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In this article:\n10 best practices for small business email marketing\nWhy should every small business consider email marketing?\nHow much does email marketing cost?\nWhat is the ROI of email marketing for small businesses?\nAs we’ve written before, \nemail marketing\n is hands-down the most powerful, effective, and efficient marketing tool for small businesses. If you follow the email marketing best practices detailed below, you can increase customer loyalty and revenue, improve conversion of potential customers, and expand your marketing audience.\nHow much does small business email marketing cost?\nDespite what you might think, small business email doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Websites like BEE free, Stripo, Chamaileon offer free HTML email templates, including simple drag and drop options. You can also elect to simply send a personalized email to your list from your business email account, using the default template.\nMany small businesses prefer to use dedicated business email platforms like MailChimp or Constant Contact, both of which offer robust tools for creating professional-looking emails and managing your lists. \nAccording to the sources we found, Constant Contact costs between $20 and $70 per month, depending on your number of contacts and the features you want. MailChimp offers free plans to get you started, the next tier is $10/month, and the “Pro” level plans start at $199 and up (an unlikely choice for a truly small business). Whether these are worth the cost of entry is up to you. \nIs email marketing worth it for small businesses?\nDespite a commonly held belief that email marketing is outdated or ineffective, it has been shown to have an unparalleled ROI of up to 42:1. \nOf course, this is not to say that you are guaranteed to make $42 for every $1 you spend on email marketing, but industry data supports that general figure. One report specifically for small business email marketing reported that users experienced a 183% return on their investments. So it’s clear that it’s worth your time.\nWhichever email service provider you choose, be sure to follow the best practices below to maximize benefit and minimize potential problems when sending promotional emails.\nLet's go over the top 10 email marketing best practices for small businesses:\n1. Get permission, and build your email list the right way\nWhile studies show 86% of customers actually want email from businesses they patronize, it is without question better to get permission before you email potential or current customers. \nGetting email addresses doesn’t have to be an awkward or involved process. It can be as simple as adding an email address field on your point-of-sale platform at checkout, including a “send me an email receipt” option during the purchase process or on your online or order form, or you can go truly old-school and leave a bowl for business cards or a clipboard near the check-out counter where customers can elect to write down their email addresses to receive promotions.\nYou should also encourage your social media followers to send you their email addresses to be included in special offers and promotions for your business.\nPopular business email platforms like MailChimp and Constant Contact allow “opt-in” or even a “double opt-in” process. A double opt-in requires a potential recipient to first agree to receive emails, but also requires that they then click a link in a welcome email confirming their subscription to begin receiving marketing emails.

You may get fewer email addresses on your “send” list this way, but remember the point of email marketing is to send timely messaging to your most profitable customer base, not to simply build an impressively large email list and blast out thousands of emails to people who really aren’t interested (and who will likely mark your emails as spam, which could get you in hot water with your email service provider and even with the FTC—see below).

