Why should you not buy Email Lists?

There’s no shortcut to success, no matter how tempting it might seem. Whether you are a new company looking to build a fresh list or an existing firm trying to increase its list, buying email addresses will be a waste in the long run. Typically including names, email addresses, and sometimes even personal data like income or company name, these for-sale lists can seem a great way to launch an email marketing campaign. Truth is, that they aren’t as great as they seem. Unsolicited emails are spammy and annoying and can get you blocked from the customer’s inbox or relegated to the SPAM folder. 

Top reasons why purchasing Email Lists is a terrible idea 

Go For Quality, Not Quantity

Would you rather invite 100 close friends for a birthday party, or distribute 1000 pamphlets declaring free food and drink to 1000 random people on the road? Now, while people might willingly show up for a free feast, the same cannot be said when it comes to spending. Everyone won’t be so eager. People who sell email lists aren’t very honest. The list may come rife with inaccuracies like missing data or wrong names, and out-of-date information. There are also email addresses illegally harvested from the internet. If you send such addresses promo emails, it goes against the CAN-SPAM Act. 

Loss of Face

Why come across as a spammer? No one enjoys receiving unsolicited emails, especially marketing messages, subtle or obvious. Such emails are deleted after they annoy you. No matter how well you think your own promotional emails are written, for another recipient, you’re just another spammer. When people have joined an email list that gets sold, it is usually after they have checked some boxes or agreed to certain terms and conditions about receiving offers from ‘similar or related companies’. Most people don’t even read terms and conditions, let alone remember them, so there’s a good chance you’ll be treated as spam. 

Your Email Service Provider Will Hate You

If the majority of your emails are getting marked as spam, it will alert your service provider. Your account may face closure, and you may face a penalty with your email service provider even resorting to legal action. An email list purchase is itself frowned upon by certain email service providers. Most of the major players like Mailchimp, Constant Contact might be okay with it, but some like Aweber discourage the practice altogether.

Others are Using Similar Lists

Here’s some news. Others too, have purchased email lists and are using the same addresses as you. Just like you, they’ve purchased the list too, and are sending repeated emails to the same recipients. A lot of the people on that list may already be saturated with marketing emails, and they won’t be in a mood to entertain your company’s query on top of that list. 

Poor Response Rates

If you purchase an email list of 20,000 names, you might be wondering if you even get 2.5% conversion rates, you may sell a lot of products, break-even and make a profit too. However, reality paints a different picture. The vast majority of people don’t open emails, let alone click on the links present in them. Even if around 500 people look at your email, and don’t engage, you won’t manage a single sale. 

Fines and Legal Trouble

There are laws against unsolicited bulk emails, like the American CAN-SPAM Act. While you might be able to avert laws by using a purchased email list, major subscriber complaints can get you into trouble, and legal fees to prove you have not done anything wrong, will cost a fair sum. Some countries like Canada have different laws, and if your email lists have people from cities like Toronto, you need to comply with such laws. 

So, in general, purchasing an email list is not recommended. 

If you want people to sign up for your email list, create a website that will draw them in. That way, they’re receiving something of value before you ask for something in return. This helps build trust and goodwill in the long run. Attract an audience with useful engaging content.

How to grow your Email List?

Read our blog on growing your email list to find useful tips. In addition to doing that, here’s what you can do. 

Use Lead Magnets

An incentive offered to potential subscribers in exchange for their email addresses, lead magnets could help you get some useful addresses. Deciding what magnet to use depends on your industry and what your audience wants. It could be a list of resources, some guides, or tutorials. 

Use Reputable Email Service Providers

Ditch any past purchased lists, and avoid cutting corners by using email clients like Outlook or Gmail. Your ISP will start penalizing you, and you might miss out on their key features or advantages. Any reputable email service provider can help you. Also, test your emails before sending them out. Here’s a list of tools to help you do that.

Leverage Social Media

One of the best ways to reach potential consumers and harvest email addresses is to use social media. A simple campaign to collect addresses in exchange for a newsletter might be a great idea. Social media will bring its own additional audience as well, so you’ll have a whole new bunch of people to interact with.

