These days, it’s assumed that social media is king. However, if you’re in retail, email marketing is a tool which cannot be beat. A winning marketing strategy will use multiple platforms and resources, which will certainly include your social media profiles, but if you dismiss email marketing campaigns, you’ll be missing out on the best way to get personal with your customers as well as 25-35% of your total revenue!
That’s right - companies report that email marketing is responsible for between 25-35% of their annual income, which is nothing to scoff at. Interested in learning more? Then here are some more stats you may be interested in.
Email Marketing Statistics
We get it. Before you start putting eggs into the email marketing basket, you want a bit more information. Smart move!
- There are 4 billion people using email every day. This number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025 (Statista)
- More than 306 billion emails are sent and received every day (Statista)
- 41.5% of brands reported that email marketing has been critical to their business success (Litmus)
- 77% of marketers saw an increase in email engagement through 2022 (Hubspot)
- 46% of smartphone users prefer to receive communications from businesses via email (Statista)
Email Marketing Best Practices
Now that you know how valuable email marketing can be, we’ve put together some best practices to follow when setting up your plan.
Use Double Opt-in Email sign-up
“Double opt-in" is a process where a new customer confirms that they want to receive emails or texts after entering their contact information on a website. This is important because it helps prevent accidental subscriptions, fake email addresses, or continued correspondence with people who have changed their minds after their initial sign up.
While it can seem counterproductive, it’s also important to include easy unsubscribe options in your emails. If you don't follow these best practices, you could even get blacklisted or fined up to $50,000 under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2009.
By giving the subscriber the option to change their mind, you’ll ensure that everyone you write to actually wants to hear from you, and avoid a fine. It really is better for everyone involved!
Avoid Using a No-Reply Email Address
Industry leaders are striving to make our internet experiences more personal. This means that search engines aim to provide better results that fit our queries and that real connections are more important. In the past, it was expected to receive emails from no-reply addresses, but this is changing.
Google now values quality over quantity, so if you send emails that a subscriber can't respond to, you'll be penalized with lower deliverability. Legitimate businesses need to provide an open line of communication beyond a website contact form. By allowing customers to reply to your emails, you create an easier way for them to ask questions and increase your sales at the same time!
Practice Regular Email List Cleaning
If you take anything away from this article, make it this. Similar to double opt-ins, easy unsubscribe links and the nixing of no-reply addresses, cleaning your email list will ensure you’re only writing to customers who are paying attention, and keep you whitelisted.
Pro tip: A great way to clean your email list is by using an email marketing service such as Klaviyo.Klaviyo will allow you to easily schedule a flow of emails which reveals who’s still listening and whose attention you’ve lost.
Write a Strong Subject Line
Focusing more on email content than subject lines is a bad habit since 69% of email recipients mark emails as spam based on subject lines alone (Invesp). Additionally, 64% decide to open an email based on the subject line, regardless of how much they like the brand (Barilliance).
Personalizing the subject line with the recipient's name and keeping it between 6-10 words can increase the chances of your email being opened by 21%. Capitalize appropriately. Oh, and if you want to use emojis? Stick to 1 or 2, and make sure they fit your brand’s voice.
Pro tip: Check out Capitalize my Title if you’re uncertain about capitalization.
Personalize Whenever Possible
The internet is becoming more personal, so your emails should too. Segmentation is important, as it allows you to send targeted emails for specific groups of people. For example, if you have both local and online customers, they will need to receive different information.
With segmentation you can get extremely specific. Branch out from local vs. online, and target each subscriber based on their interests!
Through flows, you can keep track of the products a customer adds to their cart so they can receive email marketing campaigns about the same product or similar ones they may want to purchase.
And if you really want to go next-level, create a Cross-Sell Flow where they’ll receive suggestions for matching products - because “do you want fries with that?” really does work.
Keep your emails casual, brief, and easy to skim. Don't forget to include options for sharing!
Pro tip: Segmentation and the creation of email “flows” is made much easier when utilizing a tool such as Klaviyo.
Create Compelling CTAs
A CTA, or Call To Action, is a button or link in your email that prompts readers to take a specific action. CTAs should be short and to the point, and convey a sense of urgency to encourage readers to take action. A good example for a CTA appearing in button form would be "Shop Now!” While a CTA embedded into body text could be more along the lines of: "Our sale on shoes lasts only through this weekend, so hurry and visit shoes.com now!"
Optimize for Mobile
A personalized email isn’t worth much if it’s unreadable. Before sending out an email, be sure to make it accessible. That means testing it for desktop reading, mobile reading, and performance on multiple devices. Keep in mind dark mode, too! You don’t want your dark social media icons blending in with the background so no one knows to click them.
Pro tip: While Klaviyo allows you to test for mobile or desktop, you can employ an app such as Litmus to test on different inbox providers.
Take Advantage of Analytics and Testing
To improve your email marketing strategy, it's important to analyze data through analytics. This will give you insights on how many people are opening your emails and clicking your CTAs. By knowing what works and what doesn't, you can avoid wasting time, energy, and money.
If something isn't working in your marketing campaign, try A/B testing. This involves making small changes to elements such as the banner or subject line and comparing the results. Remember to only test one element at a time!
Bonus Tips
There’s a lot of information out there when it comes to email marketing. The internet is a fast-paced environment where changes are happening day by day, so it’s important to keep up on the latest so that your email marketing campaigns can perform their best. Here are a few other points to consider when making your marketing strategy:
- Consider interactivity (swipe, click, watch, etc)
- Employ good UI and UX
- Use lead magnets for more subscribers (offer or deal in exchange for contact info)
- Look at examples of a successful marketing campaign in your industry for inspiration
- Embrace UGC (User Generated Content)
- Consider timelines (holidays and world events)
Are You Ready to Embrace Email?
If you made it to the end of this article, you’ll have an excellent starting point for your email marketing journey. It may seem like getting started and maintaining a successful email marketing campaign could involve a lot of work, but when you work with automation tools you’ll be off to the races in no time. And if you need a helping hand, Arctic Leaf’s Content Marketing team is here to help.
Oh and - keep watching this spot or reach out to us directly at info@arcticleaf.io for more updates and insights from the pros at Arctic Leaf!
Arctic Leaf is a digital agency with over 10 years of e-commerce and email marketing experience serving clients of all industries. Our entire team is Baymard UX certified and our amazing developers can build everything from simple Shopify themes to fully custom headless experiences.