So, while it’s likely not a huge problem to send occasional reminders or relevant offers to everyone associated with your business whom you have an email address for (as long as you follow the rules), you will almost certainly see better results if you are 100% up front about getting customers’ specific permission before you send them promotional emails.  \nMaking sure you have a solid “opt in” process in place will set you up for greater success as regulations change.\n2. Learn the regulations and follow them\nSending unsolicited emails is illegal in quite a few European countries, and consumer privacy laws are being tightened in the U.S. as well. \nYou need to familiarize yourself with the FTC’s Compliance Guide on the CAN-SPAM act, and which types of email are subject to these regulations, \nhere\n.\nMake sure to comply with regulatory directives regarding spam and unsubscribing. Include an unsubscribe link in every email and make sure to promptly and correctly remove any addresses that request to be unsubscribed, to avoid landing in hot water. \nPersonal email service providers like Gmail are very wary of “spammers,” but as long as you are emailing people who have opted in to receiving promotional emails, or you are emailing your actual customers rather than a purchased list of random contacts, you should be perfectly fine (as long as you comply with the CAN-SPAM act and follow correct unsubscribe practices).\n3. Avoid common “spam” techniques \nSmall business owners are often tempted to emulate the promotional emails they themselves receive… but this can be a big mistake. \nWhen crafting your subject lines, headers, and content, you should avoid generic subjects, caps lock, lots of special characters or EXCLAMATION!!! MARKS!!!! or anything even close to resembling “OMG!! TRY THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK TO SAVE $$MONEY$$!!!!” \nemail marketing best practices 3\nMany popular email service providers will automatically scan such emails and send them to the spam folder, and you may be flagged as a disreputable sender, which will defeat the purpose of sending emails to build loyalty.\n4. Be brief, interesting, and accurate\nUse the appropriate format and messaging expected by your industry and audience. This might include newsletters, offers, sales, birthday wishes, “thank yous” for purchases, reminders, holiday hours notifications, discounts, product announcements, or whatever else you think your customers might want to hear about.\nMake sure your company name or brand appears in the “from” line correctly, and keep your subject lines to 8 words or less, and <40 characters, including spaces. Include a compelling reason for people to read your email in the subject line.\n5. Make it worth customers’ while\nThink of ways to incentivize signing up for your email list. Can you give 10% off today’s purchase when they sign up? Can you promise 5% off all future purchases for everyone on your list? You should ask yourself, “What’s in this for my customers?” \n6. Make sure your links and any embedded content actually work properly\nBefore you send an email, double check that everything displays and works the way it should: videos play, links actually function and redirect to the proper websites, click-to-order takes you to the correct product or offer on your website, email contact links open the appropriate email software and populate the address correctly, HTML emails display content correctly on desktop and mobile, etc. Send yourself and/or your employees test emails and ideally check function on multiple platforms and browsers.\n7. Keep images small\nAny images you include should be optimized for web and should be kept below 100K in size—50K or below is preferable. This helps the email load quickly and fully. You only have one or two seconds before today’s impatient users will give up on your email and delete it. (Pro tip: this also applies to your website pages.)\n8. Proofread your copy\nIf you aren’t the best writer or editor in the world, hire or beg the services of someone you trust to proofread the “copy” (words) for typos, grammatical errors, clarity, and brevity. Professional-looking emails will be free of common mistakes, text formatting issues, etc. \n9. Consider including a text-only version for people who prefer not to open HTML emails\nSources disagree on which format produces the best results (HTML or plain text) but it’s a good idea to cover your bets when possible. So, you might include a plain-text version of every HTML email you send. \nWhy? Some people won’t even look at plain text emails, and some won’t look at HTML emails. When you build an HTML email in most of the common email platforms, there will be an option to also create a plain-text version that will be displayed for recipients who have their preferences set to display plain-text email only, and vice versa. \n10. Try drip campaigns\nWhile a more general email blast to all customers on your list can be effective, more sophisticated users might consider creating “drip” campaigns. \nDrip campaigns are series of emails intended to accomplish a particular goal for a particular group of customers. For example, you can select only those customers who have made recent purchases. A simple after-purchase drip campaign might look like this:\nThank you email —-> offer special pricing on a similar purchase —-> reminder —->\nIf you have a website where customers can purchase from you, you can send a drip campaign specifically to customers who have put items in their virtual shopping cart but then left the website. A drip campaign in this case might look like this: \n(cart abandonment) —-> nudge (“item left in your cart”) —-> purchase confirmation —-> thank you —-> (start a post-purchase drip campaign)\nNaturally, you can create drip campaigns for any group of customers, such as those who have purchased several times in the past but haven’t visited within the last year. \nSources:\n
\nhttps://www.constantcontact.com/blog/email-marketing-best-practices/\n
\nhttps://mailchimp.com/help/best-practices-mailchimp-email/\n
\nhttps://www.fundera.com/blog/email-marketing-strategy\n
\nhttps://www.betterbuys.com/marketing-automation/reviews/constant-contact/\n
\nhttps://ecommerce-platforms.com/compare/mailchimp-vs-constant-contact\n

