Email campaigns can be highly effective, but like anything else, you really have to know what you’re doing. If you can avoid all of these mistakes, your campaign should be a great success.

1. Making it hard for people to unsubscribe
2. Emailing without permission
3. Buying lists
4. Having no process to build the quality and size of the house list
5. Having no process to maintain the data integrity of the house list
6. Having no campaign goal
7. Having too many campaign goals
8. Having no KPIs to measure performance versus goal
9. Having the wrong KPIs to measure performance versus goal
10. Not having a mobile-friendly design
11. Failing to split-test subject lines
12. Using poorly composed subject lines
13. Using subject lines with offers too good to be true
14. Using subject lines that are too personal or weirdly personal
15. Using content that is overly personal or inconsistently personal
16. Using content that is cold and impersonal
17. Using content with errors in grammar, usage or clarity
18. Failing to test formatting, functionality of links and calls to action before sending
19. Using an impersonal or automated “from” email address
20. Failing to segment the house list for campaigns with multiple goals and messaging strategies
21. Failing to split-test offers
22. Having too many offers
23. Not having an offer
24. Failing to split-test titles, greetings, images, calls to action and other elements of the design and content
25. Failing to give users a plain text formatting option
26. Emailing on an inconsistent schedule
27. Emailing too frequently
28. Emailing too infrequently
29. Not testing frequency to determine the most effective frequency
30. Not testing days and times of email delivery
31. Not reviewing analytics data, especially open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, unsubscribes, bounces and email sharing/forwarding

Over to You

What mistakes have you seen cause email marketing campaigns to fail?

After combing through my spam folder for real messages that were improperly filtered, I counted one in every three emails as legitimate promotional offers that I had subscribed to. Some poor marketer somewhere had spent effort creating the perfect email, only to have it end up in my spam.

As marketers, we are tasked with eliminating situations like the above so we can deliver more leads. Because of this, we sometimes make the mistake of testing too many changes at once, making it difficult to judge the efficacy of each change. Before you start your next test, try these steps to help prioritize your email marketing tests to get more leads.

Step 1: Gather your benchmarks

Step 2: Select the right metrics to optimize

Step 3: Prioritize your tests

Based on the domino effect, the chart below provides guidance on what metrics to improve first to make the biggest impact. Here’s how it works. Follow steps 1 and 2 to determine which metrics are underperforming. If multiple metrics need to be optimized, start with the metric at the top of the chart, test your change, and go down the list accordingly. And, remember, one test at a time!

Lastly, when all key metrics are in a place that you are happy with, start growing your database through both paid and organic methods. Happy testing!

Tips/email best practices

Tips/optimizing landing pages

About the Author

Karen Parisi is CEO and Founder of Oodi, a marketing marketplace to compare, purchase and manage marketing services. With nearly 15 years of marketing and business development expertise, she has held leadership positions at B2B software companies such as Thomson Reuters and iCIMS.

No matter what business you are in, it is essential to know your customer. Who is buying your products or services? How can you help them? How do you market to them? If you don’t know your customer, it’s hard to generate leads and magnify your company’s profits, especially when using email marketing as a tool. If you’re firing all of your emails in the wrong direction, you’re missing the power of email marketing. However, when your email lands in the inboxes of the right people, you’re setting yourself up for success with increased leads, and ultimately, sales.

So, how do you decide who is the “right” audience? If you don’t know where to start, here are a few tips to help you discover your optimal target.

1) Know what you’re selling.

It is crucial to know exactly what benefit you offer to customers. When it comes to receiving emails, people always ask, “What’s in it for me?” The more you know, the more you can answer that question, and the easier it will be to figure out who/what kind of people need and find value in what you sell.

2) Who is currently buying from you?

Looking at your current customers can tell you a lot about who is interested in what you have to offer. If you are able to analyze your current customers, you will probably start seeing some common denominators.

