It’s predicted that 333.2 billion emails will be sent and received each day in 2022.
It’s proof that email marketing is far from dead. So, if you haven’t gotten your brand moving to take advantage of email marketing, now is the perfect time to start building up your email list.
With so many emails sent daily, how can you make sure your emails stand out in a crowded inbox? How do you ensure people take notice? What do you need to do to make sure they consume your content?
We’ll cover the answers to these questions and more as we share 10 hot email marketing tips you can use in 2022 and beyond.
10 Hot Email Marketing Tips for 2022
It’s safe to say most of us subscribe to a lot of email newsletters, especially if you run a business. And there’s a good chance many of them get sent straight to the trash unopened. If you want to prevent the same fate from happening to the newsletters you send, keep these email marketing tips in mind:
1. Keep Your Target Reader in Mind When Writing
To write truly irresistible emails, you need to put yourself in the shoes of your target reader. What would they want to see in an email from you? What kind of content would they enjoy reading? Whatever it is, that’s what you want to send to them. When they look forward to seeing your name in their inbox, they’re more likely to open and eagerly engage with the content you send.
To take it a step further, consider segmenting your email list based on interests or where they are in the buyer’s journey. This makes your content more focused and personalized for the groups of subscribers you target with each campaign. Essentially, it ensures they receive the content they’re most interested in seeing versus getting bombarded with other information. Not only does this increase open rates, but people will be less likely to unsubscribe.
2. Write Subject Lines That Grab Attention
Of all the email marketing tips in the world, this is the one you should take the most seriously. Your subject line could make or break the success of your email. It might sound like a lot of pressure, but your subject line is crucial. It’s what people see first thing. Those few words help them decide whether they open your email or send it straight to the trash.
If you want to increase your open rates and get people to read the content you so painstakingly crafted, your subject line needs to grab attention. It needs to be descriptive while still being short and sweet. And most importantly, it should never mislead your subscribers. Clickbait subject lines can reduce your read rates by 9% or more.
3. Schedule Emails to Send at Optimal Times
After you finish crafting a compelling email, it might be tempting to hit send immediately. However, it might not be the most optimal time for an email to land in your subscribers’ inbox. You want to reach them when they’re more inclined to open and read your content.
The tricky thing about finding the right time to send emails is that it tends to vary based on the industry. Although, there is some data you can use to help you narrow down a few times to experiment with. Then, you can see what your unique audience responds to.
Stick With Daytime: It’s better to send emails to your list when your subscribers are awake. Because you can have subscribers based across the globe and in different time zones, consider the location of most of your audience when choosing your ideal time.
Avoid Mondays and Weekends: Many people arrive in the office first thing on Monday morning and delete any unnecessary emails, so you don’t want yours to fall into that category. Emails are often ignored on weekends as well, which is when people tend to disconnect.
Go With Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: According to MailChimp, these three days tend to be the favorites when sending email campaigns. Try sending emails on these days to see if one triggers a higher open rate than another. Then, you can choose one day for weekly consistency.
At the end of the day, be willing to test and tweak your schedule. Once you’ve figured out the best day and time to send your emails, it’s one less thing you to worry about. Instead, you can just focus on implementing the rest of these email marketing tips.
4. Make Sure Your Emails Are Optimized for Mobile
Because you’re sending your emails from a desktop website, it can be easy to forget to check how the result looks on a mobile device. But, most of us are reading our emails on mobile. That’s why you need to take the extra step to ensure your email template and all your content suit a smaller screen. Otherwise, your subscribers will have a hard time reading what you’ve sent, and they could delete your email without engaging.
Luckily, many platforms allow you to preview your email on mobile. Often, you can even send a test email to yourself before it goes out to your list. Then, you can make any final tweaks to ensure it’s mobile-friendly and looks great. Take the extra few minutes to do this before sending!
As a good rule of thumb, you’ll want to stick to a single-column email template. You’ll also want to choose a font size that’s legible on mobile since subscribers won’t be able to make it bigger. Additionally, you’ll want to double-check the size of any images and buttons that you’ve added.
5. Engage Subscribers Right Off the Bat
If you’re not already sending a welcome email (or even an entire welcome sequence) to your new subscribers, you’re missing out. The smartest thing you can do to take your email marketing and your business to the next level is to engage with people while they’re hot. Someone who’s just subscribed is likely the most interested they can be in your brand, and you should use that to your advantage.