Top 10 best practices for small business email marketing

As a small business owner or operator, there are endless initiatives you could be focusing on to market your goods and services. \nSocial media, blogging, search engine marketing, billboards, influencer marketing, event marketing — the list goes on and on. In today’s hectic business environment, how do you know what you should prioritize? \nOur proposition: email marketing is hands-down the most powerful, effective, and efficient marketing tool for small businesses\nIf you’re not leveraging small business email marketing, you’re missing out on enormous opportunities to reach, delight, and serve your customers. And bring in a boatload of sales.\nYou might be thinking: what about social media? And it’s true — social media gets a lot of attention. Facebook boasts 2.2 billion users. Instagram grew over 13% last year. And over 500 million tweets are sent on Twitter \nper day\n.\nBut these social networks are dwarfed by email. There are over 3.8 \nbillion\n email users worldwide. And unlike a social network, which is owned and managed by one company (we’ll let you decide if that’s a positive or a negative), email is decentralized in an open market. You can use any email client you want — you don’t have to be subjugated to one provider. \nConsider this: 281 billion emails are sent per day. That’s 562 times the number of Tweets per day.\nWhy email marketing is king for local businesses\nWhat do we make of this? \nYour business is built on email\n. Social networks come and go, but email is not going anywhere and therefore it’s worth investing in.\nBut emails get ignored, deleted, and filtered out by customers, right? \nWrong. It depends on the email. \nBad\n emails get blocked and tossed, yes, but high-value emails that deliver insights, interesting stories, and good information are not only opened and clicked-through, they’re eagerly awaited by your customers. \nFor example, news media startup Axios opened its doors with a purely email-based business model. They refused the typical revenue model of content companies (programmatic advertising) and entrusted whole-hog their business’s success to… email newsletters. And it’s worked marvelously. Axios touts a 45% average open rate and charges anywhere from $8,000 to $150,000 depending on the newsletter, according to \nan article by Adweek\n.\nAnother successful business started from a mere email chain: Product Hunt, the online product discovery and community platform with now over 8 million users and multiple millions in venture backing, started with the founder simply sending emails to friends about interesting products he had found. \nThe ROI of email marketing is astounding. For every $1 spent on email marketing, it returns $42 in revenue, according to one study. VentureBeat wrote a post about how successful email marketing works: \n“In a survey of companies regarding email use, enterprise companies saw 117 percent return on investment, SMB firms indicated their return was 183 percent, and midsized companies reported a whopping 246 percent ROI.”\nStill not convinced? Keep reading.\nThe story of how Benjamin Hardy used small business email marketing to make $21,000 in one week\nBenjamin Hardy, an Inc. contributor, author, and Medium’s number one writer of all time, built an email list of 300,000 subscribers in two years. \nOne of his mentors told him: “Email your subscribers and tell them you’re offering coaching. Then get those who are interested on the phone for a 15 minute strategy call to determine fit.”\nHardy spent the next week on the phone with 150 people for 15 minutes each. Out of this group, seven people signed up for coaching at a price of $1,000 a month for a minimum commitment of three months. Doing the math, Hardy sold $21,000 of business in a week! And it all started with one email.\nOkay\n, you might be thinking, \ngood for them\n. Axios, Product Hunt, and Benjamin Hardy can all be successful, but what about me, a super-small business in a town NOT located in or around Silicon Valley?\nFollow these strategies and tactics to make an email strategy that works (well!) for you.\n4 tips to make small business email marketing work for you\nSet up a routine that makes email marketing easier for you. If the idea of sitting down and writing an email to your subscribers opens your mouth in a yawn like the Cave of Wonders, or you just have too much on your plate, make it easier on yourself by setting up a routine. Pick a consistent day of the week and a time (studies show subscribers prefer weekly regularity!), establish an outline and a template for the email, and let it flow. A weekly practice like this will reap massive financial rewards down the road.\nMake your email about the story, not the click. Provide value in every email. Avoid over-selling or promoting your products or services. Make it personal, relevant to the times, or interesting, not salesy. Our brains our wired for stories, so tell a story in your email. Don’t just focus on getting subscribers to click through—this is a short-term mindset that won’t last in the long run.\nAvoid common email formatting mistakes. Triple-check your links to make sure they work! Keep your emails short (~150 words) and avoid huge walls of text that are tough to read on a mobile device. Make sure everything is spelled right and correct all typos. Test your emails with a few teammates and get their feedback before sending to your main list.\nAutomate your email marketing. There are two sides of the spectrum you want to avoid: one, sending \nzero\n emails and two, sending \ntoo many\n bulk and generic emails. The key is to land in the middle—sending well-timed, personalized emails. \nLastly, one of the most powerful emails you can send your customer is a well-written thank you email after a customer shops at your store. \nOne final thought to leave you with: happy customers often don’t come back to your store. According to a Bain & Company study, 60-80% of customers who describe themselves as satisfied do not go back to do more business with the company that initially satisfied them. Why? \nOne Forbes writer says\n it’s because there is a lack of connection. \nCustomers forget. It’s natural. \nFor small business owners, email marketing is the best way to create a lasting connection that keeps customers coming back with smiles on their faces and cash in their hands. 

