According to a recent study conducted by the Daily Blog, “25 Email Design Best Practices for Mobile + Desktop,” Amanda MacArthur recommends the best practices for efficient e-mail marketing. She states that this increases the unique open rate, gross open rate, click through rate, click-to-open rate, etc., thereby creating better results.
According to Silverpop’s “2013 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study: An Analysis of Messages Sent Q1-Q4, 2012,” the Canadian averages in 2013 were:
- – Unique open rate: 24.2%;
- – Gross open rate: 42.1%;
- – Click through rate: 5.8%;
- – Click-to-open rate: 242%.
If the results of your email campaigns are lower than these figures, you can revise the form and content of your message based on the following practices:
- 1. Establish a theme for each publication. Each article should be related.
- 2. Include links with social network profiles. According to a chosen “template,” place the icons to the left or right of the message and make them obvious.
- 3. Optimize the sender address. The sender address should clearly identify the person who is sending the message.
- 4. Use an email header to display what’s inside the email.
The topic should be engaging, oriented towards advantages and talk about content. Moreover, you should make sure that the email won’t be seen as spam by using research terms and language.
- 1. Write the shortest header possible, about 35 characters. According to a study conducted by Informz, email titles with 10 characters or less had an open rate of 58%.
- 2. Make the company logo visible. However, it’s important to include a link to view the email online because sometimes the images are blocked.
- 3. Use a table of contents if there are many topics.
- 4. Write a simple message.
- 5. Make sure the email is no longer than 2 to 3 printed pages.
- 6. Have well-defined business objectives.
- 7. Encourage sharing.
- 8. Determine the best time to reach people. In B2B, email marketing works best everyday during the week, except Fridays.
- 9. Design an unsubscription button.
- 10. Create a link to an HTML version.
Make your tactics mobile
More people use smart phones to check their emails. Here are a few points to verify before sending the first email:
- 1. Use at least a font of 15 pixels for the body of the message and at least 22 pixels for the header.
- 2. Use images that are clickable.
- 3. Have very visual calls to action, with a width of 44 x 44 dots.
- 4. The message and image should remain under 600 pixels so that readers use the feature “shake to send feedback.”
Do you follow all these points? If so, what is the open rate of your email campaign?
