1. Use Double Opt-in Email Sign-up
Permission marketing is a form of marketing where companies send information and offers to people who have consented to receive them. The term was coined by Seth Godin in his book Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends, and Friends into Customers.
In other words, Godin believes that the best way to advertise to potential customers is to let them choose when, where, and how they want to be marketed to.
The act of subscribing to a mailing list gives the website owner permission to send further communications.
Compared to single opt-in email sign-up, double opt-in email sign-up helps you collect email addresses with an additional confirmation step that ensures you truly have someone’s permission to send them an email.
This method stops people from signing up with false information and also makes sure that you are following anti-spam regulations and laws, such as GDPR.
Here’s what double opt-in email sign-up looks like in action:
- A website visitor fills out a sign-up form on a landing page on your website.
- They receive an email confirming their sign-up for your mailing list.
- After confirmation, they are officially a subscriber who has opted in to receive emails.
2. Send a Welcome Email
After a customer has signed up to receive your emails, send them a welcome email to start building a relationship and let them know what to expect.
Welcome emails have a high open rate and are a good opportunity to take advantage of.
Welcome emails are a great way to keep your subscribers engaged. Make sure your welcome email is relevant and up-to-date.
Here are a few different ways to make your first email to a subscriber count:
Introduce yourself and your business
An email welcoming a new subscriber is a good chance to make them feel good about your company and create a connection with them.
Hi! I’m the founder of [company name]. We started because [company vision/purpose]. The journey from idea to launch was [adjective] and full of [nouns]. Now, we’re helping people [verb] and [verb] every day.
You can make your email more personal by adding a photo of your team and a handwritten signature at the bottom.
Send a curated list of your best content
If your email marketing strategy involves sharing useful information and tips, new subscribers will miss out on all the great content you’ve already created.
Send your new reader a handful of your most popular articles or email outs.
Provide a discount or promotional offer
Businesses provide a promotional discount, like 10% off their first order, to incentivize website visitors to sign up for an email mailing list.
In your welcome email, provide subscribers with a discount code and curate a selection of products for them to purchase. This will help you follow through on your promise of providing great discounts and products.
If you want to make a good impression on new email subscribers, give them a discount that they weren’t expecting.
3. Avoid Using a No-Reply Email Address
Email marketing is a chance to establish a good relationship with readers by sending messages straight to their inbox.
Your email address can have an impact on the type of relationship you have.
It is considered best practice in email marketing to avoid using a no-reply email address. Instead, it is better to use a valid email address that subscribers can respond to.
Here’s the difference between the two:
No-reply email address
Email addresses that are structured as noreply@company.com are not typically set up to receive incoming emails.
This option is good for transactional emails but should be avoided for regular emails to subscribers.
Valid email address
Email addresses that are set up to receive incoming emails are often stylized with the company name, such as leslie@company.com or hello@company.com.
This is a good option for sending regular emails to subscribers.
4. Personalize Your Emails
By personalizing the emails you send, you can create a stronger connection with your subscribers and provide them with more value.
Adressing your subscribers by name using merge tags can add a personal touch to your emails. This can be done by email marketing platforms that dynamically add personalized information to your emails.
One way you can add personalization to your send outs is by including a code that the recipient can use to get a discount.
Opt for an email marketing platform with robust automation features that allow you to create an email experience that feels tailored to each subscriber:
Website browsing emails
You can send website visitors emails based on their browsing history if you have an email marketing platform that integrates with your website and they opt in to website cookies.
If a customer clicks on an item on an online store but doesn’t buy it, an automated email can send them information about that item.
Abandoned cart emails
Sometimes customers make it to the end of the checkout process but don’t end up completing their purchase.
A reminder email can be sent to a customer who has abandoned their shopping cart, prompting them to buy the items.
Birthday offer emails
If you want to send someone a birthday offer code, collect their birthday information when they sign up for your email list.
Product purchase education emails
When someone makes a purchase from your company, send them follow-up emails that help them get the most out of their purchase.
Personalization allows you to send emails that are tailored to the individual subscriber, providing them with a custom experience.
5. Write Casually and Conversationally
As a business, you want to have a polished and professional approach when dealing with customers.
However, if you keep your tone formal, it can make your emails sound cold and impersonal. It’s better to sound casual and conversational.
Avoid complex language
Many people join email lists because they want to receive information from experts.
You don’t need to use overly complex language to sound like an expert. In fact, using simpler language will make your writing easier to understand and more relatable to your readers.
Instead, keep your language simple and clear.
Use contractions
One way to make writing sound more natural is by using contractions. For example, instead of writing “who is,” use “who’s.” We generally default to speaking with contractions, and a good rule of thumb for a conversational email tone is to write how you speak.
Leave out jargon and acronyms
There is probably a lot of jargon and acronyms that people who work in your industry know.
However, not everyone who reads your emails will be familiar with acronyms. Write out acronyms in full and use common terms so there’s no room for confusion.
Speak like a trusted adviser or friend
When you are writing emails, use the tone of voice you would use when giving advice to a friend. Be honest and direct, but also keep it light.
