6 Good, Bad and Ugly Articles on Direct Email Marketing Best Practices
In this blog article and podcast, we are going to talk about some of the good, bad and ugly articles that are based on direct email marketing. When you're looking for tips to help you come up with effective marketing emails there is a ton of information available. Some of this information is excellent, but some may be poor and actually hurt your conversion rates. The 6 articles we mention here should help to give you a solid foundation of what makes an effective marketing email, and should help to give you some ideas of what to avoid. Profitworks Inc. is an expert in the field of Email Marketing which is one of the highest average ROI marketing mediums available to businesses. Contact them now to learn more!
Executive Summary
- There are a lot of psychological strategies you can use to help create effective marketing emails
- One of the best practical email practices you can get into is A/B testing your emails to learn more about your audience
- One or two word subject lines tend to work better for open rates because of their ambiguousness
- Email marketing should always focus on offering valuable content and driving traffic to your website
- Understand and follow Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation before sending any marketing emails
- Email marketing is not just a way to get your business out there. It's a legitimate means of growing your business and creating fantastic sales opportunities
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6 Good, Bad and Ugly Articles on The Best Practices for Direct Email Marketing. Click the link below to listen to the podcast.
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6 Good, Bad and Ugly Articles on The Best Practices for Direct Email Marketing
Before we Begin
Before we dive into these articles we thought it might be best to provide you with what we believe to be the top 5 best practices in email marketing. This list is based on the previous marketing we've done for clients, along with consensus from the email marketing community. So here are our top 5 best practices in email marketing:
- Always A/B Page Test: A/B page testing helps you to discover what works best with your specific audience. Always test new ideas to see what works best for open rates, and more importantly, click rates.
- Have Plenty of Links: Having a low amount of links generally leads to a low amount of clicks. It's pretty straight forward, but also very important to remember. We also find that using listed hyperlinks tends to work best to increase your click rate.
- Use Concise Simple Subject Lines: Keep your lines short and to the point. We find that one or two-word subject lines tend to work best for increasing your open rates.
- Make Sure It's Mobile Friendly: Many people check their emails through their phone and tablets, so ensuring that your email's images and text are responsive is a must.
- Know Your Laws: This is incredibly important because you're not dealing with getting sales here, you're dealing with the law. Read up on and understand the email marketing laws in your area before you ever start sending anything out. Nothing will hurt your email marketing revenue more than being handed a hefty fine.
Now that you know some of our top practices in email marketing, here are some other articles that will be sure to give you more ideas and information on the topic.
Psychological Strategies to Get More People to Open Your Emails, Read Your Copy, and Click on Links with Derek Halpern
Good, Bad or Ugly?: It's Good!
Key Point: There are a lot of psychological strategies you can use to help create effective marketing emails
This is an article/podcast combo that can give you some great insight into the psychological aspect of email marketing, and how you can use psychological strategies to improve your email marketing plans. Smartpassiveinfo.com is a website run by Pat Flynn and in the article he interviews Derek Halpern of socialtrigger.com and they discuss what techniques will help to give you a higher open rate, the importance of identifying your ideal customer, how to start a rapport with your customers, and a ton of other topics. Click here to read through the article and listen to the podcast.
10 Email Best Practices
Good, Bad or Ugly? It's Good!
Key Point: One of the best practical email practices you can get into is A/B testing your emails to learn more about your audience
This article found at marketingprofs.com gives you a ton of tips in a short and simple infographic which is great for anyone who's a beginner in the email marketing field. They give you tips such as ensuring that your subject line is short (we suggest one word only if possible), using questions in your email content to encourage clicks, and making sure that your emails are made in a responsive design for tablets and phones. They also use studies and research to back up their claims so you know what they're giving you is legit. To view some of the other tips given you can visit the article here.
Good, Bad or Ugly? Bad
Key Point: One or two word subject lines tend to work better for open rates because of their ambiguousness
There are certainly some good points to this article such as keeping your call to action above the fold, closely tying your emails to landing pages, and ensuring that you conduct a 5-second test before your actual sends, but there are certain tips that they give that we find aren't necessarily helpful in practice. In their list they claim that good subject lines should create a sense of urgency and should include incentives, but among most of our clients we've found that the best subject lines actually tend to be short (1, maximum 2 words) and either deal directly with the product or the industry. For example, if you were emailing a list of toy store owners about your new racecar product, some good subject lines would be "Toy Stores" or "Racecar". We assume this ambiguous approach may draw the readers interest while not giving away the entire purpose of the email which in turn draws more opens. To check out this article you can click here.
3 Tips For Growing Your Business With Email Marketing
Good, Bad or Ugly? Unfortunately, this one's ugly
Key Point: Email marketing should always focus on offering valuable content and diving traffic to your website
It's not ugly in the sense that it gives misleading or misguided information, but it's ugly for taking up valuable time with tips that are incredibly predictable to even the most inexperienced person. The tips they offer include making sure you send valuable content, automate your emails, and focus on driving traffic to your site. I'm fairly certain that most people view email marketing as a way to express their company's value to potential clients and as a way to drive traffic to their website. That's essentially the entire purpose of sending them in the first place. Sure these may be useful tips for those who are really new in the email marketing field, but for the most part the article offers nothing new.
Top 5 Email Marketing Tips
Good, Bad or Ugly? Bad
Key Point: Understand and follow Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation before sending any marketing emails
This one's bad just because it really lacks any considerable depth or any tips on how to actually create your email for optimal results. It's not so much email marketing tips as it is things you should consider before venturing into email marketing. The best thing you can take away from this article is that you should ensure you always follow Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, but outside of that, the other tips are fairly simple and obvious.
Growing Your Business With Email Marketing
Good, Bad or Ugly? It's Good! Really Good!
Key Point: Email marketing is not just a way to get your business out there. It's a legitimate means of growing your business and creating fantastic sales opportunities
We're kind of cheating on this one because it's not neccessarily an article, but it's such a fantastic reference that we wanted to make sure our readers knew about it. Their guide goes through the entire process of email marketing. From setting up and establishing goals, to creating and sending emails, and also how to measure email performance. They also provide you with a ton of stats and references to reassure you that what they're selling is completely legitimate and well researched. If you have a question about email marketing you're bound to find the answers here. Click here now to download their guide.
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