Start by looking at data such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Income
• Occupation
• Location

Being able to pinpoint similarities in your current customers is another way to help you narrow down to whom your emails should be going. Plus, you can begin to categorize each customer into different demographics or segments, giving you the opportunity to improve your message to current customers. Win-win!

3) Know your competition.
Another important aspect in helping you discover your target audience: Knowing your competition and their customers. It’s a sure bet that their customers are likely your customers. Plus, knowing what works and doesn’t work for your competition can help you make better decisions — learn from their mistakes and successes. It may help to subscribe to their blogs/newsletters, to keep you in the loop with what they are up to. Analyze what they are doing well, what they’re doing wrong, and whom they are targeting.

4) Look to related industries.

Once you have a better understanding of the demographics of your customers or prospective customers, keep a close eye on related industries, or industries that likely attract your customers. Similar to the reasons for keeping a close eye on your competition, this can help you find customers in other areas that may not seem entirely obvious at first glance.

Simply taking a step back to evaluate your efforts and your target is a small step that can yield big results. Use these tips as guidance to re-analyze your database. Sometimes, it’s not your messaging that’s off, it’s just that your audience isn’t quite right! If you find the people who need what you have to offer, that’s email marketing and lead generation gold.

Have you ever been worried that going out of town would affect your business? Time away from the office usually means putting potential new clients on hold, but it doesn’t have to be that way! In fact, quite the opposite — it could be an opportunity to tap new markets and generate new leads by the handful.

Email is an old tool, but when given a new twist, it could be as much of an asset out of the office as it is in the office. When used in a strategic way, email marketing can benefit your company and lead generation by helping you expand to different cities, states and countries while you’re traveling.

By following these three simple steps, you can turn each trip into a new way to spread your reach through something as simple as sending a quick email:

Research: Before going out of town, research different companies and businesses in your destination area. Pick and choose a handful of companies that fit your target audience. Once you’ve found your targets, find their contact information. Oftentimes, you can gain contact information by looking on the company website, checking LinkedIn, or doing a quick Google search.

Reach out: Now that you’ve compiled the list of the people you wish to contact, create a well-written email template. (An efficiency tip: Save your template as a draft, highlighting the information that gets customized for each individual — then copy and paste it for each email you compose.) This email template should include the dates when you will be in their city, what your company has to offer them, and a query asking whether they would be available to meet while you are in their area. Go through your list of new contacts, sending your well-crafted, informative email to each person.

Schedule: After you’ve sent your email, you need to monitor who is responding and who is not. You may find it’s easiest to track this in a spreadsheet, making note of whom you have emailed, when you emailed them, and when they replied. When someone responds and is interested in a meeting, it is mission critical to send a prompt response and immediately schedule a meeting. If someone doesn’t respond, wait a week and send a simple follow-up email (and make note of your follow-up in your spreadsheet).

After you’ve successfully completed these steps and have a few meetings booked on your calendar, the rest of the work falls on the sales process. When you follow through with your meetings and make a good impression, the leads could turn into great new clients. All of this while you were “out of office”!

If you have the luxury of staring at a brand-new email list (one you did not buy or rent, of course) and you’re not sure how to get started reaching out to the people on it, consider yourself lucky anyway! This seldom happens, but when it does, you have a trove of opportunity at your fingertips.

The most important thing to keep in mind with a new list — as with any new interaction — is your first impression. Always opt for being polite and assuming someone does not know who you are, regardless of how well known you are or think you are. Your first email to a new list represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you cannot get back. As a guide and starting place, here are a few key things to consider for your initial email:

1. Design

Is your email design clean and minimal while adhering to your brand standards? If an email is coming from your brand, it must represent your brand on all levels — be it through design and visual appearance, or tone and messaging.

2. How Did You Meet?

If people signed up to be on your list at a tradeshow, to win something, or for other reasons, chances are their recollection of having signed up vanished three seconds after they did so. This email should be used as a friendly reminder that they willingly signed up to be on your list. This reminder protects you from being marked as spam because they simply didn’t remember signing up, and should prevent them from getting angry because they think you’re spamming them.

