Email Marketing Tips for 2017

Email marketing is still a popular and effective way to reach your customers, but strategies do change over time. Here are three important trends to consider, when creating your campaigns for the coming year.

Keep it Simple

There’s no need to include multiple messages in one email. If you keep each email targeted to one specific message, you can better segment your lists, and better focus users’ attention. Instead of one email with three messages, consider sending three emails, each with only one targeted message. It’s easier to get users’ attention with one targeted message, and by dividing up your messaging, you’ll get 3 chances to reach them. Plus, for mobile users, you will be able to provide a simpler layout, and get your message across faster to distracted users on-the-go.

Focusing on a single message also makes it easier to craft clear and meaningful subject lines and preview text. In many cases, you will be able to communicate the most compelling parts of your message through the preview text, even with unopened messages. Use the subject and preview text to make your value proposition clear, and to communicate why users should click through for more details.

Provide Better Personalization

It’s not enough to simply open your message with a personalized greeting, and then follow with generic one-size-fits-all messaging; your content needs to be specific to each recipient’s interests, as well. Use what you know about each user to segment your lists into key interest groups.

Don’t know enough about your user base? Then it’s time to start collecting more data. You don’t have to ask for detailed contact info–most users don’t want to share that anyway. But users don’t mind sharing their interests, or their frequency preference. A few additional questions on your signup form will help you avoid bombarding customers with messaging they don’t want, and increase your chances for interaction with the messages they do.

Study User Interaction

Every worthwhile email marketing tool provides a wealth of information about users’ interactions with your emails after each send. Pay attention to opens and click-thrus to help refine future messages. Note what days of the week and what times of day are most effective for your customers. And continue to conduct A/B testing to find the format and messaging that resonates most with your audience.

Email marketing is still alive and well, and continues to be many consumers’ preferred channel for ongoing brand communications. Follow these tips to make the best use of this tool in 2017. Happy emailing!

Tags: content marketing, digital agency, email marketing, marketing agency