Email Marketing Tips & Examples

Email marketing is as important as it's ever been! And with massive advancements in AI in marketing, there are many new and improved tools you can use to make it more efficient, effective, and personalized.

With the increase in importance (and awareness) of data privacy regulations consumers look to protect their personal information and only share it with companies they trust. In addition, the demise of third-party cookies will make it harder for marketers to target customers through ads and so they need a channel that enables first-party data (and consensual) collection.  

So, what are the best tips for email marketing success for data capture and engagement? Let’s look at 9 of the best to help improve and optimize your email marketing activities. 

1. Use Personalization
2. Write a Catchy Subject Line
3. Audit and Clean your Email Lists
4. Use Omnichannel Marketing
5. Include Relevant Links
6. Be Interactive
7. Have a Good UI and UX
8. Use Artificial Intelligence
9. Look at your Competitors

1) Use Personalization

The fact is, personalization works. Merkle’s Customer Engagement Report 2022 found that nearly 80% of business leaders say consumers spend more (an average of 34% more) when their experience is personalized. 

Despite the success of personalization, customers feel that companies are not living up to their expectations when it comes to being more personal according to Salesforce’s 'State of the Connected Customer’. 

Don’t be one of those companies! Use personalization in your email to drive not only the open rate but engagement. This can be as simple as including the recipient’s first name in the subject line or contacting people on occasions such as their birthday.  

Also be sure to make your email from a person, not a business. You can do this by including a person’s name in the “from” section. This will ensure a name is clear to a recipient when it arrives in their inbox. You can also include a photograph so a person shows up instead of a logo like in this example from Dubsat. 

Automation (see this list of some top tools) is also useful in personalization as it can enable behavior-triggered emails. These are emails sent based on how customers interact with your products or services. Here’s an example from Sephora’s workflow to a customer reaction. 

2) Write a Catchy Subject Line

There’s no underestimating the power of a perfect subject line in your email. It’s the first thing a person sees in their inbox so taking the time to write one that’s relevant and attention-grabbing is worthwhile. 

There are many ways to catch someone’s attention with a headline:

• Get personal - as we mentioned above use a name in the subject line or refer to something that will resonate e.g. a past purchase or ebook download
• Use humor - People are more likely to open an email that makes them smile or pique their curiosity. Don’t be afraid to use humor but make sure it’s something your audience will get. 
• Include emojis - People are used to using emojis so include ones that are relevant or to emphasize your topic
• Use powerful language - Stay away from weak or cliched language. Look to include words that excite or invite action. 
• Hint at the content - Your subject line should reflect the content of the email so don’t just use a headline because it worked last time. Make it relevant. 
• Make people curious - People hate to miss out so use that to your advantage in your email. Here’s a sneak preview subject below to give you an example. 

Here’s a more in-depth look at how to write an email if you need help in that area. Play around with ChatGPT to really get creative with your content ideas. 

3) Audit and Clean your Email Lists

You should already know about the demise of third-party cookies on Google in 2024 and the introduction of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). This has made the way you capture and use data even more important to ensure the protection of customer information. 

Email is a perfect example of that all-important first-party data source - consensual information - and you should do your best to protect that data. It’s important to look at your database and clean it up. Make sure you have permission to use every email address you have on your lists. If someone has unsubscribed, make sure to take them off any active lists.

If you have a bank of inactive email subscribers, reach out to them to try and re-engage and offer to remove them if it’s no longer relevant. After all, it’s better to have a smaller database of interested prospects than a lot of uninterested people. 

4) Use Omnichannel Marketing

Going into 2024 and beyond, omnichannel marketing is a growing trend for companies of all sizes. 

But what is omnichannel marketing? Put simply, it's using every marketing channel to its full potential and creating a seamless experience as a customer moves from one channel to another. 

Email has an important role to play in omnichannel. The advantage it has is that email is flexible, easy to tailor, easy to test, and can provide insight into customer preferences and behaviors. 

In combination with other channels such as social media, paid search, or search marketing, email can drive engagement and build customer loyalty. 

5) Include Relevant Links

Once someone has clicked on your email, you want to make it as easy as possible to direct them to where you want them to go. 

Don’t just send a prospect or customer into the ether of your website. Make sure you create relevant and customized landing pages that are a follow-on from the email content. 

Also, include social media handles so people can find your brand easily online. Only include the platforms you are active on to make sure the content is up-to-date and you are responsive. 

Tip: Check out ‘The Anatomy of an Effective Marketing Email’ for more information.  

6) Be Interactive

You can include interactivity in your email by inviting people to swipe, click, tap or watch. This could be a countdown clock, video or a GIF. The main thing is that it makes someone dwell on your email. 

This email from Google Local Guides features a GIF that shows a recipient how to take a picture effectively. This is followed by tips on how to take an effective picture to include on Google. It’s not only eye-catching but highly relevant to its audience.  

This is another GIF example from Nike which showcases its products rather than trying to get an image of each one in an email or relying on click-through to a landing page.  

7) Have a Good UI and UX

It’s vital to create a seamless experience for a prospect or customer across all your channels. That means you need to take user experience (UX) and your user interface (UI) into account when you include links in your emails. 