Why small business email marketing should be your top priority in 2022

If you run a local business, you may view marketing as a problematic, nebulous, expensive, “necessary evil.”\nOr you may not see the need for a marketing plan at all, relying instead on “word of mouth” or foot traffic to bring customers to your business. (More on that later.)\nRegardless of your views, it’s a good bet that if you’re reading this article, you want to know the best ways to stretch your marketing dollar. Well, you’re in the right place.\nHow much should a small business spend on marketing?\nFirst of all, let’s clarify just how big that small business marketing dollar should be. \nMost experts' recommendation is that small businesses spend 7-8% of gross revenue on marketing, which corresponds to guidance from the U.S. Small Business Administration. \nThat may sound like a lot, but consider that larger businesses on average spend about 13% of their gross revenue on marketing, and a study by Duke University and Deloitte found that many businesses spend up to 50%! Yikes.\nIf this all sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. While you really should have a marketing budget, small businesses don’t have to spend nearly as much as big companies, and spending more doesn’t necessarily produce better results. \nIf you’re careful and smart, even a modest marketing budget will produce significant returns. (You can even see substantial improvements without spending ANY money! Keep reading for the secret.)\nOwn your online presence and you will attract more customers\nSome of the most effective small business marketing tools are not only affordable, they’re positively cheap. How cheap are we talking? Well, how does FREE strike you?\nBut before you spend ANY money on advertising, you first need to optimize your online presence—your business’s digital reputation—and all this costs you is your time. If you don’t start here, any advertising dollars you spend will just send your potential customers to someone else.\nWhy? Because, although “word of mouth” is still the #1 way customers find local businesses, that conversation has now moved online to review sites like Yelp, Facebook, Google My Business, and TripAdvisor. And 88% of consumers trust recommendations from these sites as much as personal recommendations from friends or family!\nSo, imagine you spend $1,000 per month on advertising but you haven’t first claimed your business profile on all the popular review sites and taken control of your online presence.\nWhat’s the first thing people do when they hear of a local business they’re interested in patronizing? You guessed it… they search online for reviews, location, hours of operation, etc. \nSo if you start spending advertising money without first optimizing your online presence, you’re promoting a business that either (a) people can’t research online because you don’t have a solid digital footprint, or (b) has a poor review rating and/or inaccurate information on these critical sites. In either case, you’re wasting your money.\n\n84% of consumers search online for local businesses. Make sure your business’s digital footprint is ready!\nSo start by claiming your business’s profiles on all the top review sites and start responding (politely) to all reviews. Responding to reviews shows you take customer feedback seriously and are committed to providing a top-quality experience. Plus, research shows that businesses that claim their listings on multiple online business reviews sites make 58% more money!\nPro tip: we’ve written helpful articles about \nhow to claim your business listing on TripAdvisor\n, \nhow to claim your business on Yelp\n, \nhow to claim your Google My Business listing\n, and how to respond to \nonline reviews\n.\nBiggest bang for your small business marketing buck? Email marketing\nOnce you’ve taken the vital step of claiming your business profile on all relevant review sites and have started to engage your customers by responding to reviews, you’re ready to start marketing to current and potential customers to drive new and repeat business.\nAs we’ve written previously, \nemail marketing\n is hands-down the most powerful, effective, and efficient small business marketing tool. 86% of customers actually want promotional emails from businesses they patronize.\nHow good is the return on investment (ROI) for email marketing? Somewhere between 36:1 and 44:1, depending on whom you ask. That means that for every $1 spent on email marketing, it brings in between $36 and $44. There is simply nothing else in the marketing toolbag that has anywhere close to that ROI.\nWith all the buzz about Instagram this, Facebook that, and Google the other, the concept of email marketing might seem positively archaic. But there are several advantages to email marketing that aren’t shared by its younger social-media cousins:\nEmail isn’t limited to one platform. Social networks come and go, and are dependent upon one company. Email, on the other hand, can be accessed and used via any one of thousands of email clients.\nEmail is nearly universal and dwarfs the largest social media companies. Facebook boasts 2.2 billion users, and over 500 million tweets are sent on Twitter per day. That sounds impressive until you learn that there are over 3.8 billion email users. Want to take a guess at how many emails are sent per day? \n281 billion.\nGetting started in email marketing\nTo get the full monty on the tips and how-tos for getting started, be sure to read our detailed post on \nemail marketing\n, but the TL;DR version is 1. Be consistent, and schedule time to compose an email weekly; 2. Provide real value and focus on the story, not the click; 3. Triple-check your formatting, links, and layout to make sure everything works (and find a good proofreader); and 4. Don’t send generic, bulk emails and consider automating the process. \nIf this all seems like too much, commit to this one vital practice: send a thank you email after a customer purchases at your store. The value of this practice can not be underestimated. \nSources:\n
\nhttps://deloitte.wsj.com/cmo/2017/01/24/who-has-the-biggest-marketing-budgets/\n
\nhttps://searchengineland.com/88-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-personal-recommendations-195803\n

Small business marketing: What’s the biggest bang for your buck?