By sending a welcome email, you engage with people immediately after they’ve joined your list. This is your opportunity to introduce people to your brand, so they’ll know what you’re all about. They have a clear picture of what to expect from your upcoming content. Plus, you get the chance to start building that relationship with them early on. As you do, they’ll start to see you as a thought leader in your industry, and it gets the ball rolling when building trust.
Whether you send a single welcome email or an entire email sequence is up to you. Consider what your audience would most resonate with. If you opt for an email sequence, just make sure you don’t go overboard. Keep it valuable and engaging.
6. Keep the Body of Your Emails Short and Sweet
While it may be tempting to share all your thoughts in a novel-length email, that might not appeal to your subscribers. One of the best email marketing tips we can offer is to keep the body copy of your emails short and sweet. A gigantic block of text can be a turn-off for your audience, and they will likely stop reading.
Instead, be concise. Focus on the main ideas of your content and avoid rambling. This way, your subscribers can read your email, receive the intended value, and move on to the next step.
7. Don’t Forget the Call to Action
Speaking of that important next step, it’s wise to end your email with a call to action (CTA). Now, this can change depending on the goal of your email. Sometimes your CTA might be to get someone to visit your website and read your latest blog post. Or if you’re in the middle of a launch, your CTA will be intended to drive sales. Do what’s appropriate and relevant to the email.
The CTA is so important because it tells people what that next step is. If someone has read your email and enjoyed the content, they’re likely poised and ready to take action. Take advantage of that by letting them know what they should do after reading your email. It’s a great way to boost engagement.
8. Never Buy Email Addresses
No matter how badly you want to grow your email list, avoid purchasing email addresses. That should be a given, but unfortunately, it’s still happening in the world of email marketing. Many companies are desperate to gain subscribers and purchase the personal information of those they believe to be their target customers. These people wonder how they wound up on an email list they don’t remember joining. It’s a turn-off and reflects poorly on your brand.
If you want more subscribers, you need to go about it the right way. For example, create a freebie that would appeal to your ideal subscriber, which you can then provide in exchange for their name and email. This freebie could be a downloadable PDF, a challenge or short email course, or even a store discount. The options are endless, so you can test to see what works best for you and your audience.
Doing it this way will take more time and effort, but it ensures you have a list of subscribers interested in your brand and your content.
9. Always be Respectful of Your Subscribers
You know how busy your inbox can get. It’s the same for your subscribers. For that reason, you never want to spam them with a bunch of unnecessary content. Instead, only send emails when you have something of value to share with them. For example, stick to just sending a weekly newsletter to keep your list warm, and don’t bombard them with anything else.
49% of consumers stated they’d like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands every week. So, that’s a great goal to aim for when it comes to your email marketing efforts!
The only time you want to increase the number of emails you’re sending is when you’re going through a launch. Then and only then is it acceptable to send daily emails, and in some cases, multiple emails per day. Even during a launch, it’s smart to give people the choice to opt-out of launch emails and only receive your regular newsletters instead.
10. Don’t Be Afraid to Clean Your List from Time to Time
To conclude our round-up of email marketing tips, we also want to encourage you to delete subscribers from your list periodically. While that may sound crazy, there’s a good reason for this advice. Generally, the platforms you use to send emails charge you based on the number of subscribers you’ve accumulated. And many of them are probably inactive.
If you don’t purge inactive subscribers from your list, you’re only costing yourself more money in the long run. That’s why it’s helpful to make one last move to re-engage your list and then delete those subscribers who have gone “cold.” Cold subscribers haven’t opened your emails in a long time and, most likely, have no plans to open any you send in the future. Don’t keep them around to hurt your open rates, remove them from your lists.
Let Us Put These Email Marketing Tips to Use
Don’t have a lot of experience writing emails? Don’t stress. You can take your time to learn more about email marketing or outsource to a content writing agency.
Express Writers has a team of expert email writers experienced with writing engaging and professional email copy. They put the email marketing tips we’ve covered to good use and craft copy that will boost your open and click-through rates. Want to learn more?
Contact us today to learn more about how we train our email writers.