Paper and Pen

There’s no harm in being traditional. If you have a storefront, collect email addresses in a visitor’s book, the old-fashioned way! Or, if you have been invited to a trade fair or networking event use similar methods to collect email addresses. 

Remember, just like purchasing social media followers is never a good idea, buying email lists isn’t too great of a concept either. To start a successful campaign, you must start on a good note, getting addresses of worth.

Conclusion

No matter the chosen route, you have to track the performance of your email campaigns. Use CRM software for customer base management, combining it with demand forecasting. Keep measuring and tracking your efforts to fine-tune your email marketing strategy, making it the best it can be. 

The post Top Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Purchase Email Lists first appeared on Publir.

Why You Should Integrate Search Engine and Email Marketing

Both SEO and email marketing differ in many ways too. Email marketing tends to be a little more personalized, addressing customers by their first name. In any case, here are a few ways email marketing and SEO can work together. 

A Cross-Channel Content Strategy for Target Audiences

Highly relevant content is essential if you want to win at organic search rankings. Promotional content for paid search works too, as long as you have a specific CTA. Whether you want to drive leads or sales, you need content to engage your community. From email to social, your content strategy needs to be uniform in its messaging. At the same time, your strategy should be flexible to allow subscribers to self-identify content they want to receive. This ensures your content is useful and relevant. Creating segmented content buckets with lists for dissipation across different media channels should be the first step in integrating email and search engine marketing. 

Using Email To Distribute Link-Building Content 

Email is all about lead generation. Search engine marketing is great for getting a steady flow of good leads over time. Email marketing is still the primary channel for many firms. This is why sending lead-generation-based offers, blog posts and infographics to your subscribers is a good idea. This improves the reach and relevance of your page as well. 

Search Campaigns for Email List Growth 

If you want to increase your number of email subscribers, launch a campaign with an aim to feed your top funnel audience, so the middle and bottom-funnel keep moving. A steady flow of content can ensure a steadily growing audience. SEO and paid search can help you in this regard. 

Keyword Research and Email Content 

Keyword research isn’t to be limited to when you have to launch a search campaign. Email newsletters need to be crafted equally carefully, and keywords are applicable here too. These keywords could be ones that you’ve picked using a tool or solution-based keywords. You could also try a different approach. One in which you use relevant keywords to present customers with a solution to some problem they’re having, via your email newsletters. In the bigger picture, use the same guidelines when you create content. Don’t stuff keywords into your email copy. But use them to your advantage to enhance the email content to get audiences interested. 

A/B Testing Isn’t Just For Search Ads

Just as you conduct regular A/B testing for search ads, email subject lines should be run through the same tests. A/B tests help in paid ads because the latter are rotated frequently, automatically. Findings from these tests can be used to craft email subject lines. In the same way, an A/B test on an email subject line can help you come up with different variations of paid ads. 

Repurpose Content  

Sometimes, the same content can be given a unique spin and presented with an entirely new perspective to a different audience. Consider a newsletter. Typically used to promote the latest blog post, products, or services, they can also be populated with exclusive subscriber-centric content. All your newsletters must be designed impeccably, for which there are various templates. Now, this content used in the newsletter can be used in a blog post or any other form of written content. SEO best practices should be put in place to ensure your content ranks higher up. It would also be a nice idea to mention that this was previously newsletter content, which is available exclusively to subscribers. That way you might have a curious few who would want to get onboard your email subscriber list. Maintain a balance though. Constantly rehashing content could be harmful in the long run. 

Reviews

Reviews are a great way to use information from customers to beef up your search campaigns. Reviews can be solicited via email. Be tactful when you ask customers for their opinions, as local businesses can be affected either really well or very badly, by reviews. It is important to rank higher in search results. Asking email subscribers to write reviews can help you win the trust of other customers too. Reviews often contain good keywords, boosting your SERP ranking. Emails with CTAs prompting subscribers to write reviews can give you insights into what parts of your business strategy need tweaking. Accordingly, efforts can be directed there. Read our blog on how to solicit reviews effectively, and why these reviews matter in the first place. 

