Email marketing do’s and don’ts to get the best results

There was a time when you could send a single message to a large list of email addresses and get decent results. Those days are over. Today, email service providers (ESPs) are the gatekeepers of people’s email inboxes, and they’ve invested a lot of resources in making sure the only messages people see in inboxes are the ones that the receiver really want.

That said, to get good email marketing results today, you need to understand and follow the do’s and don’ts of email marketing. Keep in mind that the full list of email marketing dos and don’ts is long and includes technical, content, design, list, engagement and other best practices. These email marketing best practices apply to businesses across all industries, including the cannabis industry.

Unless you’re an email marketer who devotes all or most of your time to email marketing, you might feel overwhelmed by all the do’s and don’ts. My advice is to start with the do’s and don’ts that are most often overlooked – the big ones that can make a big difference to your results.

Once you’re confident you can follow these do’s and don’ts, do more homework, learn about email marketing best practices, and implement other improvements. To be honest, it’s a never-ending process of educating yourself and updating your techniques to get the best results.

With that in mind, here are five email marketing do’s and don’ts that you should start following right away to get the best results.

1. Segment your lists

Who’s on your email list? You need to create buyer personas for each of your audiences and send the most relevant email messages to each niche audience (see #2 below for more on relevance).

If you segment your list and write a personalized email message for each segment, before you hit the send button for each message and list, ask yourself the same question: “Is everyone on my list really wanting this message?” If the answer is no, you need to segment your list more and create more relevant content for each list.

take that away: Small, targeted lists are good. Big bulk lists are usually bad.

2. Do not send generic messages to mass audiences

The success of email marketing today depends on personalization – not just adding the recipient’s name to the message, but writing tailored content for each niche audience.

So, eliminate the phrase “email explosion” from your vocabulary. Gone are the days of sending one-size-fits-all messages to big lists. In fact, sending a generic message to many people could do more harm than good to your results. Why? Because ESPs expect email marketers to only send messages that people want.

How do ESPs know if you’re sending messages people don’t want? The answer is commitment.

The more people positively engage with your messages (e.g. opens, clicks, forwards, replies, etc.), the more likely ESPs are to believe you’re sending content people want. As a result, more of your messages will be moved to the inbox. On the other hand, people react negatively to your messages (e.g. leave them in inbox without touching them, delete them without opening them, take a long time to open them, mark them as spam, block them as sender, etc.), the more likely ESPs will think you’re sending content people don’t want and end up spamming or junking more of your messages.

How do you get more positive engagement (and better results)? You do this by segmenting your lists (see #1) and personalizing the content of the messages you send to each audience so each message is as relevant and valuable as possible. See #4 to learn more about value creation.

take that away: Personalized messages that appeal to the target recipient list are good. General, watered down messages are bad.

3. Follow subject line best practices

Research shows that there are several email subject line best practices that can help you get better open rates and keep spam or junk folders out. For example, studies have found that subject lines that are capitalized (like the title of a book or article) or are capitalized (where the first letter of each word is capitalized) perform better than those that are capitalized (where only the first letter of the first word is capitalized).

To avoid ending up in spam folders, make sure your subject lines don’t contain irregular capitalization, excessive punctuation or symbols, or grammatical and spelling mistakes. All of these are spam flags that can cause ESPs to send your messages to spam or junk rather than the inbox.

Finally, your subject lines should be tailored to the specific audiences that will see them (see #1 and #2), and they should provide value to recipients (see #4). In other words, your subject lines should intrigue recipients to make them want to read more (they need to be relevant to be intriguing), and they should motivate recipients to click and open the message (they need to add value offer to be motivating).

key to take away: Tailor your subject lines to each audience and make sure they say something useful and relevant, otherwise nobody will open your messages.

4. Do you not send non-value-added messages or reply to WIIFM?

People receive many email messages every day. If your messages aren’t very relevant to every recipient, no one will open them. Cryptic messages that add no value are ignored (or worse – marked as spam).

People just don’t have enough time to rummage through the clutter. Instead, you need to make it as clear as possible to each recipient that the message you’re sending is specifically for them and provides something they want or need.

The way to do this is by segmenting your lists and personalizing the content so that the most valuable aspects of your news are highlighted for each niche audience. You should also answer the question “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM?) again and again. Here’s an example of how this would work from the recipient’s perspective:

• What do I get if I open this message?
• What do I get from reading the first sentence?
• What do I get if I read the first paragraph?
• What do I get if I read the second paragraph?
• What do I get if I click the call-to-action link button?
• And so forth

It’s your job to make it clear to recipients what they will gain from engaging with your email marketing messages. You can do this by talking more about them and less about you, your business, and your products or services. In other words, use more “you” copy and much less “we” copy.

take that away: If your email marketing message doesn’t add value to every recipient, you need to segment your list and/or further personalize your message.

5. Insert a call-to-action button link

What do you want people to do after reading your email marketing message? This should be your call-to-action link. Research has shown that call-to-action link buttons work better than hyperlinked text. So use a button to make it clear what the recipient’s next step is after they read your message.

Ideally, the call-to-action link should lead to a page on your website. A dedicated landing page created specifically for the email campaign with a contact form is usually best, but you can direct recipients to your site’s general contact form page or to a highly relevant page on your site, as long as a contact form is accessible on this page.

Make it as easy as possible for recipients to take the next step and deliver what they expect based on the content of your message.

Your goal is to bring people to your website where they can look around, get to know you better, and build trust in your brand. Not everyone is ready to buy the moment you email them, unless they’re already a qualified lead at the bottom of the funnel (or bottom of the buyer journey). For everyone else, you must cultivate before attempting to sell. Therefore, your call-to-action shouldn’t always be buy now.

It’s also important to remember that links to email addresses or phone numbers are not tracked by email marketing software providers or ESPs. You want accurate credit for those clicks! Therefore, avoid using a link as a call-to-action link that leads to an email address or phone number, otherwise you will not be able to track the success of your campaign (and ESPs cannot track this). Engagement).

take that away: In every message, include a call-to-action button that leads to a page on your website where recipients can learn more and contact you (or where they can make a purchase if your message is sales-oriented or promotional ).

Key takeaways on email marketing do’s and don’ts

Did you notice a running theme in this article? Segmentation and personalization aren’t just the first and second items on the list of do’s and don’ts for email marketing. They are also part of every other item on this list. In other words, they are the foundation of email marketing success today, permeating every aspect of email marketing strategy, implementation, and results.

The reality today is that email marketing has become much more complex over the past decade, but with the right knowledge, your efforts can yield great results. Start with a strong segmentation and personalization plan and follow the do’s and don’ts discussed in this article to get on the right track!

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