3. Who Are You?

Give an overview of your brand, what you offer, and how you make their lives better. If there’s nothing in it for them, they’re not going to care.

4. Why Should They Care About You?

A) This takes No. 3 one step further. Emphasize what value you bring to their lives, and they’re naturally going to tune in. Even if they’re not ready to buy now, most people have a sixth sense about whether they’re going to need a product or service in the future.

B) Additionally, it’s important to convey how your emails specifically will help them. The strategy of your email campaign will clearly point out the benefits of your campaign. If it doesn’t, you need to formulate a solid strategy before you start emailing to your list.

5. When Will They Hear From You?

Provide the frequency that you’ll send your helpful emails, and be 100 percent honest about it. If you’re going to email them quarterly, tell them that. If it’s one time per month, make that known. (Remember that what you tell them is exactly what you need to deliver on.) This too should be dictated directly by the strategy you’ve developed and now are putting in motion. Being transparent about this assures them you will not be invading their inbox more than they’d like.

6. When to Disengage

There’s a chance that after you’ve relayed all of this, they just may not be interested. Give them the opportunity to opt out of your emails. You don’t need to feature the opt-out, but it should be in there. A simple plain-text link will do the trick. Although it’s natural to not like this idea, it’s far better to let them politely bow out now than to have people mark you as spam in masses. When this happens, your sender reputation will be blacklisted, and then you won’t be able to email your other leads at all. That’s a big risk to take just to get greedy by keeping a few extra leads who aren’t interested.

Keep these tips in mind to help you develop the framework of your first successful email to your brand-new list. Remember, when it comes to generating leads with email marketing, there’s not a rush when you do it right. It’s far better to execute a plan that is well thought out than to shoot in the dark.

When working on an email marketing campaign, once the list of recipients is loaded, there’s a tendency to never quite think of it again. Databases often fall victim to an “it’s checked off the list” mentality. To be fair, if you’re working with a solid Email Service Provider (ESP), there’s not a lot of list micromanaging that needs to happen, but it is important to be aware of list hygiene and stay on top of it. For those who feel as though they’ve just read Latin, here’s a quick overview of list hygiene, why you should do it, and how you should do it; or better yet, how to delegate it to your ESP.

List hygiene in short is the constant scrubbing of your list of people who do not want to be on your list or should not be on your list. The two basic reasons for this are:

• CAN/SPAM compliance: It’s the law to remove anyone who marks your email as spam or unsubscribes. After they’ve raised their hand, you cannot email them again, so it’s best practice to remove them immediately after they’ve marked your email as spam or unsubscribed.

• Protect your metrics: If your list is full of emails that would/will bounce, your metrics will be completely inaccurate, so what’s the point?

Starting with the first point, and likely the most obvious: If recipients opt for marking your emails as spam or unsubscribe, remove them immediately. A good ESP will remove the contact from your list immediately without alerting you, and without any action required from you. This is what you want. That way, the next time you want to deploy an email, you don’t have to feverishly remove unsubscribes and mark as spams manually.

The law aside, if recipients do not want to be on your list, you should not want them on your list. If they don’t want to hear from you, they won’t open your email, and they certainly will not click anything, so your metrics will plummet. To further back this point, do not create or use an ESP that forces people through the opt-out gate asking why they chose to unsubscribe. If someone does not want your emails, do not pester him or her, just let the person go. We’ve all been there; think about how infuriating it is to try to unsubscribe from a list, and then be bothered by answering why you’re leaving. Worse yet is the “Sorry to see you go, are you sure you don’t want to hear from us?” confirmation. Every time we go through this, it leaves an even worse brand impression.

Tarnishing your brand value is not worth it to keep a subscriber. Don’t take it so personally! The last point here: If you’re using an ESP that does not automatically remove unsubscribes and mark as spams behind the scenes, why are you using them?