Using PPC to Boost Email CTR

A PPC campaign that starts a day or two before and lasts a few days after the email is sent, can help your idea stay in your consumer’s minds for longer. Awareness built through these ads could drive email click-through rates because consumers will have your company on their mind, and maybe curious to know more. 

Customizing and Personalising Content 

Using email segmentation can help you deliver personalized content. When people receive customized content that they find personally relevant, their chances of responding are higher. Surveys or email polls can help you figure out what your subscribers want. The results from them can help you create personalized content and share it via email, or segment your email list further. Personalized content improves the overall relevance of your content and improves the chances of it being shared or linked. This pushes you up to reach and could even win you some backlinks. The overarching effect is web traffic and search engine ranking increase. 

Use Gmail Sponsored Promotions 

Also known as Gmail ads, these have become quite popular as they have a good impact on campaign performance. A merger of sorts between search and mail, allows advertisers to use Google Ads to run their ads, which are then displayed in the Promotions tab within Gmail, like a collapsed ad. When clicked, these open an extended tab, not unlike a promotional email. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, your email marketing strategy and search plans must align with your overall company objectives. If you want to increase the number of leads, your strategy will be different, as it will be if you want to drive sales. At the end of each channel is the consumer. They may use each channel differently, but their fundamental thought process remains unchanged. Every message that reaches them must be crafted in a way that the customer must want to engage further with your brand. Only then will they want to purchase something from you. Search engine marketing, together with email and social media marketing is a good way to start building and nurturing an online presence to attract potential consumers.

The post Top Ways to Integrate Search Engine and Email Marketing first appeared on Publir.

In any case, it’s tough to get promotional emails opened. Getting everything right has to be a priority. Well, before sending any email there are 3 very important steps to go through, so you can get an exact picture of your own email through your subscriber’s eyes. 

3 Steps Before Sending An Email

• Previewing
• Testing 
• Rendering 

In this article, we will look at various tools to perform each of these steps. Read to find out more!

Best Email Previewing Tools

SendX

An affordable email marketing software, it helps publishers reach new subscribers and grow their audience by providing features like a drag and drop editor. Their paid plan allows you to send unlimited emails to subscribers. You can also control parameters like past open behavior, time zone, domain name, email client, internet service provider, etc.

Every paid SendX plan allows you to send unlimited emails to opted-in subscribers. It optimizes email campaigns based on various parameters like past open behavior, time-zone, domain name, email client, ISP, etc. A heatmap report shows you which CTAs are the best, and which links attract the most people. You get more than 50 free premium and responsive email templates, for a range of uses across industries.

HUBSPOT Free Email

Hubspot’s email marketing software allows you to preview your emails across 30 different email clients. Their email preview tool assesses emails for colorblind accessibility,  RSS to Email campaigns, personalization tokens, missing images. One of the best advantages of this software is putting it to work with other email marketing software. Your email builder doesn’t need to preview your emails. You don’t even need a designer. All you need is this tool that helps you create lovely, customized emails.

Inbox Analyser

Test your email for spam, and send them to popular email service providers just to check what a final delivered mail looks like. This tool shows you whether the message goes to the person’s spam or inbox. Get real-time data about reputation alerts, sender scores, and blacklists. Scan your emails for issues and resolve them. 

Email on Acid 

This effective email preview tool assists users to display their email across various live clients instead of emulations and simulations. See what your subscribers see. Screenshots from this tool will tell you everything about email appearance on different devices. Check code irregularities, bad links, and poor formatting. Review, edit and comment on email previews directly on the software, making your testing process faster and more efficient. 

Inbox Preview by Campaign Monitor 

Cost-effective and dynamic, it allows you to preview emails across 20 different clients, on mobiles, desktops, laptops, and other devices. Their no-image preview, efficient spam testing, and user-friendliness have brought it favor with around 400,000 companies. What’s more. Pay only once you’ve used all the features for your email campaign.

