Do's and don'ts for email campaigns

Do's and don'ts for email campaigns

Email marketing success depends on positive engagement like opens and clicks and in avoiding email deliverability issues such as bounces, complaints, spam traps, and unsubscribes. The simple yet effective do's and don'ts given below will improve your email delivery rates by helping you avoid the common mistakes email marketers do.

Do's

  • Create an identity for your business by using your own domain. It helps your leads to gain trust on you.
  • Establish a good rapport with your recipients and try to get into their contact/ safe sender list.
  • Sender name is also an important identification factor. Ensure that the alias is either the sender's name or your organization's name to look more genuine and easy for your leads to remember in the event of further communication.
  • Have a webpage related to your business/domain with all important information so that the user can look out there to get necessary details.
  • Make sure your domain is authenticated with SPF, DKIM or both. Complying with DMARC policy can be an added advantage.
  • Ensure that the email campaign is mobile responsive too as many users may try to open it in their mobile phones.
  • Mention your firm's name and insert logo for adding more originality and trust in your emails.
  • Follow double opt-in subscription method to add a lead into your list. It is a great way to maintain a clean list.
  • Keep your mailing lists updated to ensure it consists only of genuinely interested leads.
  • Frame an email subject line which is enticing, crisp and to the point (preferably 4-6 words). Check out on few tips to get a safer email subject line.
  • Personalize your email campaign to suit your leads. This does impact on opens and clicks.
  • Ensure to add one or more clear call to action buttons in the email content to increase the click rates.
  • Include images in your email but make sure you add textual content as well (if the display of your image fails, it'll help your leads understand that it's not a blank email). A proper image-text ratio gives higher reach to your campaign.
  • Check if you have included valid URLs in your campaign. It is wiser to avoid shortened URLs.
  • Highlight the unsubscribe link to the user as per the CAN-SPAM act.
  • Keep an eye on email campaign to check out open rates, click rates, bounces, opens based on locations and so forth.
  • A/B test different versions of your email campaign before you send out to all the recipients.
  • Reengage with your leads but with reasonable time intervals to evade a spam label.
  • Make it a habit to see the outcome of your email by sending test mails within your organization.

Don'ts

  • Email campaigns from a public/non business (Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL, etc) domain is generally considered to be spam so avoid using public domain sender addresses
  • Leads are to be earned not purchased. Illegitimate or uninterested contact is never good in the long run.
  • Stale or Invalid contacts which may include inactive leads and obsolete email address are harmful for the reputation and effectiveness of our campaign.
  • Sending irrelevant newsletters or changing sender address frequently may confuse and irritate the leads.
  • Creation of fake chain of emails by adding 'Re' or 'Fwd' tags and accordingly altering content of the email may seem attractive approach initially but it is not a great idea in the long run as such methods tarnish the image of your organization.
  • Rule out CAPITALs, links and irrelevant punctuations from your subject or else you will be caught by spam filters.
  • Spammy contents like money, dating sites, porn, anything irrelevant to your business will take you straight to spam list and trash your reputation.
  • False and misleading claims in the email campaigns do more damage than benefit, so be cautious.
  • Expecting or asking the users to give away their sensitive information like bank details, mobile number, password credentials, etc in your content or in immediate landing page as these can lower the trust your leads have in your organization.
  • Increased size of image means proportionate delay in its rendering and ultimately failing to create an impact on your leads.
  • Avoid flooding your leads' inbox with too many emails.

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