As the landscape of digital marketing adjusts to the ever-changing trends and the latest innovations in technology, email marketing remains one of the most popular and effective methods of nurturing relationships with your customer base and promoting your products and services.

Despite the prevalence of social media, 90% of adults and 74% of teenagers continue to use email messaging. In fact, there are approximately 269 billion emails sent each day. This means two things: first, that emails are still an ideal channel to share information and market to your target audience, and second, that your target audience may already be inundated with tons of emails.

Inbox management apps have become increasingly common, making the chances of getting your emails noticed even slimmer. So how do you make sure your brand’s message isn’t lost to the void of the filters and engages your leads enough to get them to act?

An email marketing campaign can be the solution to get more engagements, clickthroughs, and conversions from your leads. This post will guide you through the best practices of creating and implementing an effective email marketing campaign.

What is an Email Marketing Campaign?

An email marketing campaign is comprised of regularly-sent emails from a business or organization to one or more prospects to encourage them to take action on your message and engage with your business.

By integrating email marketing in your overall digital marketing strategy, a campaign can help push leads one-step closer to conversion, reconnect with previous customers, or offer something new to your loyal client base.

Like other marketing efforts, an email marketing campaign requires careful planning and consideration to be effective.

Best Practices for Attracting and Engaging with your Email Marketing Campaign

The success of your email marketing campaign rides on catching and sustaining the already-limited attention your target audience has. Below is a list of the best practices your business needs to create and implement an effective campaign.

1. Know Your Goals

Like all kinds of marketing, you need to make your goals clear from the get-go. Otherwise, the campaign won’t have a solid direction and will end up being a waste of effort and time.

Some of the more common campaign goals are sending welcome messages to new leads who’ve signed up for your email list, promoting content, products, or services, connecting with your existing contacts through valuable content, re-engagement emails for prospects who haven’t converted or previous customers who aren’t as active, and segmenting your list of contacts to better create targeted messaging.

It’s best to put these goals in line with your existing marketing strategies and your company’s overall objectives, keeping in mind your ideal buyer personas and other relevant industry data.

2. Craft a Good Subject Line

In the little amount of time you have, from the moment your target audience sees your email to their next action, your subject line should be enough keep their interests piqued to click and read the rest of your message.

A good subject line is short, snappy, and gives the readers a taste of what they can expect from the rest of the email. Depending on your brand image and overall tone for communication, you can also add the receiver’s name to engage them better. Avoid using clickbait or sensational titles, as these may lead to your email being filtered to the junk folder.

3. Get to the Point

Email may not have a character limit, but that doesn’t mean that you should be writing lengthy essays in the copy. The tiny bit of text, also known as previews or pre-header text, should be just as compelling for the reader to want to read the rest of your email.

A common mistake marketers make is placing the “view in your web browser” text above everything, making it take over the preview. Instead, try rephrasing your subject line or summarizing the purpose of the email in a few words.

4. Offer Something Good

Good email marketing should give your target audience something valuable—new information, a discount on in-demand items, exclusive eBooks, and more. These offers help keep your business in their minds and build trust with them.

The key to making your campaign more valuable is to add variety to the kind of marketing emails you send. Nobody wants an inbox full of repetitive and templated promotions. If the content is valuable and engaging, then they’re more likely to listen to you and continue connecting with your brand in the long run.

Consider creating subcategories for your email lists based on demographics and other data to channel the most relevant content to the right recipients.

5. Tailor Your Message

Digital marketing has the unique opportunity of having the ability to create highly-customized messages that talk to your prospects in a more personal way. A simple shift from a generic salutation to using the recipient’s name can already set a tone that makes them more open to interacting with your brand.

The copy and content of your email can be just as targeted by using what you know about your list: geographic location, demographics, market type, past site activity, current stage in the conversion pipeline, and other useful customer data. Ensure that your emails are warm and compelling while adhering to your brand’s image and tone.

6. Design Your Email Well

Keep in mind that your email isn’t just information sent to your prospect’s inbox. The content and overall design reflect your brand as a whole, and an ugly or clunky email is definitely not going to earn you points with your target market.

Make sure your email copy isn’t too lengthy and break up blocks of text with an eye-catching image or graphic. Use bullet points to help your reader skim through the contents without missing vital information.

Optimize your design for readability and accessibility across various platforms—desktop, mobile, tablet, etc. Ensure that your overall layout and elements don’t look rigid, dated, or otherwise weaken your message.

7. Add a Call-To-Action (CTA)

At the end of the day, the goal of your email is to get the recipient to act on it—whether to click a link to your page, pick up on items they abandoned in their cart, or share content to their social media pages. That action needs to be crystal clear, or your excellently-crafted email will just go to waste.

When creating your CTA, choose words that make the desired action clear but are also descriptive and exciting. Integrate your CTA into your overall email design to make it more eye-catching and easy to find. Finally, ensure that it will lead to the desired action with no unnecessary steps.

8. Test and Track Your Campaign

Making sure the email’s contents and method of distribution are working in order to save you from the worry and any possible mishaps that may tank your campaign before it even begins. This involves viewing the design and layouts on various devices and ensuring all elements are functional.

Once the campaign is underway, keeping an eye on your data will allow you to make tweaks and experiment with different approaches to maximize results. Having data on your campaign’s performance can also provide useful insights to guide your future marketing endeavors.

Wrapping It Up

Email marketing campaigns are a great opportunity to provide your contacts with something valuable: interesting content, exclusive information, and even promos for products and services. In turn, this can help push them into trusting and engaging with your brand, leading to more traffic and conversions.

A successful email marketing campaign relies on good strategy, a deep understanding of your target market, and knowing how to say the right things to get your prospects to act on your message.