Best Email Testing Tools 

Litmus 

One of the most famous names in email testing, Litmus is trusted by enterprise-level operations. Preview your emails and test them on a range of platforms, changing the code right on the platform itself. As part of its growing success, Litmus acquired the email testing tool PutsMail as well. 

Mailtrap 

Mailtrap allows you to send test emails, scan emails for spam, and more, all due to its ability to use its in-built fake SMTP server. This, so you don’t have to use a real mail server, ensuring that your test emails don’t go out to recipients by mistake. 

Glockapps

An all-in-one deliverability testing tool, this can test spam score, email placement, and IP reputation, while running authentication and blacklisting checks. Make use of its advanced bounce tracking and DMARC Analytics, and the easy-to-read and comprehensive reports all delivered immediately to your smartphone.

SubjectLine.com 

An email’s subject line makes a big difference. Get a rating out of 100, on parameters like word length, total length, urgency, etc. Remember, choice of words matters, so develop subject lines that are attractive to readers. 

Preview My Email 

Don’t be taken in by the name. Apart from being good for previewing, this tool is awesome for testing too because you get screenshots of your mail across all popular providers with a single click. It also has some useful analytics that can help you decode your audience.

MailChimp 

One of the well-known players in the email marketing game, Mailchimp. Allows you to manage your email lists, design the mails themselves, and send them out, after testing them comprehensively. Its built-in tools allow you to evaluate email spam scores and preview designs. Features like performance monitoring, content management, automated scheduling, and multi-channel communication make MailChimp a formidable and flexible tool while being quite user-friendly, thanks to its library of videos and articles providing support. 

Best Email Rendering Tools 

Stripo 

An email builder with email testing and a range of email service provider integrations supporting HubSpot, Mailchimp, Gmail, and Outlook, Stripo has a range of custom modules available to use across campaigns. Its fast, responsive HTML editor ensures you never have to worry about your email rendering across different recipient devices. Stripo even has a code validator so you can check for errors after building dynamic AMP emails. 

IBM Email Optimiser 

The erstwhile Unica email optimizer, this software has been designed to measure and track the level of efficiency of emails sent out. Previewing the email in AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, and other providers, this tool shows you whether your IP address has been blacklisted by any email servers. Any images used in your email will be shown how the receiver will see them. 

Sendinblue 

A nifty marketing suite for small to medium-sized enterprises, Sendinblue allows you to check email deliverability, manage campaigns, send SMS messages, and carry out other digital marketing activities. In order to check the efficacy of your message, send a test campaign to a contact list, and execute an inbox test.

GetResponse 

Want to create high-quality content, grow website traffic, boost sales, and more with a single software? Getresponse allows you to test and preview emails, across 25 of the most well-known email clients. See the real emails even with block images. 

Drip 

Drip is a nice all-in-one email marketing tool, assisting marketers in constructing and managing campaigns. Built-in features like available customer data, personalization options, engagement, and optimization make Drip a favorite, as does its intuitive and easy-to-use interface and effective customer service. 

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, the importance of email testing for marketers cannot be emphasized enough. While the above list may not contain every tool ever made, it should give you an idea so you can start finding solutions for your intended email campaigns. Use other options in conjunction with these tools for better results. Whatever you do, test your email, so you can minimize your bounce rate, save yourself from the spam folder, get high open rates, and steadily grow a list of loyal email subscribers who look forward to your content and engaging with your company. Have a look at our blog on Email Newsletter Practises, to learn effective tips and help build a great email marketing campaign.

The post Best Tools To Use For Email Previewing, Testing And Rendering first appeared on Publir.

As we know that one of the most common and efficient ways for businesses to generate revenue is through email marketing. But one must exercise caution because even a minor mistake can have a major impact on the brand, resulting in a reduction in conversions. Before sending out an email marketing campaign, double-check everything from the subject line to the footer, especially if thousands of individuals are scheduled to receive this email. You must be careful about every aspect while running an email marketing strategy. In this blog, we have listed various tips that will help you execute a flawless Email Marketing campaign. Read on!