Making small changes to your emails can help prevent them from being immediately archived by your subscribers, and increase the likelihood that they will be read until the end.
6. Add alt Text to your CTA Image
This means that many people never see the CTA buttons in your emails. Email clients blocking images is a big problem because it means that many people never see the CTA buttons in your emails. Instead, they see this:
When you set an image’s alt text, though, you let recipients who can’t view images in their email know exactly where to click to complete the action:
You can either edit the alt text in your email tool’s rich text editor (just right-click the image and edit away), or you can manually enter it in the HTML editor of your email tool like this:
Click the button below to be taken to the website!
7. Hyperlink your Emails’ Images
Your goal in email marketing is to get people to click on a link to a web page.
You can increase your clickthrough rate without making your copy look cluttered by hyperlinking images in your email to the webpage that corresponds with the content of the image.
If you want people to download an eBook that you’re offering, make sure to hyperlink not only the text telling people where to find it, but also the image of the eBook itself.
You’ll want to offer your eBook to your email subscribers in as many ways as possible, as people are more likely to be drawn to images than to text.
You can simply click on the image and then use your email tool’s “Insert/Edit Link” option, or you can link an image in the HTML editor using the following code:
8. Include Noticeable Text Links
It’s a good idea to link to your featured offer in multiple places throughout your website, in addition to having a clear and focused call-to-action button. This will help ensure that visitors to your website are aware of your offer and can take advantage of it if they’re interested.
Consider adding a text link or two to your main CTAs and images for increased opportunity for engagement.
9. Place at Least One Clickable Item Above the Fold
If you want your emails to be clicked on more, try putting one or more of your clickable elements near the beginning of the email, whether it’s a CTA button, a text link, or a clickable image.
This is especially useful for users on mobile devices, who often have to scroll a lot, and sometimes squint, pinch, and zoom to see everything on the screen.
If you want someone to take action, give them something that they can see and do right away. This is more likely to get them to click in this environment.
10. Add alt Text to All of your Images
Some email clients block images by default. In order to see the images in these emails, the recipient must click a button to show them, or change their default settings.
Alt text is text that is added to an image in order to describe what is happening in the image, and is used for people who are visually impaired. HubSpot customers can learn how to add alt text to their email images here.
You could make your alt text more actionable by adding a call-to-action, such as “Click here to download the ultimate content creation kit.” This would make it more likely that people would take the desired action.
If you use actionable alt text for your images, it will effectively turn every linked image into another call-to-action. So, even if someone doesn’t see the attractive GIF of your latest offer (or if they hover their mouse over an image that does appear), the alt text will encourage them to click.
11. Avoid Background Images
If your target buyers use Outlook as their email client, it is especially important to follow these guidelines.
Microsoft Outlook does not allow users to set background images in their email messages. This is because Outlook is the fifth most popular email client, with 7% of the overall market share. It is best to avoid using background images altogether to ensure compatibility with the most email clients.
12. Add Social Sharing Buttons
Adding social sharing buttons to your email will increase the number of people who click on your link.
Most email platforms have social sharing buttons as templates that make it easy to share by just filling in the URL.
If you don’t have the ability to create social sharing buttons, here is a guide that will help you create your own.
The latter will simply let the recipient know that you’re on Twitter. You will get more clicks if you add sharing buttons instead of follow buttons. This is because sharing buttons will allow the people who receive your email to share the offer URL with their followers. Follow buttons will only let the recipients know that you are on Twitter.
The former will make them want to learn more about your company and its products or services. The former will make them want to learn more about your company and its products or services, while the latter will prompt them to like, follow, or add your social media channels.
13. Simplify Sharing With Ready-Made Tweets
The easier you make it for people to take an action, the more likely they will be to do it.
A lazy tweet is a tweet that you compose and send for someone else, with the intention of having them retweet it. You can create a lazy tweet by simply copying and pasting the text of your email into a tweet, and then tagging the recipient in the tweet. If you want to make it even easier for the recipient, you can include a link to the email in the tweet. If you’re sending someone an email with content you want them to share on Twitter, you can make it easy for them by creating a “lazy tweet.” To do this, simply copy and paste the text of your email into a tweet, and then tag the recipient in the tweet. You can also include a link to the email in the tweet.
You can generate custom tweet links for free using ClickToTweet. Then, type in your tweet, desired (trackable) destination URL, and hashtags:
Click on the “Generate New Link” button and then copy the link that appears. This can be pasted into your Twitter sharing button.
Build an Email Strategy that Turns Subscribers Into Sales
After you establish your email marketing strategy, many of the best practices will become part of your normal routine.
You will naturally choose to format your email in a way that can be easily scanned and read quickly, and you will also check your email campaign analytics to see what worked well and what can be improved upon for your next email blast.
Improving your emailing practices will make your readers more likely to read your entire message or click on your website link.
Email marketing can be a great way to generate interest in your business if you approach it with intention. Every email you send has the potential to turn a viewer into a customer.
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