Why does your small business need to increase customer loyalty? Let’s start out with some encouraging statistics: it costs five to ten times less to keep existing customers than to get new ones. Repeat customers spend 67% more. And increasing customer retention rates by just 5% has been shown to increase profits by up to 95%.\nNow for the scary news: up to 4 of 5 satisfied customers never come back. (Think about that for a minute.) And just because you have a loyalty program, that doesn’t automatically mean it will be effective.\nThe average U.S. household is enrolled in 29 loyalty programs… but only uses 12. That means nearly 60% of loyalty programs are completely useless. What’s worse, the Amazons and Walmarts of the world are spending billions of dollars a year (that’s billions with a b) trying to win the loyalty of your local customers. \nHow can you compete with that? By thinking outside the box and maximizing your advantages as a local business—yes, you have advantages. Here are three creative ways you can increase customer loyalty.\nGet more involved in your community and capitalize on the “go local” movement\nSmall, local businesses are gaining traction, and not just with hipsters looking for hand-crafted Swedish hatchets or single-source cruelty-free organic coffee. The biggest advantages local businesses have over the megacorporations are that you can provide the customer service, unique ambiance, positive purchasing experience, and personal touch that big business can’t hope to match. \nDouble down on your unique business differentiators and get active in the “go local” movement. \nGet involved in your community. Host local events. (63% of customers say they want invitations to more local events, but only 12% get them.) Volunteer for or sponsor the local football, soccer, la crosse, or diving team—whatever locals are proud of and support. Build a memorable float for the local parade. Get creative! \nThe main point is your business should be inextricably associated with your town, and local residents should feel a personal connection with you and your business. Small efforts in this area can have lasting impact. \nHowever, no matter how much you improve your in-person interaction with your customers, you must not overlook the importance of a robust online presence.\nOptimize your online presence to attract more loyal customers\nThis may sound obvious, but in order to earn more loyal customers, you need to actually get more customers. The more customers you “wow” with your unique, personal service, the more you can turn into regulars. And today, attracting more customers begins with owning your online presence.\nThis concept may sound counterintuitive for a small, local business that primarily relies on “word of mouth,” but the fact is, while people still rely on word of mouth to find local businesses today, that conversation has moved online. 84% percent of consumers search online for local businesses, 97% of customers read online reviews for local businesses, and most consumers trust those reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. \nAs we’ve written before, you absolutely must start with \nclaiming your business profile\n on all of the popular review sites like Yelp, Facebook, Google, and TripAdvisor, which is step one to improving your online presence and building a healthy population of loyal customers. \nThese review sites give you the opportunity to boost loyalty by building a visible relationship with your customers. This may be a somewhat unconventional way of thinking about a loyalty program but it is absolutely part of the process of getting and keeping loyal customers. \nUse CRM software to build or enrich your email customer loyalty program\nAny loyalty program is worthless if you don’t know who your customers are and don’t have their contact information. This is an almost universal problem for small businesses—even if they purchase dedicated loyalty program software, they don’t have the contact information to make it effective. And remember, U.S. households use only about 60% of the loyalty programs they belong to. Build the relationship first, or your \ncustomer loyalty program\n will just be more white noise.\nRather than pay for specialized loyalty program software, which is often a one-trick pony, consider customer relationship management software to identify those customers who are already loyal, those who are semi-regulars, and those who have the potential to become regulars, and building on that.\nMarketing automation software improves customer loyalty while saving you time\nOnce you have identified your customers, the best way to build loyalty is with targeted email marketing campaigns. As we’ve written before, \nemail marketing\n is far and away the most powerful, effective, and efficient marketing tool for small businesses. \nDid you know that 86% of customers actually want promotional emails from businesses they patronize? Don’t leave money on the table. \nThe old way of doing a “loyalty program” was to use punch cards or other clunky, manual ways to keep track of visits. In some cases these things may still have their place, but the true goal here is to drive repeat business. For that purpose, an effective CRM built for small business and email marketing have to come first.