Have you ever wondered how effective your emails are?
Do they leave an impression, or just end up in the trash folder?
It may be that you measure email success by the amount of people who open it and then click through. Which means that the email first has to be opened, then read, then clicked.
Not to mention it also has to be the appropriate length and interesting enough to engage readers and move them to action.
How much does email length matter? Can your tone shine through, and does anyone really read the subject line, anyway?
We’re here to break the answers to these questions down, and give you an updated guide (with a recent Boomerang exclusive!) all about email content marketing. Boost your email results when you put these into practice. Keep reading!
Email Marketing 101
Email is still critical to our content marketing efforts today.
Take a look at these email marketing stats for a better understanding of the impact email has in the industry:
Marketers have seen a 760% increase in revenue from segmented email campaigns.
Automated email messages average over 70% higher open rates and over 150% higher click-through rates than “business as usual” messages.
Email is 40x more effective at acquiring new customers than Twitter or Facebook.
Email is the connection between us and our prospects.
When content marketers invest their time and resources into powerful emails, the reach potential is limitless.
While technology has changed and social media has emerged over the past decade, email has stayed as a constant. Sure, we may not be using the same domain we did ten years ago, but the truth remains that when we need to send information, we email it.
When we want to be connected to our favorite brand, we join their email list.
Need a receipt for your store purchase, but don’t want a paper copy? Have it emailed.
For these reasons and more, content marketing efforts can be enhanced when we learn to take the best email marketing practices and use them effectively.
3 Best Email Content Marketing Practices
Back in the early 90’s, email hit the scene. Remember those AOL disks that were available through the mail and at the grocery store checkout stand?
And how we communicate has not been the same since. (Letters? What are those?)
Fast-forward to 2017, when 93% of marketers now say they use email for content distribution and consider it an important channel for their marketing success. And while it does remain an effective tool, it doesn’t mean we always use it in the best way.
Emails have a wide range of possibilities in reaching an audience, including:
Newsletters
Product updates
Transactional emails (after one has taken action on your website)
Deals and promotions
There are some qualities that make email an effective tool for your content marketing efforts. We have to learn the best way to increase the open rate, how to craft a subject line, how to create quality content, and how to choose the best time to write.
1. Learn How to Write a Great Email
You may be thinking, “Wait a minute. I’m a content writer. I know how to write.”
Isn’t it true that if we all knew how to write effective emails, there would be a higher response rate and we would be inundated with conversions?
So, yes, we can all use reminders from time to time about how to write effectively, and specifically, how to craft an email that engages the audience and encourages action.
A. Craft a compelling subject line
This seems like an obvious one, but if the subject isn’t engaging, few readers will want to click through to the actual content. Start by incorporating language that tells the reader what he or she can look forward to in the email.
Words like “take,” “don’t miss,” and “reserve” are goods one to start with.
B. Use personalization, if you can
Shaping email content to fit a reader’s needs by using customer segmentation has the potential to increase revenue.
In a study conducted by Direct Marketing Association, emails which were segmented and targeted generated 58 percent of the total revenue for marketers surveyed while 36 percent of revenue came from emails sent to specific target selections.
C. Create relevant and honest content
No one wants their time wasted, so coming up with a catchy email subject line that has nothing to do with the content inside is unfair and irresponsible. While you are crafting an engaging and personalized subject line, keep in mind that it should align with the content in the actual email. This not only keeps everything relevant, but sets you apart as an honest authority who isn’t out to trick anyone into clicking.
D. Continue to offer relevancy by expressing to the reader right away why you are writing
What is your connection? How are you providing a solution to the need? Our reach will go much farther when we highlight the benefits rather than the feature.
E. Get to the point
Practice writing concisely so the end result is powerful, tight sentences.
Too wordy, and you’ll lose your readers. Too short, and they could miss the point.
Content marketers must find a way to summarize a catch for the reader and encourage a click-through.
Everywhere we go, we see content – in just one minute, there are millions of Facebook and Instagram likes, hundreds of thousands of Tweets, and hours upon hours of YouTube videos uploaded.
We are consumed by content.
The last thing we need is more unusable information, interruptions, or sales pitches coming through our inbox. A long, drawn-out copy won’t cut it here; readers must be able to sift through quickly in order to make a decision about whether or not they’ll click through.
