5 Keys To Effective Email Marketing

Even in the days of social media and native advertising, email marketing is still a valuable tool for digital marketers. In fact, a recent marketing survey by the research firm Ascend2 revealed that email marketing remains the most effective tool in digital marketing, fending off buzzwords like blogging, SEO and social media. But how do you make sure that your email is a successful part of your digital marketing strategy? You do it by incorporating these 5 strategies in your email marketing campaign.

Pay Attention To The Subject Line

The subject line is the most important part of your email: if your subject line is uninteresting, your audience won't open the email. On the other hand, if the subject line is misleading, your readers could report the email as spam, or unsubscribe from future messages. The key is to find the perfect middle ground: an interesting subject line that prepares the recipient for what awaits her inside the email.

That subject of the email should be less than 50 characters long, and advertise the value that the actual email contains. Whether you're offering a new eBook, a discount, a behind-the-scenes look at your company or something else entirely, make sure you mention it early in the subject.

Personalization Is Important

The subject line should also include some degree of personalization. Most email services include the option to personalize any of the text, and you should take advantage of that feature, for both the subject and the body copy. Personalized email subjects and copy have been shown to significantly increase open rates and click-through rates.

In the subject line, it's fine to restrict the personalization to the recipient's first name. In the body copy, feel free to go a little crazy. If your email list contains data about the recipient's past contacts or purchases, why not mention them? The more personal you get with your audience, the more likely they are to trust you and to follow your call-to-action.

Include Calls-to-Action

A call-to-action should be present in all of your email marketing pieces. After all, how valuable is an email if it's a dead end? But don't take this importance as an invitation to plaster your email with different calls-to-action. If you have too many of them, the different links will begin to take away clicks from each other.

Instead, focus on a single call-to-action for your entire email. The call-to-action is usually a link to a product or a landing page, and can be presented as a button or as linked text. The important part is that it's the same call-to-action throughout your email, to prevent internal pirating of clicks.

Responsive Design Matters

When most marketers hear the words "responsive design," they immediately think of web development. In truth, they should be paying at least as much attention to responsive email design, as they do to responsive web design. Up to 65% of all consumers now open email on a mobile device first. If they're met by endless scrolling because of desktop-optimized emails, they're unlikely to do anything but hit "delete."

Responsive design ensures that no matter what device your audience uses to view your email, they'll find a well-designed marketing piece that guides them to the next step in your marketing strategy.

Measurability Is Key

Having just one call-to-action also means that you can easily measure the success of your email after sending it. You don't have to dissect your click-through rates to see which links did better than others. Instead, you'll know that all clicks went to the same place.

Measuring the success of that call-to-action is absolutely crucial when improving your email marketing. A/B testing can be helpful when experimenting with different subject lines and personalization options. At the end of the day, the numbers will let you know if your email was successful, and what you can do better next time.

Keep in mind these 5 keys to email marketing, and you should be well prepared for what is still the most effective and popular digital marketing tool.

What’s your take? Weigh in with a comment below, and connect with Joshua Harrell (Google+) | @JoshuaHarrell (Twitter).