Top Tips to Avoid Email Marketing Mistakes

Instead of practicing bad email marketing techniques, have a look at the following points that have to be taken into consideration while planning your email marketing strategy.

1. Captivating subject line: When people get a new email, the subject line is the first thing they see. You should strive to make it as captivating as possible. You’d be shocked at how many individuals have thousands of unopened emails simply because the content isn’t engaging enough. To avoid this from happening with your email campaign, write an attractive subject line. Because 47% of email recipients read the emails based on the subject line.
   
2. Proofread for quality assurance: Proofreading ensures that written information is appropriate for conveying the intended message to the intended audience. It guarantees that the message sent in the substance is clear enough to carry out the planned activities in the target group’s best interests. In every business, communication is crucial; well-written communication creates a positive image and highlights the organization’s identity, and anybody referring to the message should be aware of the flow.
   
3. Give importance to customer feedback: Customer feedback is crucial to any company’s success. It’s hard to know what consumers want and how they feel about your product or service without feedback loops in place. 47% of customers who have a product or service issue will express themselves on social media. Although all of the input may not directly influence your team, tracking it and sending it to the relevant teams will raise your value, which should help to improve the company’s view of the email team. You’ll also discover words that may or may not resonate with your target audience, allowing you to fine-tune your approach over time.
   
4. Balance autonomy within teams: The flexibility that the team has to do as they see fit may be used to define autonomy. Highly autonomous teams are allowed to make their own decisions, whether or not their boss is involved in the decision-making process. As a result, having a system of checks and balances is critical. Keep it as slim as possible while yet packing a punch. One primary stakeholder should verify all the factors, while specialists should ensure quality in their own specialties.
   
5. Review samples for dynamic emails: Companies who employ dynamic email content give a more personalized experience to their users. In exchange for a highly personalized shopping experience and product recommendations, many consumers are willing to share personal data with businesses nowadays. This strategy might help your company develop long-term connections with customers, save time, and boost revenue. If you’re sending out personalized emails with a lot of dynamic information, make sure to test a few different variants before sending them out. Before clicking send, make sure you have a test list of workers to look through all of the touchpoints and review the sample thoroughly.

6. Do not rely on a robot: In today’s digital environment, there are a lot of great third-party services to use but don’t rely too much on automation for copywriting. Allowing a digital robot to drive your email strategy fully might risk its quality and consistency. After all, these automated systems are only capable of optimizing individual email messages, not the complete client experience. While having a robot generate several different subject lines for you may sound appealing, you should always double-check that the result reflects your brand’s message and tone.

Some Email Marketing Tips and Tricks

1. Send a welcome email to a new subscriber

Send a welcome email to anybody who has subscribed to your email list. The first email you send to your subscribers will be by far the most read since it is delivered when readers are most engaged with you.

2. Have a clear call to action

When you start writing your email, have a clear idea of what you want it to accomplish. You’re leaving it up to your viewers to figure out what you want them to do without a call to action.

3. Meet the expectations of your subscribers

Your readers will unsubscribe from your email list if your emails do not match their expectations. Any email marketing plan must include email frequency and relevant email topics.

4. Look professional

Check your spelling and grammar in emails, avoid stock images, and don’t provide attachments to retain the degree of professionalism that your readers demand.

5. Always remember your mobile users

When creating your email marketing campaign, don’t forget to design your email with mobile users in mind. You should make it mobile-friendly so that users can simply navigate and read the entire email.

Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing 

The 5 Ts of Email Marketing 

1. Tease
   Use your subject line to tease the email content within, but be sure you can keep your promise. When you’ve gotten your consumers to open their eyes, it’s time to tease them with your content. Find the sweet spot between having enough copy to encourage a click and not having so much that they’ve acquired everything they need without clicking.
2. Target
   It is critical for organizations that use email marketing to recognize that their objective should not be to send emails to everybody and everyone they can. The more customized communication is, the more effective it will be. Therefore, use what you know about your consumers and provide them with material that they are more likely to respond to.
3. Teach
   We all enjoy learning new tips and methods to make our lives simpler, which is where your brand comes in. Using your email as a teaching tool not only boosts customer engagement but also helps improve brand perception and may be utilized as a viral marketing strategy.
4. Test
   What’s the point of settling on one subject line or image when you can try several? There is no need to stick with a certain layout when another one may be more effective. Direct mail marketers would need months to understand what you can learn through email marketing in one day. So, make a test plan and stick to it.
5. Track
   We believe it is worth repeating in a campaign where success should be judged by engagement rather than income. That’s why tracking is important. Not only will you be able to demonstrate your progress over time, and will be able to quickly correct a mistake, but you will also be able to observe exactly what material your audience is interacting with, which may guide your decisions.