Try keeping emails between 50 and 125 words, which can increase the response rate for your efforts.
After we learn how to craft email content that engages the readers, it comes time to find the most effective closing methods.
Email closings matter. How we wrap up that fantastic content determines the response rate for our readers, and a few words can make the difference between clicking through and sending an email to the trash.
Boomerang conducted a study on more than 350,000 email threads and found that certain email closings were more effective at delivering higher response rates.
Those closings that included a variation of “thank you” saw a higher response rate than those that included words like “best” and “regards.”
Some of the most popular closings included a simple “thanks,” “cheers,” and “kind regards.”
Thanks in advance received the highest increase based on the average response rate.
In addition to the closing greeting, a CTA will tell your audience what to do. Simply adding a button that says “click here” may not be as effective as a call-to-action that clearly spells out what will happen when they click.
Here are some examples:
“Take the Survey”
“Learn the Secret”
“Get the Free Report”
Each email should be backed by something you want them to do, one central focus. The call-to-action always revolves around that one goal, even if there are multiple CTAs in one email.
When is the best time to send an email out? Is every day too often, and is once a month not often enough?
Opinions on the best day and time to send emails will vary across the industry, but there are some general guidelines we can follow that will contribute to maximum impact. In fact, analysts looked at billions of emails in order to gain insight into the best times to send emails, and the results are a bit different across the board.
Best days: Tuesday came in first place, according to data collected. In a close second was Thursday, followed by Wednesday.
As a side note, there were high click-through rates on Saturdays and Sundays, but since those are also the days when the fewest emails are sent, it kind of balanced out.
Best times: That same research had some interesting findings when it came to the best time to send email content. In first place was 10 a.m., followed by 8 p.m. – midnight, and then 2 p.m.
Some of these times might be surprising, but they also make sense; for example, many of us check our emails before bed, so the 8 p.m. timeframe fits that habit.
While this collection of data is not a one-size-fits-all for every brand, it is a good place to start.
Begin by sending out email content on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday at one of the times suggested. You may be surprised at what you find.
Grammar, Typos, & other Things We’ve Forgotten Since High School
Did you know Mondays are the worst days for email subject line errors?
And the more errors in an email’s subject line, the less likely it is to receive a response.
Grammar misuse and typos don’t scream “authority.” Instead, mistakes convey the message that the sender didn’t quite care enough to check and double-check the content.
It reduces our credibility as content marketers, interferes with the user experience, and pushes down the response we could get if only we had been more careful. If emails with an error have a response rate of only 29%, it’s worth our time and effort to read over everything carefully before hitting the “send” button.
If you need some help in this area, there are some effective tools you can use to boost your grammar and spelling.
After the Deadline: Paste in your content and get feedback that includes spelling errors as well as grammar and style suggestions.
Grammar Checker: This tool catches spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, and misuse of words.
StackEdit: Create professional-looking content and use the inbuilt spell checker to fix errors.
Write like a third grader: Emails written in this way saw a 36 percent life over those crafted at a college-reading level as well as a 17% higher response rate.
Read, then read again: Do a thorough read of your email content, take a short break, and then read it again. Check for sentence flow, clarity of thought, and grammar mistakes. Click any links you’ve included to make sure they work and go to the right place.
Send it to yourself: Remember writing speeches for high school and practicing them out loud? The same idea can be used here; send your email to yourself or one colleague to make sure all is good to go. This step can help to minimize typos and gives you or someone you know one more chance to proofread.
Get Awesome in Your Email Content
None of us want to spend time on emails that ultimately don’t get opened (boring headline) or get opened but lead to no action (boring content).
For truly awesome email content, your focus must be first on an engaging subject line, then on relevant and attention-grabbing content which is followed by an effective CTA. See more great email practices.
When we combine these practices with a focus on sending at the right time and on the best day, we can be on our way to crafting high-quality email content that everyone will want to share and be a part of.
It’s time. You’ve spent hours crafting the perfect email.
You’ve agonized over the words you’ve included, written and re-written every sentence, and considered your reader at every fork of the road.
You give the work of art you’ve just crafted one last read-through, then you take a deep breath and click “send.”
You close your laptop. Your work there is done.