Now that we’ve covered the obvious realm, let’s move on to the less obvious realm and the point where ESPs tend to offer a range of coverage: bounces. There are two bounce types: hard bounces and soft bounces.

Hard bounces are email addresses that simply do not exist, stemming from a wide range of reasons, such as the email address has a typo or the person no longer works at that company, etc.

Soft bounces, on the other hand, are a bit more obscure and harder to pin down. These can range from an inbox being full, your email being caught in a spam filter, etc. Although hard bounces are more vague, a good ESP will still give you the approximate reason why each individual email address bounced.

To take this further, ESPs all handle bounces differently. You need to be aware of how yours handles bounces and the amount of work you’ll need to put in (or not) because of it. At Straight North, we always use Campaign Monitor. One of the reasons we do so is because it’s absolute perfection with how it handles bounces. For hard bounces, those email addresses are removed from your list immediately and placed onto the “suppression” list. For soft bounces, because unlike hard bounces those are valid email addresses, Campaign Monitor will allow you to email them three times. If after three times, an email does not go through, it’s a safe bet your emails never will go through, so the email address is also added to the suppression list. Over time, your suppression list will grow, containing all hard bounces, soft bounces (after three times), unsubscribes and mark as spams.

There are two huge advantages to having this suppression list:

• You can always review it and modify it, if needed. For example, if someone accidentally unsubscribed, you can find him or her on the suppression list, and add this person back onto your list (as long as he or she has given you permission to do so), so these contacts do not fall into a black hole.

• In Campaign Monitor, every list you load is scrubbed against the suppression list. So, if someone has previously landed on your suppression list, if he or she happens to be on a list you load anytime in the future, the contact is automatically removed from that new list. This brings great peace of mind, as you know you’re spam compliant and are protecting your metrics.

Oh, and did I mention this is all automated? This saves hours upon hours of time, all while ensuring compliance and protecting metrics. All ESPs handle bounces differently, so before you sign on with one, make sure you understand how it’s handled and that you’re comfortable with the work, or lack of work, you’ll need to maintain a clean list. The cleaner your list, the more accurate your metrics are, which will help you truly see your leads instead of hunting for leads in a sea of invalid emails.

A/B split testing is a great practice for all types of marketing, but what is it? How does it apply to email marketing? I’ve got you covered!

A/B split testing simply entails taking a sample set of your overall database and sending two versions of your email — one to each half of that sample set. I always like to adhere to the 80/20 rule: 20 percent of the entire database becomes the sample set. Using this metric:

• 10 percent of those on my list get “email A.”
• 10 percent get “email B.”
• The remaining 80 percent receive the winning version from the split test.

These numbers are not cast in stone, and there’s room to make your own judgment. For example, if working with a really small list, of say 200 people, I’ll refine these metrics. In this example, I’d likely do 60 percent/40 percent. So, 40 people receive “A,” 40 receive “B,” and the remaining 120 receive the winner. Otherwise, without this modification, the 80/20 rule would result in such small split groups, what’s the point?

The purpose of the A/B split test is to allow data to reveal which of your variables resonates better with the audience. Most email service providers (ESPs) offer functionality to do a split test on subject line, design or content. I always, always split test the subject line only. Why, you ask? Well, simply put, the strength of your subject line is the key indicator of your open rate. If no one opens your email, who cares what your design and content look like? (Sorry designers, writers and developers!) Because of this rationale, I always use subject line split testing as my secret weapon to maximize the open rate.

In fact, using this secret weapon left jaws on the floor for a campaign we ran a couple of years ago. By doing an A/B split test for a client, we were able to increase the open rate by 69 percent! Yes, you definitely read that right — that garnered us an extra 3,131 opens, increasing our click rate enormously (from zero clicks to 82). The funny thing is that our subject lines weren’t even wildly creative. Here’s what we used:

• A (winner): On the House
• B (not “winning”): Take Advantage of our October Promo

As you can tell, by taking two minutes to set up a split test (it was an hour waiting for the results), we killed it with generating leads for our client. Not to brag, but merely to add more credibility for the doubters, because of the success of this campaign, Campaign Monitor hand-selected us to be in its “Top 100 Email Marketing Campaigns of 2014” resource guide — selected from more than 300 million emails sent that year.