How to build a customer loyalty program: 3 creative ways

In this article:\nKeep up with the changing rules of email marketing\nFundamental “dos and don’ts” for improving marketing email engagement\nShould I use emojis and other symbols in my email subject lines?\nWhen is the best time to send marketing emails?\nWhy you should consider professional help with your emails\nSo you’ve taken the time to get your business set up to send marketing emails. That’s great! Studies show email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing approach, and the volume of email still dwarfs all social media by a healthy margin.\nHowever, if you’re not optimizing your email process, content, subject lines, and deliverability, you could be spinning your wheels. In this article we’ll go over some of the key tips, techniques, and tricks to improve your marketing email engagement.\nEverything matters, and “the rules” of email marketing change often\nTo start off with, creating an effective marketing email is not easy. There’s a reason why big companies spend billions of dollars on teams, software, and content to improve email function, deliverability, click-through-rate (CTR), and general engagement. So don’t assume you can just blast everyone on your list with a sloppy “give us your money!” message and expect the dough to roll in.\nYou need to pay careful attention to every aspect of your marketing emails, and ideally, get professional help.\nEmail marketing success is in constant flux, and the “rules” that apply today may need to be updated or changed next month. So it’s a good idea to reevaluate your approach often, and be open to improvements. However, our experts have provided some key “do’s” and “don’ts” for better email marketing success.\nInclude your value proposition in the first couple of sentences\nIf you want good open rates, get to the point quickly. Focus hard on your subject line, your pre-header, and your first sentence. \nSpend some time thinking about every word. Write down several variations and ask a friend or employee to tell you which one catches their attention. (You should also try A/B testing several variations and keep track of which performs best. More on this later.)\nShort email subject lines that are carefully crafted to be both catchy and informative tend to perform the best. If your subject line is too long, the email provider may cut it off. 5-8 words is usually the most successful. \nDon’t send too many emails… or too few\nUnless your customers fit very specific use cases, they likely won’t appreciate you sending them a marketing email every day. (Of course, if they signed up for “deal of the day” emails, that’s another story). One a week is probably okay, but be absolutely sure you’re not just sending the same offer over and over.\n\nHave a specific reason for emailing your current and potential customers, and make it worth their while to click.\nOn the other side of the coin, if you only send one email a year, people will likely forget who you are. You’ll have to adjust according to your testing and feedback, but anywhere from once a week to once a month is generally appropriate, assuming you’re providing real value.\nTest your campaigns and see whether you get better results with a bigger offer sent once a month, or whether you see more engagement with more regular emails that may not have quite as big a reward for the customer.\nShould I use emojis in my marketing emails?\nOld-school email marketing gurus shudder at the thought of including those pesky “smiley faces” in the subject line of a “professional” email. However, depending on your business’s brand strategy and personality, it may be entirely appropriate. Today’s consumers are almost all on mobile devices, where emojis are not only common, they are expected.\nWe’ve found that the basic “hand wave,” thumbs-up, “pray/hands,” and “big smile” emojis perform well. Our general recommendation regarding emojis is they can be appropriate and effective for marketing/sales emails, but for announcement or informational emails, it’s probably best to not use them. \nThis is something else you should be testing in your email campaigns. Try sending one batch including an emoji, and one batch (using the otherwise identical subject line) without an emoji. If you find emojis perform better, try a batch with a different emoji, and see which performs best for you and your customers.\nSymbols, special characters, and some words may impact deliverability, depending on email service provider\nAn important note: while emojis, symbols, dollar signs, and other attention-grabbing subject-line tricks may improve email open rates and engagement in certain cases, they may also get your emails flagged by automatic spam-detection engines on some email service providers. \nWhat’s more, some filters will automatically send emails with subject lines that include dollar signs, asterisks, exclamation points, symbols, “FREE,” etc. to the recipient’s spam folder, so your customers might not even see the email you so carefully crafted.\nOf course, you should always get permission to send emails to EVERY recipient on your list, and follow the rules about including an opt-out/unsubscribe link in every email, but even when you do this, if you put “****>>>SAVE HUUUGE WITH OUR FREEEEE MONEY SAAAALE!!$$$$<<<****” in your subject line, you might get your emails automatically flagged or not delivered at all.