43 Practical Tips to Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns

The world of email marketing is always changing and evolving, and that presents some serious challenges for email marketers. Techniques that worked just a few months ago may no longer produce results, and changes to email clients could send your carefully crafted messages to the spam folder or even prevent them from getting through at all.

That is why it is so important for email marketers to educate themselves and keep up with the changes the industry is undergoing. Understanding the impact of those changes is essential, and good email marketers are always learning and looking for ways to improve their results. These tips can help you improve your email marketing campaigns.

Email Design Tips
1. Choose the right email templates for your audience. Always give your readers something of value.
2. Test templates regularly, but don’t test just to test. Your testing should always be done with a goal in mind. Tools like Litmus.com make testing your emails fast and easy.
3. Test your messages across all major email clients. Your message could look quite different from one client to another.
4. Make your email eye-catching, but avoid large images and heavy graphics. They could cause your messages to load too slowly.
5. Optimize your emails for mobile devices. A growing number of readers view their email primarily on smartphones and tablets.

Email Open Rates
6. Keep things simple. Make the subject line clear and concise.
7. Arouse curiosity with your subject lines. Readers should be anxious to read your email and see what you have to say.
8. Test various subject lines. No matter how good your subject line is, it can always be better.
9. Vary your subject lines. Avoid using the same subject lines for your campaigns.
10. Make a good first impression. You only get one chance to gain the attention of your reader, so make it count.
11. Timing is important. Always test the timing of your messages and keep tweaking until you find the optimal approach. Some email lists respond best to weekday messages, while others prefer a weekend schedule.
12. Avoid spammy techniques like ALL CAP subject lines and lots of unnecessary !!!!!????. Readers cannot open your messages if they land in the spam folder.
13. Use your company name in all your emails. Doing so builds trust and helps grow your brand.

Email Click Rates
14. Create a call to action. Whether it is buying a product, visiting your website or liking you on Facebook, always tell your readers what you want them to do.
15. Ask your readers what they think. Use surveys to see how you are doing and what you could be doing better.
16. Don’t forget the content. Every message you think should provide information your readers find useful.
17. Test response rates for bulleted lists versus blocks of text. Readers want content that is easy to read and digest.
18. Evaluate your sign-up process. A low click rate could mean many of your subscribers are not really interested in your message.
19. Give your readers an easy way to unsubscribe. It does you no good to keep subscribers who no longer want to receive your emails.
20. Build momentum with repeated emails. Tease your readers and make them look forward to your next email.

Email List
21. Keep your list clean by removing invalid addresses
22. Monitor bounce rates carefully and check your list carefully
23. Use a prominent unsubscribe link. Do not hide it or make it difficult for people to get off the list.
24. Only include opt-in or double opt-in addresses in your mailings
25. You should not have one master list. Instead you should segment your list based on reader demographics, past actions and stated interests.
26. Build your list organically using your website, blog and social media presence. An organic list produces much higher open and click rates than one that is purchased.

Email ROI
27. Calculate your return on investment regularly to make sure you are getting the biggest bang for your buck.
28. Test various versions of every campaign and choose the one with the best ROI
29. Take advantage of free ROI calculators. There is no need to do it all on your own. You can find a great ROI calculator at emailmarketingroi.com.
30. Track your expenses carefully. You cannot accurately determine ROI without knowing how much your mailings cost.
31. Calculate your open rate by dividing your opened messages by the total number of messages you sent.
32. Test several versions of each message and test the ROI on each one. Choose the message with the best ROI.
33. Monitor your forward rate carefully. Forward rate is a good indication of how useful readers find your message.
34. Take your unsubscribe rate into account. A high unsubscribe rate can have a negative impact on future ROI.
35. Keep a close eye on your bounce rate. A high bounce rate will impact ROI and could even get you labeled a spammer.

Email Deliverability
36. Avoid free SMTP services; always use a professional SMTP server (e.g. our partner turboSMTP)
37. Never hide your identity from the recipient
38. Check your sender score regularly
39. Send emails only to people who are expecting them. Your readers should look forward to your messages, not dread them.
40. Never purchase email lists. Grow your lists organically by giving readers something of value.
41. Monitor your response rates carefully. A sudden drop-off in response rates could indicate a problem with your list or a change in email rules.
42. Segment your lists. Break your list up into demographic segments, focusing special efforts on those who regularly respond to your messages.
43. Use DKIM authentication. Domain Keys Identified Mail adds a digital signature that tells email clients the email is legitimate.