Now that you’re basically sold on this idea, you’re likely wondering how to get in on the action. Rest assured, it is really simple. A solid ESP (such as Campaign Monitor, for example) will make this really easy for you. All you need to do is use the interface to simply select the type of split test you’d like to run and input your two variables (input type depends on what you’re testing — subject line, design, content, etc.). Then simply select the amount of your list to become the sample group, set the duration you want to run the split test for (I usually go for an hour), and fire away. Sit back and watch the metrics do the heavy lifting.

Since you’re now equipped with the secret weaponry, good luck and enjoy the extra leads!

Whenever you think email marketing, a few key things come to mind: killer design, attention-grabbing content and responsive development. What keeps all of those things together? The devil is in the details, and an editorial calendar is the secret link that keeps your email marketing campaign from derailing.

First and foremost, what is an editorial calendar? This is a spreadsheet outlining target distribution dates, key milestones set to meet the distribution dates (content due, design due, development due, testing due, etc.), distribution lists/segments per email, email type(s) (newsletter, promo, etc.) and topics for each scheduled distribution. Of course, the topics are never cast in concrete. They need to be flexible to accommodate news items as you go, but having an idea of what you’ve sent and what you want to send is key.

There are three main reasons an editorial calendar is mission critical:

1. It’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reason — to keep your campaign on schedule and to adhere to a consistent distribution frequency. In the strategy phase, one important decision is the distribution frequency for your campaign. Once you find the sweet spot of sending enough emails to keep readership engaged, but not oversending and annoying your readership, it’s important to always send at that frequency. Believe it or not, a month flies by in the blink of an eye. When you factor in time to write, design, develop and distribute a campaign, it gets challenging to squeeze all those components into a 20-business day timeline. By having key milestones for each of these steps, you can be sure you hit them and everything runs smooth.
2. When the first of the month hits, it can be a scramble to get all of these key components (content, design, etc.) running. If you have to add topic ideation, you’re in a mess. Here’s where the editorial calendar saves the day, yet again. Simply open your editorial calendar, and you’re staring at the email type you’re scheduled to send and the topic(s) that need to be covered. Instead of spending hours waiting for inspiration to strike for creation of the perfect topic, all you have to do is send inputs to your writers about the topic you selected at the beginning of the year. Done and done! Get the gears in motion.
3. Last but certainly not least — content consistency. By doing a “year in review” in January — to review your campaign from the previous year and plan your campaign for the upcoming year — you’ll be putting together an editorial calendar that will be consistent. Your topics will be cohesive because you can see how one topic flows into another from month to month. This helps maintain a consistent overall tone for all of your emails, and allows you to alternate the email type you send (promo email, newsletter, etc.). Without this, it becomes easy to get stuck in a rut from month to month.

Bonus reason: You need to have the ability to schedule distributions in order to strategically hit or avoid holidays. Depending on your email topic, it can be mission critical to hit or avoid certain holidays. For instance, if you’re in the business of selling insurance, you’re not going to want to send your most enticing offer during Thanksgiving when everyone is spending time with loved ones — and insurance is the least of their concerns. However, if you’re in the business of selling TVs, Black Friday is the time to send your most enticing offer — when people are looking for the deal of a lifetime to watch the big games. Because a lot goes into creating an email, the key milestones outlined in your editorial calendar ensure that each production team meets its deadline, and doesn’t force you to miss one of the most important events for which you’re planning your distribution.

By carving out the time to brainstorm and put together an editorial calendar at the start of the year, you align yourself to simply execute it throughout the year. This helps you to know what your topic is ahead of time so you don’t have to go back to the drawing board at the start of every month, helps to schedule and coordinate all teams involved, and avoids the pitfall many fall into — sending an email whenever inspiration hits (which can be seldom)!