\nThis is another reason why you should be testing regularly to see what resonates with your recipients.\nDon’t ignore the “preview” or “pre-header”\nIf you want to have strong open rates you need to focus on your pre-header (your first sentence, or whatever the email software displays). When you look at a list of emails on your phone or in an email platform on your desktop, what is typically shown is the sender name, subject line (or part of it), the pre-header, and some of the first line of your email.\nBe sure to test-send your emails to yourself and check on multiple platforms to make sure the preview/pre-header is what you want people to see and pay attention to. If not, fix it!\nKeep your emails short: within one “thumb scroll” on mobile is best\nToday’s consumers are inundated with messaging in varied forms. So when we say “get to the point quickly,” we mean within the first sentence or two… and when we say “keep your email short,” we mean within one thumb scroll on a mobile device.\nIt may be tempting to craft a tome that slowly builds interest for a committed reader, but save that for your webpage or other online marketing avenues. For email, get to the point and include a clear call-to-action quickly. Most people aren’t actually reading your emails anyway, but rather skimming to get to the meat of the message.\nYour call-to-action (CTA) should be specific, high in the email, and buttons work best\nWe’ve found that for maximum engagement, your CTA needs to be towards the top of your email. Again, it should be within the first scroll on mobile devices.\nAdditionally, “button” or image-based CTAs have produced higher click-through-rates. Regarding your call to action, carefully ask and answer the following questions:\nWhat is the reader’s motivation for clicking the button?\nWhat is the reader going to get when they click the button?\nIs it very clear what they will get? \nAs for what color the CTA button should be for best engagement, we have found there is no statistically significant difference between different colors of the button. Just make sure it’s easy to see and easy to read.\n\nWhen is the best time to send marketing emails for maximum engagement?\nEveryone is different, so be sure to test your list and track your results. However, we’ve found the following as a general rule.\nBest times to send emails:\nTuesday mornings\nThursday mornings\nWednesday mornings\nSaturday mid-mornings (10 am-noon)\nWorst times to send emails: \nAnytime after 5 pm \nFridays\nMondays \nSaturday after noon \nSundays\nHow many links are best in a marketing email?\nYou may be tempted to include every possible bit of info about your business in every email, since this might be the “one chance” you have to reach a particular customer. \nHowever, if you want maximum email engagement, don’t go nuts with the links. Keep them to 3 or fewer in a single email, and we see the best performance from emails with just 2 links (excluding required links such as unsubscribe options and links to your business’s terms of service if applicable). \nBe sure to double-check all links both for accuracy of the URL and for functionality on both desktop and mobile. Can your fingers easily click on each link on your mobile device? If not, fix it!\nEmail engagement tips from a pro\nEllen Ford, Marketing Communications Specialist, shares some of the email tips that have attracted the attention of reporters and scored her team unpaid placements in the \nNew York Times\n, \nThe Washington Post\n, \nBloomberg\n, AP, and Reuters, among many others.\n“Format matters! Number one, make sure the format you use looks good on desktop and mobile screens. Number two, make sure to split up different thoughts into different paragraphs. This may seem obvious, but I still receive huge, one-paragraph emails that border on unreadable due to their wall-of-text format”\n“Don’t be afraid to experiment with subject lines. Depending on the audience, catchy subject lines may work better than down-to-business subject lines, and vice versa. You’ll need to figure out which method works best for your message and business.”\n“When it comes to the body of the email, cut the fluff, but be interesting. Most people are skimming promotional emails, not reading them word-for-word, which means you need to get to the point quickly. But don’t sacrifice character for succinctness. Use a tone that will keep the reader engaged while you lay out the important information.”\n“Don’t overdo it with the links. Inserting 2 or 3 per email is standard. More than that might be going overboard.”\nEllen’s tips are a valuable look into a very successful marketing and PR team’s approach to email engagement success—one that can work for any business looking to improve their email marketing results.\nEvery local business should use email marketing \nOne final thought to leave you with: happy customers often don’t come back to your store. According to a Bain & Company study, 60-80% of customers who describe themselves as satisfied do not go back to do more business with the company that initially satisfied them. Why? It may be because there is a lack of connection.\nCustomers forget. Customers are busy. It’s natural.\nThat’s why, for small business owners, \nemail marketing\n is the best way to create a lasting connection that keeps customers coming back with smiles on their faces and cash in their hands. 