Conclusion 

Now that you know what they are, you’ll be able to avoid these email marketing mistakes. Email marketing is a powerful tool for generating revenue from your target audience. They’ll be reminded of your company and be able to see the most recent news and promotions you have to offer. It is not, however, a piece of cake, and you should be inventive in how you construct your advertising. You should be able to build a successful one that generates as many sales as possible by understanding the faults and things you shouldn’t do. You can check out our blog on Creating an Email Newsletter, and get started with your Email Marketing Campaign right away!

The post How to Avoid Email Marketing Mistakes: Tips and Processes first appeared on Publir.

What are the Best Email Newsletter Practices

The most prevalent email type in email marketing is email newsletters. As the name implies, they frequently feature news and updates to keep the public involved. Some marketers say that newsletters are not much a step in the right direction but that newsletters prepared with great attention to detail certainly pay off. An e-mail newsletter might play a leading position in your general e-mail marketing plan. Email is still used by about 70% of the companies, yet email marketing is one of the oldest marketing platforms.

Brands send their subscribers email newsletters to notify them of news and updates. These email messages have nothing to do with the selling – it is about creating client loyalty with good content. Sending a content-based email newsletter regularly not only helps your business keep up to date but also displays the knowledge of your sector. As per a study, for the purpose of monetization, 64.6 % of B2B publishers and 48 % of B2C publishers rely on website banner advertisements or newsletter sponsorships.

Optimizing Newsletter 

If we look at the statistics regarding email-marketing uses, an email newsletter is at the top with 66%, followed by promotional content at 54%, and welcome email series at 42%. In other words, email newsletters are a good instrument to improve the marketing of your products or services. Whether you create a whole new email newsletter or revitalize your present publication, some ideas come in handy to optimize your newsletter.

When current and potential customers sign up for your newsletter for the first time, make sure they understand what to anticipate. Besides, let the subscribers know the kind of content and offer they will receive. It is also important to inform them how often they will hear from you.

The most effective email newsletters contain around 90% instructional content that is relevant to your target audience. You’ll have around 10% of your area to spend completely on marketing your company.

In your email newsletter, avoid using large, wordy full-length content that may overload readers. Instead, create a one-page email with succinct, intriguing, and enticing introductions that direct readers to your website or blog. Furthermore, ensuring that there is enough white space within the overall newsletter design to assist make the newsletter look clean and simple to read, is an email design best practice to follow. Additionally, try creating graphic images for your company to use in newsletters.

5 Elements of an Effective Email Newsletter 

Even if their long-term ambitions are uncertain, publishers will need to invest in email. And delivering a better email newsletter is one of the only sure-fire methods to safeguard deliverability and ensure your message reaches the inbox rather than the spam folder. 

In order to get the most out of your newsletter, make sure it includes the following aspects:

• Be brief

In today’s age of technology, we are overwhelmed with information, and yet another long newsletter will not assist anyone. Instead of cramming everything into your newsletter, try to keep it to one page. Deliveries that are shorter and more regular are preferable to the occasional volumes of books.

2. Tell a story

The greatest newsletters employ traditional story-telling strategies. To entice your reader, use a conversational tone. Share some insider information about your industry. Keep in mind that you’re writing a letter, not merely reporting news.

3. Focus on content

Don’t try to make it a journal. Your audience will be interested in how you can help them rather than hearing about all of your triumphs and dramas. More readers are attracted to content-focused email newsletters. The newsletter isn’t only for you; it’s also for your consumers.