A few days later, though, you check out the stats for that work of art you were so proud of and they’re, well, disappointing.
How could this possibly be?
If you’ve ever found yourself in these shoes, don’t fret. This is a very common problem, and many marketers struggle to figure out why the content they work so hard on isn’t as effective as they thought it would be.
Luckily, you’re not doomed to live in this place of email marketing limbo forever. By learning the keys to stellar direct email copywriting, you can craft outstanding marketing emails that rake in the clicks, opens, and conversions.
Read on to learn more.
Great Direct Email Copywriting: The Basics
While many people brush off direct email copywriting as a skill that died along with the early 2000s, the fact is that it’s still very, very relevant in today’s marketing environment.
While email marketing might not have the universal appeal of social media or podcasting, it’s still far too important to overlook, and marketers that do find themselves missing out on a large segment of traffic and engagement.
If you’re one of the many people who wonder what’s so great about email marketing, here are a few of its most winning qualities:
#1. Direct email marketing is effective and cost-efficient
While every company wants a cheap, efficient marketing strategy they can count on, this is especially important for, small business owners, who are always looking for efficient marketing solutions that will provide results on time and under budget. Luckily, email marketing fits the bill.
According to one 2013 report conducted by Direct Marketing Association, marketers who use direct email marketing earn a 4,3000% ROI.
How’s that for incentive?
#2. Email marketing provides real value
Every day, customers around the world take time out of their busy schedules to read through the emails that land in their inbox. Unfortunately, many of these emails are junk. Luckily, marketers who master direct email copywriting can set themselves apart from the crowd by providing real value to readers.
According to CopyBlogger, brands that are truly successful at direct email marketing are those who position themselves as companies truly concerned about the happiness and well-being of their readers.
This, in turn, helps readers feel as if they can trust your brand, which makes them more willing to share personal information and convert on your offers.
#3. Email marketing opens up a reliable line of communication with customers
Where else do you get unparalleled access to your customer’s pocket or inbox? Nowhere but email marketing, that’s the answer. When you provide valuable, unique, and interesting direct email copywriting, you succeed in opening up a valuable dialogue with clients, the likes of which isn’t seen anywhere else in marketing.
#4. Email marketing is a powerful tool for word-of-mouth and shares
According to DuctTape Marketing, quality content is one of the only things that will produce reliable sales results every time. With this in mind, it’s clear that people who master the art of direct email copywriting are uniquely qualified to make more sales and produce more positive word-of-mouth advertising within their customer base.
Despite all of these benefits, many people are afraid of writing marketing emails, assuming it will be challenging or unproductive. Luckily, crafting good email copy doesn’t have to be a challenge. With that in mind, check out our top tips for writing effective marketing emails your customers will love.
10 Steps to Craft Stellar Email Copy That Can’t Be Ignored
If you’re ready to incorporate great email marketing into your content strategy, follow these ten steps:
1. Remain relatable in all of your marketing copy
Let’s get one thing straight: nobody wants to read a stuffy marketing email. Would you?
Of course the answer is no.
That’s why it’s so important to keep your voice relatable and approachable in your direct email copywriting. Here are three good examples of brands I love that do just that:
Tim Ferriss’s Five Bullet Friday email always feels like grabbing a quick coffee with a friend. It’s approachable, casual, and informative. Which may be why it has a few million subscribers:
Another blogger who has always done a great job of maintaining a relatable approach is Mark Manson. Here’s one of his most recent marketing emails that decidedly does not feel like a marketing email:
Finally, for reference, here’s a marketing email from GroupHigh, an influencer marketing startup that always kills it with the copywriting:
With those examples in mind, strive to keep your email copywriting in the same tone that you’d use to talk with a friend. It will benefit you in terms of conversions, clicks, and engagement down the road.
2. Personalize your emails as much as possible
A personalized email is a successful email, so take steps to make them as individualized as possible. This often means using your reader’s name in the subject line, using your name as the “From” address, and inputting a personal email as the “Reply to” address rather than allowing it to fill in with an auto-generated email from MailChimp or whatever service you use.
While personalization may not seem like a big deal, Aberdeen reports that personalizing an email can improve click-through rates by 10%.