Everyone has heard the term “segmented list” thrown around causally — it’s trending buzzwords for email marketing. There seems to be an air around the idea that as long as your list is segmented, you have your email strategy figured out — when in fact, the opposite is true. Your strategy should drive the reason you opt to segment your list (or not).

It goes without saying that even if your strategy dictates a segmented list, segmenting can be pushed only as far as the data you’ve collected and, hopefully, organized. It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to collect and organize data as you go, so that your tools are aligned when you’re ready to put a segmented strategy — or any email strategy — in place.

List segmentation requires a great deal of work to effectively execute, so it’s important to have a strong sense of the “why” factor. This is where strategy comes in. Based on your goals, your strategy should indicate if segmentation is an appropriate tool to better achieve your lead-nurturing goals.

To dive in a little deeper, here are some examples of why you’d want to segment your list. Sometimes segmentation is a permanent strategy, other times it’s a temporary phase of a campaign.

Temporary phase list segmentation often occurs at the time of introducing a new distribution list. For example, say you’ve been emailing to your house list (current customers) for a long period of time. You just attended a trade show, and have a new list of people you’ve networked and indicated they’d like to receive your email communications. Since your house list has been performing really well, you don’t want to muddy those metrics with a new list that has yet to establish a performance baseline.

In this instance, I’d recommend that you track these new networking leads as a separate segment within your email marketing database. That way, you won’t taint your house list’s metrics while you see how your new list performs. After emailing to this segment a handful of times, you can evaluate the list’s performance and choose either to merge the new list with your house list, permanently keep it as a separate segment, or perhaps continue emailing only a certain portion of that segment (for example, the people who regularly open your emails). Time, and taking a step back to review the list performance, will help you make a strategic judgment call.

Permanent segmentation is usually required due to differences in content or target audiences. For a very basic example, imagine you’re selling sporting equipment to teams. You wouldn’t want to send information about tennis rackets to a soccer team. So, you’d want to segment your list by sports types and promote the appropriate sporting gear to the appropriate segment.

Another segment example would be indicative of how you nurture leads — you could segment your list by prospects and current customers. Your prospect campaign would contain messaging focused on your products and/or services, and what sets you apart from your competitors. Your current customer campaign should appreciate your customers’ business and offer additional ways you can help them. The point is, by having separate segments for prospects and customers, you have the power to cater your content to the appropriate demographic. In doing so, your readers will take notice — the subtlest of details can make a campaign seem more personal.

All in all, there are many reasons why segmentation is a powerful tool to keep in your email marketing toolbox. First and foremost, however, ensure that your strategy drives segmentation on a path to relevancy resulting in better lead nurturing.

In email marketing, the metrics you hear most often are “open rate,” “click rate” and “unsubscribe” — but what about “bounces”? Although this metric does not give you an analysis of your actual campaign, it does give you an analysis of your list quality, which inadvertently affects your leads and campaign metrics. On top of that, did you know there are two types of bounces? Here’s the inside scoop.

A soft bounce is an email that was not delivered for a variety of reasons. The possibilities are endless, but some potential key reasons are:

1. The recipient’s spam filter thought your email was spam.
2. The recipient’s inbox was full.
3. The recipient’s server only accepts senders who have been added to its whitelist.

Unlike soft bounces, hard bounces are crystal clear — the email address does not exist. The recipients may no longer be with that company, they simply changed their email address, or — as often times is the case — there was a typo in the email address (therefore it could not be delivered).

A good Email Service Provider (ESP) will help manage your bounces. At Straight North, we have hard bounces removed from our list automatically, and soft bounces are removed after three failed attempts. The reason: the cleaner your email list is, the more accurate your campaign metrics will be.

