Introduction to Email Marketing: Tips and Best Practices to Drive Traffic and Sales

Sep 28, 2015

Email marketing can be an extremely effective marketing tool for businesses who know how to properly use it. Read on to learn commonly accepted email marketing content best practices that will help increase your click through rate (CTR).

First, it’s important to understand that much of the emails that are sent out by businesses don’t even make it to their customers’ inbox because their Internet Service Provider filters it as spam or junk mail. There are some email marketing content best practices to follow in order to have the email delivered successfully to their inbox. These include maintaining a balance of HTML and text, authenticating your sending ID (that is, customizing that little blurb that says, “You are receiving this email because…” to let people know who you are and reminding them that they signed up for your newsletter), and keeping the subject and content short and to the point.

It’s a good idea to segment your subscriber list and send differing content to people in different stages of the buying cycle. For example, you may segment your list into people who have created an account but have never made a purchase, those who have made one or two purchases, and frequent customers. Creating a unique message tailored to each group can be an effective way to drive sales. Providing people who have never made a purchase with a discount or free offer will encourage some of those who were on the fence about making a purchase to go ahead and do so.

Keep in mind that your company must provide email content that’s relevant to your subscribers. In order to get a high CTR, the message should give subscribers something they want or need, at the time they want or need it. For example, if your company is a retail store, your customers are probably looking for coupons during the busy holiday shopping season, so providing them with a discount code in mid-December will yield a higher CTR than sending them the same email during the slower summer season.

When utilized properly, email marketing can be an inexpensive and effective way to increase traffic and drive sales. For assistance with email marketing campaigns and to learn more email marketing content best practices for this type of digital marketing, contact the experts at BCI Media Services!