4. Clear call to action

We wouldn’t take time out of our hectic schedules to compose a newsletter unless we expected something in return. Every newsletter should have a clear call to action. This can take the form of a discount, event registration, or even a request to join your Facebook page. Make certain that you are asking your audience to accomplish something.

5. Attractive design

While many email services include design templates, you may have your newsletter professionally created for a nominal charge. A visually appealing newsletter, whether in print or by email, will increase readership and support for your company.

Length of a Newsletter 

The length of your newsletter, as well as the information contained inside it, are important considerations. When deciding what to put in your email, keep your target audience in mind. Make sure your newsletter is worth reading, regardless of its length.

Your writing style and the length of the newsletter are determined by the goal of your newsletter. This marketing information tool can help you reach a variety of objectives. Initiating frequent communication with prospective clients, notifying them of fresh blog material, and inviting them to new learning opportunities such as webinars and online courses.

The general rule of thumb for most experts is to have around 500 words in a newsletter. As a result, a page length would be appropriate for the reader to swiftly scan over. Remember that current audiences have extremely short attention spans. Don’t expect them to sit for hours reading and re-reading your newsletter. Make your writing succinct and to the point. Nonetheless, it has to be fascinating and entertaining.

Necessary items in your Newsletter 

It is very important to have a few necessary items in your newsletter to engage your users and create a good impression of your brand. Some of those items are:

A good theme: For each email newsletter it is preferable to have a certain theme or topic in mind so that ideas do not become confusing for the readers.

Creative subject line: It is advisable to devise informative and unique subject lines in order to be attractive for the readers.

Informative content: The content must be informative as well as entertaining. It will be better if the content will be educational but will also be brief.

Guidelines: There must always be a section in the newsletter where guidelines for the users are written in case, they want to get more information.

Contact information: Never forget to include your business and contact information in your newsletter. After all, you are trying to make a brand name through it.

Final Thoughts 

An email marketing plan often entails sending newsletters, trigger emails, and transactional emails in addition to advertising emails. This implies you should carefully arrange the number of campaigns you plan to send so that you don’t turn off your audience.

One of the most effective ways you have to interact with your clients and prospects is through your newsletter. We strongly advise building an email marketing schedule if you want to send emails on a regular basis without going overboard. Sign up for our Newsletter and get daily monetization updates right in your inbox!

The post Best Email Newsletter Practices for Small Businesses first appeared on Publir.

Email Marketing Glossary Made Easy

Trying to make sense of email marketing begins with learning all the terminology and jargon associated with it. 

The jargon is intense, and it’s important to get the basics right as there are many terms with legal implications and others that represent trends and best practices. In order to help you become a better email marketer, here’s a list of email marketing terms to get you started. 

ESP – Email Service Provider

To start off with, you need an ESP. Think Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, AWeber, and more. An email service provider is essentially a software service that facilitates the sending of email marketing campaigns to subscribers for the business. A good ESP can host email marketing services for innumerable clients and businesses, worldwide. Email service providers should –

• Create and maintain email subscriber lists 
• Provide customizable email templates 
• Send emails either manually or automatically 
• Give you detailed campaign analytics 
• Allow for testing 
• Permit dynamic content and give personalization options 
• Give you capabilities like list segmentation and more 

Email Automation

Automation is a key factor in saving time with your email marketing and enabling you to customize content based on what your subscribers are looking at on your website. Automation refers to the features that help email marketing software send campaigns to customers according to certain predefined settings. For example, how much money a subscriber spends, whether they make a purchase, etc., will impact what emails they receive from you. Marketing automation is great because it gives email marketers the opportunity to reach more customers in a targeted and personalized way. 

Click-Through Rate

This metric measures how many people have clicked on an image, hyperlink, or the call to action button in an email. Measuring the CTR is an effective way to determine just how good an email is. CTR rates may vary, but a rate between 20% and 30% shows an email is doing very well. If CTR rates fall below this range, you may want to change up your emails to encourage more clicks. Any good email service provider should give you consistent reports about your CTRs so you can carry out the necessary modifications to your email campaigns. 