You’re likely wondering, “OK, so aside from creating boring database management homework, how does this directly affect my campaigns?” Quite simply, you could be missing access to inboxes — and leads — from simple list management problems that could easily be avoided. Here are the two largest opportunities I recommend to clients:

1. Check your database for typos!
• You can export your hard bounce list, search for typos, correct them and re-import corrected emails.
• Upon loading a new list, I often export the email addresses that were flagged as invalid. I share those with the clients, allowing them to clean up their databases.
2. Auto-reply messages: This is usually an overlooked opportunity. If you read these closely, when recipients leave a company, the auto-reply message usually provides their new email address or a new point of contact at that company. Take this insider information and update your database as you go. It takes only 10 minutes, and saves you hours of updates (that may not be accurate) later.

By making a habit of these two simple steps, you save yourself hours of work in the long run, and you maximize the power of your database. Don’t lose leads because of a sloppy list — look at your bounce rate, assess your list and invest the time to clean it up!

“Responsive design” and “responsive development” are huge buzzwords — still. Really, these should not be buzzwords anymore; they should be a standard. With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the entire Web sphere has radically changed, and along with it so have users’ habits. When was the last time you checked your phone? Yeah, exactly.

For those new to the terms, responsive design and responsive development mean that a website is coded to detect the device from which a user is viewing. The design and layout respond to maximize that device’s screen space. Sometimes this means elements are stacked, other times elements disappear.

Most websites are now responsive, as it’s become the new Web standard. Then why are many companies still sending emails that are not responsive? There are many reasons, but at the top of the list is the difficulty to code with tables (required for emails) — and somehow make those tables responsive. The extreme limitations developers have for coding emails require a high level of expertise and creativity to push those emails to also be responsive. A lot of the heavy lifting, however, can and should be done during the design phase. It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to have your emails designed by a designer who understands both responsive development and email development. In doing so, your designer will be able to foresee the development phase and prevent a lot of potential issues during the design phase. Here are a few tips to help you transition your emails to a responsive format (if you haven’t already!):

1. Don’t embed text in images. This has always been best practice, but now more so than ever. When an image scales down, so does the text. Suddenly, very readable 12-point type becomes 6-point type that is impossible to read! If you place all text as HTML, the text size will not become microscopic on a mobile device. That is, it will adapt and keep its native size on mobile.
2. Vertical real estate is even more important. If your headline and call to action are far down on your desktop version, this will be a million times worse on mobile. Keep the most important elements at the top — and make them stand out.
3. Keep your content concise. The shorter the better, especially when you lose horizontal screen space on mobile — thus pushing your content even longer vertically (requiring more scrolling).
4. Keep your layout to one column. If you really want a two- or three-column layout, be sure that it will stack for mobile in a manner that will be cohesive with your messaging.
5. Be ruthless about unnecessary elements. If something isn’t necessary in directing your reader to your conversion, remove it from the mobile version. For example, many email campaigns have a navigation bar at the top serving as helpful links to a website. On mobile, remove this bar and leave only your specific call-to-action buttons for that campaign.

With the prevalence of smartphones, the email marketing industry has seen a huge increase in relevance and response. Now that most people have smartphones, we are constantly “tuned in” to our inbox — at every red light and every long line at Starbucks. As a result, email campaigns are flourishing now more than ever. Don’t lose potential leads because your email campaign is not optimized for mobile devices. Take time and make the investment to put the experts to work transitioning your email campaign into a responsive email campaign. You’ll be glad you did — and so will your readers!

'Tis the season for twinkling lights, festive sweaters, increased calorie intake, mailing Christmas cards, and figuring out the best way to email holiday wishes to your database. Like any holiday greeting, sometimes it’s difficult to figure out the right approach. The best starting place is to consider your business and your audience.

Are You a B2B Company? If Yes, You’re in the Right Spot! If No, Skip This.

For B2B companies, there is no need to overbake it. That is, less is more. The design aspect of the email does the heavy lifting. A simple but well-designed email — with a large image (for eye candy) and a short message — is perfect. Ensure your message is sincere, but keep it concise. This type of email lets your clients know that you care about and value their businesses. If you choose to send this to prospects, too, it surely can’t hurt since it brings you front of mind again. You can choose to send this a few days before the holidays or during the holidays.

