In a world ruled by social, is email marketing still a valid channel? Hell yes!

In our experience at Online Circle Digital the brands using email marketing have seen great results in reaching and maintaining engagement with a baseline of prospects and customers.

Recently we analysed the campaigns we have created for ourselves and for our clients to discover where the correlations between the most successful campaigns are.

Of course, it changes depending the objectives, database sizes, quality and many other factors. However, what we found is a set of benchmarks and best practices that can be applied and tested to find out what works for you.

Remember relevancy to content and uniqueness is imperative to proper execution in digital, regardless of the channel.

1.     The best email headlines were normally short, up to 50 characters.

2.     Splashy or gooey expressions don't increment open rates. Actually, they increase spam.

3.     Words to avoid in the subject line (they trigger spam filters and/or users ignore): "free",               “help,” “percent off,” or “reminder”, "wonderful", and exclamation marks.

4.     DON'T EVER USE CAPITAL LETTERS ON YOUR SUBJECT LINE

5.     Personalisation works, if your data is clean. Personalise the "From" name and personalise         with the user's information as much as you can via segmentation. The trick here is to                 make sure your database is accurate.

6.     For us, Mondays and Fridays have been the quietest days, with Tuesdays and                           Wednesdays the best performers.

7.     A single column email or cards template perform better than multi-columns.

8.     Add preview texts to email. Usually located near the subject line, the preview text gives             viewers a glimpse into the email. Extremely helpful on mobile screens.

9.     Numbers in the subject line work.

Besides all the points above, watch out for the frequency of your emails.

Email frequency continues to be the main culprit in email unsubscribing behavior. According to a survey from Fluent 35% of respondents said that receiving emails too often was their main reason for unsubscribing from emails.

Happy emailing!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucio Ribeiro, is a co-founder and lead strategist of specialised Social Media agency Online Circle Digital where he works with large and medium size brands in developing their digital marketing strategy and execution. He is considered a thought leader on digital marketing authoring articles in digital innovation and social media strategy, speaking in seminars and judging global awards.