Before You Hit Send: Email Marketing Essentials

12th October 2022 - Last modified 19th October 2023

By Tim Cullum, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing and Media

For most companies, email marketing is still a critical component of the communications cocktail. Amazing then how many still seem to get the basics so badly wrong! Stylistically of course it’s still important to inject some personality and avoid dull conformity, but there are some perennial rules of engagement that should be adhered to wherever possible:

(1) Dedicate time to your subject line (and preheader)

When considering factors that are likely to influence a recipients’ inclination to open your email, the subject line is paramount. Clearly then, a significant proportion of your writing time should be dedicated to crafting a subject line and preheader that will maximise opens.

Tips and tricks for composing irresistible subject lines are worthy of a blog on their own so I won’t go into detail here but if nothing else, be sure to consider the following:

• Keep it short and punchy
• Avoid anything spammy
• Be specific
• Bespoke for each audience/segment

(2) Get familiar with personalisation

This is a simple one. There really is no excuse for omitting personalisation in your email marketing. The only reason your email wouldn’t include personalisation is if you have an inaccurate/incomplete database. And if that’s the case, then you should probably make fixing that your top priority!

(3) For an engaging call to action, make yourself useful

Your marketing emails should always be relevant and useful to the recipient. If this is the case then you shouldn’t have any trouble crafting an engaging call to action. Again, it might seem obvious but I still see so many emails without a clear, genuinely enticing call to action. Driving traffic/enquiries is likely to be one of the primary objectives of your email marketing. If you’re not including strong calls to action then you’re not maximising its potential.

As with subject lines, your call to action should be specific but concise. Make it clear to the recipient how they will benefit from clicking in as few words as possible. Simply saying “read more” or “find out more” is not sufficient. Equally, use no more than five or six words if possible. Also, you shouldn’t need to say “click here”; just put your link text in a button or make it a different colour – people know what they need to do!

Always try to include a call to action near the top of the email, making it as easy as possible for recipients to click through. If your subject line, call to action and landing page are strong enough, it may not be necessary for the recipient to read the whole email, so save them some scrolling. Do still include one near the bottom as well though. There’s nothing wrong with having multiple calls to action, just avoid having them all linking to different things. A maximum of one or two destinations is best and use tracking links for easier analysis.

(4) Be image conscious

Some email clients prevent the automatic download of images by default. Consequently, your carefully selected imagery may not be displayed. With this in mind, it is important to ensure any critical information contained within the images is also communicated in the copy. Use alt text to describe images too. This is also best practice for accessibility.

(5) Testing, testing

Designing an email that works perfectly across the full spectrum of devices and platforms is pretty much impossible. However, it’s important to test your email for usability and compatibility across the majority of email clients and screen sizes, particularly those most commonly used by your audience. Outlook is still the main culprit when it comes to display issues so this will probably be your priority. Testing manually remains the most reliable way to check for rendering issues but obviously tools such as litmus offer greater scope and efficiency.

(6) If you love them, let them go

Last, but by no means least, you absolutely must include an unsubscribe link. It needn’t be prominent but it has to be there somewhere, usually in the footer. Emails without unsubscribe links violate GDPR and will likely be flagged as spam anyway. Plus, it’s actually in your best interest to know if a recipient is no longer engaged. You can always ask why. It might be helpful.

Keep these email marketing essentials in mind and you won’t go too far wrong.

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