3. Make clarity your main priority
Too many marketers try to be too gimmicky in their email copy, which only drives users away. Instead of focusing only on hooking your readers, think first about how you can provide clarity and value.
Once you’ve got those two things down, you can move onto being catchy.
4. Write a compelling email subject line
When it comes to email marketing, subject lines are critical. By using action words, posing a question, or personalizing the subject line (which results in a 26% spike in open rates), you can ensure that your email copy won’t be left sitting at the bottom of a trash bin.
5. Make sure you’re delivering on your promises
If you promise free tips, useful information, or shocking data in your email subject line, you need to deliver in your body content. While most people assume that being catchy in the subject line is all that matters, even users who open your emails will head for the hills if the body content doesn’t support the claims the subject line makes.
6. Write in the second person voice
Whenever you write email copy, everything you pen should be in the second person. Notice how all three of the examples listed above use “you” liberally. In addition to helping you connect with your readers, this is also a great way to drive the reader to action.
7. Stress the benefits, not the features
In email, as in all great marketing, you need to focus on stressing the benefits rather than the features of your product. In addition to the fact that features are more compelling than benefits, telling a story about how a service, good, or product will change a consumer’s life is much more emotive than simply including a bulleted list of features.
8. Keep your email brief
Few people have the attention span for a long marketing email, so it’s in your best interests to keep it short, succinct, and to the point. Offer relevant information toward the beginning of the email and resist the temptation to stuff the body full of filler language.
9. Make your call-to-action prominent
To enhance the effectiveness of your call to action, highlight it at the end of the email. Be sure to set it apart from the text, consider tinting it a different color, and install a button for added effect. While these are simple fixes, they can go a long way toward improving the effectiveness of your email across the board.
10. Automate your marketing emails with better management tools
While not technically a writing tip, automating your emails with the right management tool will save you a huge amount of time and money.
Services like MailChimp have long been the standard, but today more powerful tools like ConvertKit are beginning to rule the roost.
ConvertKit is a tool we use in our email campaigns here at Express Writers, and it has rapidly become one of the most indispensable in our belt. In fact, as soon as we switched to ConvertKit we saw a whopping 200% increase in the clicks on our emails!
While ConvertKit is a super-efficient tool for sending better emails, it’s much more than that.
What sets ConvertKit apart is its highly responsive opt-in forms, multiple incentive options, subscriber gifts, custom opt-in features, and custom landing page options.
Plus, they’re known for the awesome reporting tools you get. Check out the homescreen dashboard, with a report detailing everywhere our subscribers came from, what days they came in, etc:
ConvertKit is based on simplicity. They believe that less HTML, links, imagery and “stuff” makes sure your email gets read and out of the spam folder – and they’re onto something, based on our email results! However, that does mean you don’t have a lot of options in designing an email. But, the simple template we’ve been using works well.
Here’s a quick peek at some of our broadcasts.
We upgraded our style to omit nearly every footer link in early 2018, and have been using a super-simple, plain-text style very light on images and design. One campaign I write every week is the Content Shop Spotlight. We’ve had a great return on this, with prospects emailing us weekly after reading these newsletters. Read a full Content Shop Spotlight example.
You can customize text colors with a handy visual editor, add custom CSS codes for social media icons and more, or create and host a landing page and forms. You can even grab their Wordpress plugin for more accessibility with subscribers to and from your website.
This is a huge number, and it’s just one of the many things that demonstrates the importance and timeliness of email marketing.
On average, 57% of email subscribers interact with marketing emails for 10-60 minutes each week, and if you can master direct email copywriting well enough, you’ll soon find that your brand is one of the few they choose to spend their time with.
While direct email copywriting is a difficult thing to learn, the tips in our post can help you develop, target, produce, and dispense marketing emails that truly drive results–rather than just sitting in someone’s inbox.
And while connecting with customers in a meaningful and lasting way has always been a difficult pursuit, email marketing is one of the most efficient ways to make it happen in today’s world. Today, 83% of B2B marketers use emails for marketing, and that number will only grow in the coming years.
By developing a copywriting style that brands you as personable, polite, and engaging, you can easily connect on a deeper level with your customers and improve your brand across the board.
Stumped on how to create powerful email headlines and copy? Our email copywriting services might be just what you need! We’ve written successful email content for brands of all types.
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