Six email marketing best practices of 2019

Despite the increasing number of social media platforms, good old email continues to be one of the most effective tools for engaging with prospects and customers, and for boosting revenue. That is if you use it right.

Every year, email marketing best practices change just like the very consumers you’re trying to reach. So if you want to grow your mailing list, get more subscribers to open your emails and entice them to take a specific action, read on to learn how to achieve your email marketing goals in 2019. And if you’re just getting started with email marketing, you can take our free email marketing course to learn the basics.

1. Focus on quality over quantity

Focusing on quantity over quality when it comes to growing your mailing list is never a smart business move.

Why? Because having a huge list of subscribers means nothing if many of them aren’t interested in hearing or buying from you.

A good first step to ensure that people who subscribe to your list want to hear from you is to enable a double opt-in verification method. This requires users to confirm their email address via a link they receive in a confirmation email, like this one:

The subscription is activated only after the user clicks the link or button to confirm their email address.

There are two key reasons why a double opt-in is beneficial for you and why you should start using it in 2019.

Firstly, it gives you an extra layer of security by ensuring all your subscribers are real and not bots or hackers.

Secondly, you’ll know that users who take the extra step to confirm their email address are actually interested in hearing from you.

So if you want to keep a healthy, engaged list of subscribers in 2019, don’t skip this step. Go with a double opt-in when users sign up for your mailing list.

2. Personalise your emails

Personalisation is not just a buzzword. It’s a must for customer retention in 2019.

In fact, over 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered, personalised campaigns rather than one-size-fits-all campaigns according to DMA.

What does personalisation mean? It means sending emails that feel like they are custom-made for the recipient.

The benefits? Personalised emails:

• Stand out in the inbox as highly relevant and tailor-made
• Are more likely to be opened and clicked on
• Contribute to a stellar customer experience as you’re sending the right content to the right people at the right time.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when you look at the benefits of email personalisation.

So how do you nail personalisation? Start with simple tactics like:

• Including subscribers’ names in the subject line and email copy
• Providing content, products and offers that are relevant to their individual interests
• Sending reminders with the products they left in the cart
• Including location-specific images and offers that make your emails feel hyper-relevant

Read our post for more tips and advice on how to use email personalisation to boost open rates and revenue.

3. Make them relevant

Relevance is key if you want subscribers to open your emails, read what’s inside and take the action you want them to take, whether that’s to buy a product or a service or to read your latest blog post.

So if in 2018 you were sending the same information, the same offers and the same discounts to all subscribers, it’s time to change your strategy.

2019 is all about sending content and offers that are tailored to your subscribers’ personal interests and problems.

One of the most effective ways to ensure you’re sending relevant content to subscribers is to segment your email list. This means getting to know them and creating different lists or groups so you can then send content that’s targeted directly at each specific group depending on where they are in the purchasing journey.

For example, someone who’s in the research phase is probably not ready to buy your video editing software now. They first want to learn more about you and your software – how it works, what they can do with it, who else is using it and what they’re saying about it. They want to feel confident that they’re making the right choice and that your product can help them to create an amazing video with ease.

Someone who has already purchased and used your software may need further assistance or may want to upgrade and get access to more advanced features.

So by segmenting your list you are able to send each group the information and offers that are relevant to where they are in the purchasing journey.

Here are a few examples of segments you can experiment with:

• A specific location or age group
• Before a first purchase is made
• First time customers
• VIP’s
• Loyal customers
• Abandoned cart

4. Be generous

While the ultimate goal of your email campaign is to drum up sales, that doesn’t mean that your emails should be all about you.

In 2019, focus on being generous first. That means sending emails that provide a specific value to your subscribers – something they need, want or might learn from. It can be anything from blog posts and tutorials to case studies and webinars.

When you show that you care more about helping them to achieve their goals or to solve their problems than you do about selling your products or service, you’ll have a better chance at winning them over.

So if you want to engage subscribers and turn them into customers, stop pitching your products or services in every email you send.

Be helpful instead. Inform, educate and delight your audience with your content. And of course, be generous with discounts, special offers and exclusive access to resources and products or services.

5. Make it time-sensitive

People procrastinate unless you give them a reason to act now. Given the option, nine times out of ten we’ll buy it tomorrow.

The problem is that if your prospects put off buying until tomorrow, they’re likely to lose interest or even forget about that great product they wanted to buy.

The solution? Incentivising your audience to buy now by creating a sense of urgency or scarcity.

How? Start with writing subject lines that inform subscribers about your limited-time offer. Make it so tempting that they’ll fear missing out on that offer. This is an effective tactic to get recipients to open your email, visit your site and buy now rather than later.

Read this post for more tips and advice on how to create subject lines that boost open rates.

Another way is to combine scarcity with social proof. Send subscribers a fantastic deal but tell them you’re running out of discount codes because it’s so popular. This will make them feel like everyone else is getting on board, which is what’s creating a shortage so they’ll be more likely to act immediately.

6. Optimise your emails for mobile

The statistics surrounding email over mobile devices suggest that an email is usually first viewed on a mobile device over a computer.

So if your emails aren’t optimised to be viewed properly on mobile, in 2019 it’s time to get with the programme. If you don’t take action quickly, your subscribers may have trouble interacting with your emails and may eventually stop opening them.

The email marketing service from 123 Reg provides you with responsive templates to ensure your subscribers have a pleasant experience reading your emails on whatever device they use.

But if you aren’t yet using it, here are a few things you can do to optimise your emails for mobile:

• Image size – Make sure that all the images in your emails are optimised to fit the screen of the device it’s being viewed on.
• CTAs – Go with buttons that your users can press on with ease rather than links.
• Text – Make your email content easy to scan. Use subheadings, bullet points and small paragraphs.

In conclusion

Now that you’re caught up to speed on the six email marketing best practices of 2019, it’s time to put them into action.

And remember – just because you have one successful or unsuccessful email campaign, it doesn’t mean they will all follow suit. Measure the results to see what’s working and how to better tailor your future campaigns to get better results.

Don’t know how? Read our beginner’s guide to email analytics to learn which metrics to focus on when evaluating email performance.