Are You a B2C Company? If Yes, This is For You!

Emails for B2C companies during the holidays should be viewed as a campaign, not a one-off email. Out of the year, this is your time to shine. Ironically, in the era of social media and the expression that “email is dead,” email has become even more critically important to retailers over the past few years. First of all, email goes directly to your customer, versus the customer passively seeing you on social media. Second, people are doing more online shopping — much more, in fact. With the prevalence of mobile devices and a general lack of patience, many people would rather do holiday shopping on the train during their commute to work than fight long lines and big crowds at the mall after work and on weekends. Plus, with many retailers offering free shipping, why wouldn’t you buy online?

Remember, the emails you send should inspire readers to visit your website and shop. Emails also should be the one-click gateway to get those in your database to browse and buy your products.

That said, think of what would prompt readers to go to your website. Then create the path of least resistance for them to do so. For the holidays, drip campaigns are the best. Sending emails almost daily helps you stay in front of an audience, especially since inboxes are fuller this time of year. Here are some ways to get readers interested:

• Deep discounts: Consumers expect discounts this time of year. They are budget conscious, and they know they can get a “deal” from your competitor if they can’t get one from you. Consider these popular approaches:
Free shipping
Do you offer standard free shipping? If so, offer an upgrade to free two-day shipping.
Percentage discounts off an entire purchase
To spur urgency, you can add another offer to the discount for a limited time. For example, if you’re running a sitewide 20-percent sale this week — on Wednesday only — offer free shipping as well. Or offer an extra 10 percent off on Thursday (in addition to your sitewide 20-percent discount). This gets your readers to buy, and usually, buy more than they anticipated.
Flash sales: Again, these spark urgency. Feature a certain product or a sitewide discount for only a short period (four hours, lunch-break flash sale or 24 hours, for example). Hit “send” on that email, then watch people flood your site.
Daily promos: In recent years, many retailers do “12 Days of Deals” campaigns where a different product is featured and discounted each day. The advantage of these is that you often get repeat customers — or you capture satellite shoppers who wouldn’t normally purchase from you, but do now because they’re shopping for friends and family.
Create exclusive offers: Everyone wants to feel like he/she has gotten a better deal over someone else, and everyone wants to feel like a VIP. Your email subscribers should be treated like VIPs because, after all, they do allow you to email their inboxes frequently. This is a privilege that shouldn’t be overlooked. Let them know you appreciate it by sending exclusive offers.
Allow subscribers to browse online products before they’re made public.
If you have a brick-and-mortar location, let subscribers shop before or after retail hours.
• Do you have a rewards program? Give your members double rewards points on certain days.
• Do you have a brick-and-mortar store? Encourage people to sign up for your emails at checkout. Entice them with exclusive offers. With the rise in sales this time of year, it’s an optimal time to grow your email database.

Tips That Apply to All

• Make it mobile-friendly. Everyone is checking email on the fly via mobile devices these days. Creating responsive emails is no longer optional.
• Subject lines should be relevant yet attention-grabbing. Remember, you’re fighting for visibility in the inbox, and the subject line should be your weapon of choice:
Don’t overdo it, but try emojis in subject lines.
A little wit can elicit a chuckle, and therefore increase the chance of your email being opened.
Design: Don’t underestimate the silent power of design. Consider this: when was the last time you purchased something with ugly packaging?
Content: The shorter the better. Period.

This is a short list of ideas, but you get the point. For retailers, the possibilities are endless. The best approach is to email your audience frequently and change your offers. You never know what offer will appeal to certain people, so the more ideas you can come up with and implement, the more likely you are to have a larger pool of buyers.

For B2B and B2C customers, the approach is completely different but equally as valuable. Although the holidays are chaotic and priorities are forced to shift, don’t push your holiday greeting to the bottom of the priority list — it really should be at the top. People love seasonal emails, and sending holiday emails/campaigns is one of the best ways to garner leads.