Hard Bounce

This happens when an email is returned to a sender for permanent reasons, such as the email wasn’t deliverable because it used an incorrect domain name, an incorrect email address, or the recipient is unknown or not real. Hard bounces can affect deliverability rates which is why you need to remove invalid email addresses as soon as possible. Any email service provider should be able to remove hard bounces from your email subscription list. 

Soft Bounce

This is similar to a hard bounce, but the difference is that in the case of a soft bounce, the email is not delivered due to temporary reasons. This happens either because of the large file size or if a recipient’s inbox is full. They aren’t as bad as hard bounces, because your ESP will try to re-send these soft bounces automatically. However, if the emails continue to bounce, it is worth it to look further into the issue. 

Acceptance Rate

This refers to the emails that are accepted by your recipient’s email servers. Also known as deliverability rate, this is a good way to check whether the emails are being delivered or are bouncing back. This doesn’t tell you whether the email made it to the recipient’s inbox or spam folder. 

CAN-SPAM

According to the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM) of 2003, all businesses need to follow strict guidelines while engaging in email marketing campaigns. The CAN-SPAM rules are enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, which specifies that all recipients should easily be able to unsubscribe from your mailing list, as well as other rules. 

Sender Score

Your sender score refers to your IP address’s reputation, scored on a scale of 0 to 100. This operates similarly to a credit score, and the higher your sender score, the more reputable your IP is considered. Email services depend on this score to determine what emails make it to recipients’ inboxes and which ones don’t. 

The A/B Split Test

This method compares the results of two different emails and gives you a detailed analysis. Suppose you prepare two or more variants of an email, and name them A, B, C, etc. You can then send it to different people and compare results, to find out which email is the most impactful. Usually, the test compares two different subject lines, however, you can also change up the format or call to action inside the email to compare success. The trick is that you choose one variable to test in the emails.

Multivariate Testing

This refers to testing different variables in an email to see what works best. The email content, images used, font, offers mentioned, all matter toward making a successful email. Marketers can use multivariate testing to see which combination suits them best. This is different from A/B testing in that multivariate testing includes many variables. For instance, if you have one test email with a Times New Roman font, and one CTA while another has a better font like Calibri, and two CTAs, the tester can find out which one of these is more effective at achieving a better CTR. 

Email Harvesting

Email harvesting is when a user procures a list of email addresses that have similar interests to send a mass email. Special harvesting tools make this job easier. However, many countries have deemed this illegal, so marketers may need to check before implementing it. 

Transactional Email

This is an automated email that is triggered by a purchase. This is significant because these emails are opened much more often than traditional marketing messages. High-end ESPs allow users to create, edit and optimize transactional emails so they’re customized to exactly what you want to deliver to your new customer. A simple example is a thank you email after a purchase, or a follow-up discount coupon. 

List Segmentation

List segmentation is simply the act of personalizing your contact list and separating it into distinct groups or categories. Usually, these segments fall in the same phase of the email funnel, and this can help a user send more targeted and relevant content to their subscribers. 

Double Opt-In

To ensure you get only genuinely interested subscribers, you can utilize the double opt-in. If a user chances upon your website blog and signs up for your newsletter, you can ask them to verify their email address by sending them a test. This helps keep your list clear of uninterested subscribers, but it also makes it more difficult to grow your email list. 

Sender Policy Framework

This email-authentication technique helps marketers avoid spammers from sending emails on another domain’s behalf and helps with domain authentication. Certain filters show that your email is not spam, and serves a specific purpose. 

HTML Tags

Tags inside your emails can help you personalize your emails for individual recipients. For example, if you use the tag <firstname> in your email, and send it to your list, it automatically writes each individual’s name on each email. Most email providers offer this, however, you have to ensure that you’re collecting this information from subscribers. 

Conclusion

Email marketing is a classic that has been around for a long time and will continue to be a safe bet in the future’s fast-paced digital marketing world. Read our blog on the resurgence of email newsletters, to see how they stack up against social media as an effective form of communication.

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