My son tells me that no one in his generation uses email anymore. They would rather text message or interact on social media. The studies verify that—but only for personal messaging. For relationship building, permission based/customized email messages are extremely effective. Optimize their effectiveness by using email best practices.

The communication channel we choose is determined by our purpose and our familiarity with it. That is true for both publishers and recipients. Used correctly, email is still an ideal vehicle to distribute some kinds of communications.

Out With the Old (Email); In With the New (Social and Texting)

And the most recent statistics show that, worldwide, there are nearly three times as many email users as there are accounts on Facebook and Twitter. The truth is, email isn’t going away any time soon (but then neither are the other older channels of direct mail, magazine advertising, or radio). And while there have been many technical refinements in the management of all these channels over time, the sequential process steps are unchanged from the days when they first became commonplace.

In a seemingly unstable world with the universal expectation of accelerating change, people tend to focus on trying to rush to the front of the pack embracing the new and leaving behind old tools and approaches. While I agree that there are places where being the first has great benefits, it is equally important to keep doing what continues to work.

An Aberdeen Research Report from 2012 reported that 90% of companies had allocated budget for email marketing and 57% are increasing their spend.  Most are integrating email with their social media and advertising campaigns. Taken together, they increase the potency of the marketing strategy.

Using Email

As with any communication channel, email is superbly suited for some messages but inappropriate for others. Email can be informative, durable, and timely. It is generally more manageable by the user than social media or texting but less long-lasting than postal mail. Detailed instructions, immediate alerts, directed focused links, and documentation of an exchange are all easy with email.

But just like every other medium, use of email will be optimized if the targeting, messaging, design, publishing, and effectiveness are strategically managed. Luckily, the medium is now mature and reliable email best practices have been developed. In addition, newer management programs have made the medium very user friendly.

Targeting Emails

The more relevant the email is to the recipient, the greater the likelihood that the information will be welcomed and consumed. Obviously, if the addressee asks to be sent information it is less likely to bounce and will probably be opened.  Purchased mail directories are rarely worth their cost because those included haven’t asked to hear from you and the addresses are often incorrect. A high percentage of the emails will bounce and go unopened.

To target the best prospects with your emails you need to find them and encourage them to give you their address. Including a special offer or registration for a free product or service when they provide their contact information. This will allow you to accumulate a list of people who want to receive your messages. Ask them to provide other receptive contacts too.

Once you have names you will want to segment the list according to the content being sent. Whenever you can, collect information that will help you to know about recipient’s ages, locations, and interests so that emails can then be better tailored to their needs.

Messaging for Emails

Personalizing your email in the subject line and content is an important part of improving the open and click-through rate for your email campaign. Many email marketing platforms allow you to include the recipient’s name in the subject line and in the body of the message to further customize it. When the addressee’s name is included, the message is far more likely to be opened and considered. A mail merge tag in the template will give you that flexibility.

In addition, use a return address so that the email comes from an individual instead of an impersonal corporation.

Strong Subject Lines are the most important part of your email because they are the first thing your addressee will see. If they don’t grab their interest, the email will be trashed. If they do, it will be opened. Writing an attention grabbing subject line is like writing a good headline and takes a lot of thought. It should be short (50 characters or under, preferably), and indicate what the message provides. Overused words like “Sale,” “Buy,” “Bonus,” “Order,” “Prize,” “Free,” and “Order” can send your email to the junk folder. So can the excessive use of exclamation points and capital letters. Internet service providers try to protect customers from spam and subject lines that include them may not reach the target.

The truth is that writing effective subject lines is an art as well as a science. Once you have some good options you will want to test them against one another to see which has the higher open rate. This is the only way to know what your audience will like.

The Body of the Message must reward the addressee by including relevant and engaging content. Subheadings that are also well written, short content blocks with links to additional information, and attractive images all contribute to an effective message. And don’t forget to add a call to action. Encourage the recipient to do something that will help to cement the relationship with you.

Designing Emails

As with any other publication, the look of the email when it opens is an important part of its impact.  Laying the email out so that it is attractive and easy to read is very important. This is very easy now that most popular email marketing platforms provide templates that allow the sender to easily plug in the content and images to customize the email to your purposes and the recipients. The design should allow the reader to easily peruse the content and follow up as needed. Dense content or a cluttered look will be dismissed. The goal is to persuade recipients to take action in response to the message.

Publishing Emails

There are many good email marketing platforms available that make email marketing easy to publish and evaluate. Among the most popular platforms are MailChimp, Constant Contact, Exact Target, iContact, Emma, and Campaign Monitor but there are many others available too. The good ones should be user friendly, provide easily customizable templates, and have the ability to use mail merge so the emails are personalized.

As you compare the email marketing services you should consider:

1. Price: Are you charged by the month, the number of emails, or the size of your database? Consider how many emails you plan to send and how often.
2. Tracking Capabilities: Your goal is to expand your database as much as possible and to be able to refine your email campaigns to maximize their effectiveness. You do that by being able to track which ones were not delivered, which ones were opened and which ones persuaded recipients to click a link. The ability to easily maintain an accurate database and see the metrics is an important service of the email platform.
3. Customer Service: This can be the most important aspect of your selection. Like any program, there will be times when you  cannot format your emails as you would like or you have another issue and you will want to

Assessing the Effectiveness of Emails

There are four pieces of information that are really important as you assess the effectiveness of your email campaigns:

1. Bounce Rates: Taking the trouble to accumulate information about bounce rates will help you clean up your database so that the addresses are accurate. Your goal should be to keep your bounce rates quite low.
2. Unsubscribe Rates: It is better to only send emails to people who have subscribed to be included, but even some of those will choose to opt out later. New subscribers are the most likely to unsubscribe, but the numbers decrease markedly after 3 months. If they do not stabilize or there is a sudden increase in opt outs, most often the emails are being sent too frequently or they are not engaging the receivers.
3. Open Rates: It is unreasonable to that all of your emails will be read. If the subject doesn’t interest the audience or they are preoccupied with other things, they will not open them. You should be pleased if 50% or more of the recipients are looking at your emails.
4. Click-Through Rates: You will want to include links as calls to action or to additional information in your emails. They need to be easy to find and follow. This is an important measure of the effectiveness of your email campaign and should be tracked.
5. Forward Rates: Having your audience pass along your email to others is the ultimate measure of effectiveness. Track how many of the recipients use the forward to a friend link in your message.

Overall, email campaigns can be inexpensive and very effective, especially when they are aligned with other channels including web content, advertising, and social media. They should reinforce the brand identity and key messaging and thoughtfully designed and relevant for the recipients. Just follow the tried-and-true best practices for email marketing.

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