting will give your email a spam score. Avoid spam scores within emails to prevent any obstacles that could stop recipients from reading and receiving your emails. Typical examples to avoid include “Free” and “Click here” as well as erratic use of punctuation or capital letters.

Again, there are things that you can do to avoid being classed as “spam”, including sending your email in a plain text format. Avoid using colours, particularly green and red, or large images, which will increase the likelihood of being sent to “Junk”. There are other best practice things to remember, such as always including an unsubscribe link in the email, which is a legal requirement.

Choose a reliable email marketing platform

The only way to truly measure the success of your email marketing strategy is to use analytics. The best and most reliable email marketing software solutions will allow you to track links and measure the opens, clicks, and unsubscribes from your campaign, amongst other important factors. A good email platform will alert you to any setup issues before allowing you to send, as well as giving you the chance to send a “test” email to see what the email will look like when received in different inboxes.

Get expert help and campaign management

The way that businesses approach email marketing will inevitably be different for each different company. A key part of your digital marketing campaign, email marketing can generate huge numbers of leads, visitors to your website, or attendees to your events, when it is carried out properly.

Hopefully these tips will have given you a head start to your email marketing, but if your campaigns need a refresh, or you’re looking to establish email marketing for the first time, give one of the Iconic Digital team a call today on 020 7100 0726 to discuss your requirements.