How to improve marketing email engagement (9 important tips!)

In this article:\nWhy use a business email address\nHow to create a business email account\nTips for using your business email address\nIf you’re still using a generic Gmail, Yahoo, or other email account for your business, we’re here to tell you that it’s time to stop. Your business deserves a branded email account, and you deserve the benefits that come from it. \nWhat is a business email account and why is it important?\nA business email account is more than just an email that you use for business. It’s an email account that is branded by your domain (in other words, \nyour business’s website\n). So, instead of using joesmith@gmail.com you would use joe@[yourdomain].com. \nAnyone can create a free Gmail or other email account using your business’s name and pretend to be your business. But only your business can use an email that is on a domain that you own. Using an email address that is on your domain helps establish trust, not only with your customers but with their email service providers, too. Some email accounts will block generic email addresses that they’ve never seen before, or automatically filter them into junk mail. \nA business email address looks more professional and is generally easier to remember. Plus, it allows you to promote your brand with every message that you send. \nHow to create a professional business email account\nNow, let’s talk about how you can actually accomplish getting a business email account. \nStep 1: Get a domain for your business\nFirst, you need to have a domain. The good news is, if you have a website, you likely already have your domain! If your website is hosted on a free platform that doesn’t provide you with a domain, then you’ll need to purchase one (and we highly recommend putting your website on your own, purchased domain). \nThere are tons of domain registrars out there to purchase from; GoDaddy.com, BlueHost.com, Domains.Google, and Zoho.com are a good place to start. Just find a domain that fits well with your business (but keep it short and memorable) and make the purchase. \nIf you already have a domain, make sure you know where it is hosted and can get logged into the account. If you don’t know that information, talk to your website developer or ask the customer service department of your domain hosting service provider. \nStep 2: Choose an email service provider and create your email address\nOnce you have your domain, you’ll need to choose a place to host your email. Your domain registrar likely has an email hosting plan that you can sign up for. These are usually a couple dollars a month per email box that you need. \nCommon email service providers that businesses use include G-Suite (now called Google Workplace) and Microsoft Outlook. These are both more advanced business plans that cost a little more, but do have additional features like calendars, chat, file sharing, and more. \nIf you’re looking for the easiest and cheapest way to set up a business email account, go with your domain registrar. \nWhen you have chosen your email service provider, you can create the email address that you want to use. Keep it simple and easy to remember, and keep a consistency across your company’s email addresses. For example, if you have an email for every employee, choose a consistent format like [firstname]@[yourdomain].com or [firstinitial.lastname]@[yourdomain].com\nStep 3: Set up your email\nNow that you have a domain and your preferred email service provider, it’s time to set up your email so that you can actually send and receive mail. We can’t go through the setup of every email service provider out there, but the main steps are generally the same. \nIf you are using your domain registrar to host your email, just log in to your account to set up your email. There will generally be a section under your account that says “manage email.” With some of them you may need to purchase your email hosting first, so choose the email plan that you want, make the purchase, and then follow the prompts from your registrar to finish the setup. \nIf you are using a service that is separate from your domain registrar, you’ll need to set up the MX records to direct your mail to your email service provider’s servers. Mail Exchange (MX) records are codes or identification records that your domain registrar uses to specify the mail server that hosts your email. \nMost domain hosts will have step-by-step MX setup instructions that you can use. \nHere are some generic steps for finding those records and making the change:\nSign in to your account on your domain host’s site\nFind the section where you can update your MX records—it might say “Mail Settings,” “DNS Management,” or “Advanced Settings”\nDelete any existing MX records (you’ll be adding new ones)\nAdd new MX records for your email service provider (find these in your account for your email service provider)\nTest your email to see if it works\nNote: Sometimes it can take 24-48 hours for your DNS (Domain Name System) to reflect this new change. \nIf you are having trouble finding the settings that you need to set up your email account, talk to your IT team or your web developer. \nBest practices for setting up your business email account\nOnce your business email account is created, there are a few other things that you need to be aware of in order to have the best experience and ensure that your customers receive your emails. \nDon’t spam your customers\nIf your customers have signed up to receive emails from you or you have their email address from your numerous communications with them, respect that. Don’t spam your customers with constant messages that they are unlikely to read. That might just ensure that they miss the more important emails that you send their way. \nAvoid getting your email blacklisted\nAs you start creating email campaigns and engaging in email marketing with your new professional email address, there are some important steps you need to take to avoid getting your email blacklisted (meaning blocked or going straight to spam). \nDon’t buy email lists. It’s important that you get permission from people you send emails to (like through a sign up form), and people on email lists generally didn’t give their consent\nCraft engaging emails. Low engagement rates can cause emails to bounce or go to spam if the receivers aren’t opening the messages\nDon’t use click-bait subject lines (at least not if they aren’t accurate to the message of the email)\nInclude an unsubscribe link so customers have the option to opt out of your email campaigns\nHave customers/subscribers whitelist your email\nSome email services automatically block new emails that aren’t included in a list of safe senders or that they’ve never seen before. If your customers or subscribers whitelist your email, that will help ensure that they receive communications from you. \nUse a spam testing tool\nThere are a few email spam testing tools out there that you can use to score your email campaigns. These will tell you how spammy your emails are and how you can fix that. A couple of good ones to start with are Litmus and Mail-Tester. \nAdditional resources for email marketing\nIf you plan to do any email marketing, you should always do so from a business email address. Once you have that set up, you might find this article helpful in your marketing efforts:\n\nTop 10 best practices for small business email marketing\n\n

6 articles found in “Email”

Top 10 best practices for small business email marketing

Why small business email marketing should be your top priority in 2022

Small business marketing: What’s the biggest bang for your buck?

How to build a customer loyalty program: 3 creative ways

How to improve marketing email engagement (9 important tips!)

How to create a business email account (and important tips)

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