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13 Email Marketing Dos & Don’ts You Should Know About in 2021

March 29, 2021

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Email marketing’s growing popularity and value are nowhere near its end. On the contrary, email is one of the most trusted and efficient tools of communication. Today, there are 3.9 billion people using email; this number is expected to increase to 4.3 billion by 2023.

Moreover, email is the indisputable star of B2B marketing, and lead generation sees 87% of B2B marketers using email to generate new leads and making a significant impact on their revenue. Businesses use email to advertise products and services, grow their brands, and communicate with customers and partners. 

But if the email is the undisputed king of B2B marketing, how come writing emails is oftentimes seen as an unimportant task? It’s easy to think that spending time composing tailored emails isn’t worth it. But writing an engaging copy requires more than just typing. So, what are the dos and don’ts of email marketing?

If you’re looking for an improvement in your strategy, read this article to discover more.

The Do’s

Write convincing subject lines

Did you know that 35% of recipients open emails based only on the subject line? It’s essential to take the necessary time to write a compelling and convincing subject line to your email. And luckily, there are tools that can help you improve your headlines, such as Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer.

Make an excellent first impression

In the introductory paragraph, you need to communicate the email’s core message and capture the reader’s interest. It’s best if you indicate what’s in it for the reader, the value they’ll gain, and try to give a taste of further detail. Then, when it comes to designing your email for accessibility (including for mobile), you need to pay attention to:

  • Avoiding long sections of text
  • Using appropriate font sizes
  • Adding contrasting colors or bold/italics for easy readability
  • Optimizing your line spacing

Improve the length and readability

After the first paragraph, the reader will scan your email. An effective text is as long as it needs to be. If your email is one long paragraph, it will make it hard for the average reader to follow. So, the easiest thing to do is set a word limit and keep track of your word count to see what length generates the most responses.

It also helps to break an email into smaller pieces. In other words, design it for scanners. Because most of the readers only scan content. Break your copy into smaller chunks for readers to digest and keep the most essential information in the first paragraphs. Make sure your email is concise and doesn’t leave room for interpretation.

As for readability, when Boomerang analyzed a massive collection of data to determine the trick to boosting response rates, they found out that emails written at a third-grade reading level have a shocking 36% higher response rate than emails written at a college reading level.

Write a clear Call to Action

A clear call to action is an essential feature that captures a reader’s attention. CTAs can be creative, descriptive, and inspiring to your recipients. You can also create urgency with your CTA, when pairing active words with urgent words (like “now”, “today”).

A concise CTA is always better than a cluttered one. However, concise doesn’t mean ridiculously short. The brevity and directness of a well-written call to action will put the focus on what’s important and remove any distractions.

Pay attention to the CAN-Spam Act

Unfortunately, it is legal to send spam emails. However, there are instances where you could be penalized. The CAN-SPAM Act gives recipients the right to stop you from emailing them. And the penalties for spamming can go up to almost $44,000.

Send appreciation emails

Birthday emails can generate roughly 342% more revenue than a regular promotional email. Customers respond well to appreciation emails. Today, with the pandemic still going, readers are expecting empathy more than ever. And email campaigns need to be more customer-centric. Appreciation emails are a great way to praise your customers and create a deeper connection, strengthening your relationship and increasing engagement at the same time.

Use visuals that are close to reality

When it comes to the design of your emails and newsletters, images that are close to your readers’ reality increase sympathy and engagement. This is especially important nowadays, as visuals can help your brand gain more trust and loyalty from customers who feel that you are on their side.

The Don’ts

To save your email campaigns from missing your goals, you need to consider a few things you should avoid:

  • Talking down to your readers
  • Making assumptions or dramatic statements
  • Rushing the content creation process
  • Addressing readers by their second name
  • Forgetting to use the company logo
  • Sending too many emails

Using a salutation such as Dear Mrs. Smith may sound too formal. This would make your reader want to delete the email. So, it’s best to start your email with a professional or friendly salutation using the first name – and making sure you don’t misspell that name. 

Adding a company logo to your email gives your campaign identity and will set it apart from competitors.

You should also avoid sending your recipients too many emails – or else you risk losing subscribers and being marked as spam. Consider the usability of your unsubscribing process – this should be easy and clear, to improve user experience.

2021 is still the year of email marketing. Now is the time to review your strategies, perfect your best practices, and bring more value to your readers.