In other words, if you are offering a 20 percent discount on a product, the next touchpoint should be a page that gives an overview or description of that product with a simple CTA to enable purchase. 

The design and colors should also be similar so there is no confusion when a person clicks through. Consistency is crucial. You could also optimize for mobile to ensure that any touchpoint is mobile-friendly and accessible. 

8) Use Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be very useful in your email marketing. There are tools like writing assistant Rytr and delivery platform Sendgrid that automate some processes to help increase engagement and revenue. You could also try spam management tools like NeverBounce and ZeroBounce.

AI can help you use advanced computer science techniques and computational firepower to get insights from big data and customer data (which includes customer behavior). Tools can help to write email copy, clean up lists, optimize send times and send automated newsletters. 

Check out the best AI and marketing automation tools to use. 

9) Look at your Competitors

The best way to create a great email campaign is to look at successful ones that get replies within your industry or competitors. 

 A tool like Mailcharts allows you to look at campaigns to gain insights from real-time and historical data. Let’s look at a few industries to give you examples. 

Email Marketing Tips for Special Sectors

Email Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

As a small business, email marketing can be an effective way to drive engagement with your customers or prospects. 

One of the advantages of being a small business is that you know the needs of your customers. This will enable you to personalize content that will appeal to your audience.  

If you are a local business, leverage that knowledge to craft interesting subject lines and focus on solutions. For example, if you’re a coffee shop try ‘Manhattan: have a free morning coffee on us!’ 

You can also host or get involved in local events. Not only can you promote your company there but you can encourage people to sign up for your mailing list or newsletter to get up-to-date with news or offers. 

Tip: Check out ‘Local SEO for Beginners: Improve Your Visibility Online’ to localize content and show up on local searches. 

Email Marketing for Insurance Leads

As a high-value and long-term purchase, leads for insurance can take time to nurture and convert. Emails are an effective way to provide information to your prospects in a way that’s personal and helpful. 

• Use workflows - Automated workflows can send emails based on behavior. So if you create workflows you can answer key questions or provide solutions based on what someone needs. For example, if your first email is a welcome email to a new lead, you will set up a subsequent email based on whether they click a CTA. For those that click through to a custom landing page, you can follow up with an email that asks them if they want more information. If they took no action, the other email triggered could be focused on them missing out. 
• Provide solutions - If you know the hurdles or challenges for people in insurance, do something to address them. Direct your audience to blogs or your FAQ page that addresses them and offers solutions. It’s about building a relationship and awareness. This is a good example from health insurance provider Oscar.  

• Set up a newsletter - Newsletters can be a quick way to inform people of any developments or milestones in the insurance industry or new offers. Test subject lines and content to see what resonates. 
• Offer free quotes - People like free things so reach out and offer a free quote or consultation to drive engagement and increase the chances of converting a lead into a customer.  

Email Marketing for Political Campaigns

Political campaigns rely on providing information and email marketing is a vital part of that. There are several things you can do to get the most out of your emails in this area. 

• Build a quality list - Treat your email list with care by making sure it’s up-to-date and email addresses are verified. Send out an email to lapsed or inactive subscribers to see if you can re-engage. But be prepared to archive or delete inactive addresses or remove fake ones. 
• Segment your audience - It’s essential to get your message and information out to the right people. So segment your email list into distinct batches so you provide the right information to the right people. 
• Personalize your sender name - It’s crucial to build trust so choose a sender name and stick to it to ensure consistency in your email communications. 
• Leverage important dates - In campaigns, there will be key dates such as registering to vote or voting poll dates so use these to inform your database and integrate a message about your campaign. 
• Include an unsubscribe link - To build trust and show integrity, include an unsubscribe link and make it easy for someone to remove themselves from your database. 
• Consider interaction - sometimes less is more so instead of lengthy text to get your point across, consider including a video link or even a gif.   

B2B Email Marketing Tips

B2B companies have the challenge that there can be a long time between becoming a prospect and converting to a customer. This makes email an important channel to provide information and nurture people through the sales funnel. 

• Use downloadables - Ebooks or infographics are valuable as they should provide high-quality content in a niche area. Re-engage your email list by directing them to this type of content.  
• Showcase customer testimonials - Share positive reviews from your customers to provide social proof and endorse your product or service.  
• Highlight data, news or research - B2B customers like data and research-based information so use tantalizing stats or quotes to draw people in and direct them to the full report or research. Gifting platform &Open does this effectively by sharing news on their Series A round and asking people to go on a waiting list. 

• Highlight case studies - Case studies can be time-consuming but they do provide insight into your business and its impact on a customer or client. Highlight them as either a video or concise text that directs people to a custom landing page.    

Take your email marketing to the next level

Craft and send emails that engage and convert. DMI’s Email marketing course covers data strategy, crafting content, content design, optimizing and testing so you have all the skills and knowledge you need to execute effective email campaigns. 

Related

• What are the Best AI and Marketing Automation Tools?
• The Anatomy of an Effective Marketing Email
• The Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Beginners (And Free Calendar)