{"id":2940,"date":"2018-02-14T17:59:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T17:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/?page_id=2940"},"modified":"2018-02-15T17:00:12","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T17:00:12","slug":"email-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/email-best-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Email Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best practices in general<\/h2>\r\n\r\n

Subject Line Best Practices<\/h3>\r\n

Subject lines are the first thing a subscriber reads. If it doesn\u2019t grab their attention, the work you put into the email is lost. How can you ensure your subject lines are effective?\r\n\r\n

Keep them short and sweet. Short and medium-length subject lines have higher open rates than long ones, which ultimately affects conversion rates (the percentage of people who take action based on your email). What\u2019s more, Internet service providers sometimes truncate subject lines. So limit them to 50 characters or fewer.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Of course, limiting the length of your subject line doesn\u2019t mean you have to sacrifice style. Infuse your brand into the messaging and take advantage of brand loyalty. Catch the reader\u2019s eye with symbols, creative wordplay, or by building intrigue.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Then test, test, and test again! This is how you determine which subject lines yield the best results. With good email marketing services (like Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio) it\u2019s easy as A, B, C. Actually, it\u2019s as easy as A\/B Testing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Subject line best practices<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Subject Line<\/th>\r\nWhy It Works<\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/thead>\r\n
Hold your breath until you see this<\/td>\r\nThis subject line for an air freshener product builds intrigue and relates to the product being promoted.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Dads: This email is not for you. Forward to your family.<\/td>\r\nA forwarding request makes you want to read the email. So does being told it\u2019s not for you.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Starfish. You named it. You bought every pair. And we made more.<\/td>\r\nMaking recipients feel as if they are missing out encourages them to want to be in the know!<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Express shipping: on Dasher, on Dancer, on Procrastinator<\/td>\r\nAddressing someone or identifying with someone makes them feel understood and like they are being spoken to on a personal level. In this example, we\u2019re addressing that sometimes \u201cwe\u201d procrastinate when it comes to holiday shopping.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Less successful subject lines<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Subject Line<\/th>\r\nWhy It Fails<\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/thead>\r\n
[Day of Week] Newsletter<\/td>\r\nThis says nothing except which day of the week it is.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
RE: Previous email<\/td>\r\nThis is misleading. Putting a RE: message in the subject line could cause subscribers to be annoyed and unsubscribe or report you as spam.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
[Blank]: Check out this deal.<\/td>\r\nMake sure you have a default value such as \u201cValued Customer\u201d in place of a first name, for example, to avoid having a blank in the subject line.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A Call to Action<\/h3>\r\n

Personalization and relevance are great. But generally, the purpose of marketing emails is to prompt your subscribers to do something. For this you need a good call to action (CTA). This can be a limited-time offer, or a prompt to enter a contest, visit a website, or sign up for an event. Give your customers an irresistible reason to open your email, and once opened, take action.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Not all CTAs are created equal\u2014great CTAs are:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\t
  • Urgent: Use CTAs that create a need for urgent action.<\/li>\r\n\t
  • Brief: State the CTA briefly, with no more than five words.<\/li>\r\n\t
  • Action-oriented: Begin your CTA with a verb (download, register, buy, save).<\/li>\r\n\t
  • Clear and predictable: Be clear and link to a place that doesn\u2019t surprise subscribers.<\/li>\r\n\t
  • Limited and visible: Focus subscribers\u2019 attention on one to two prominent CTAs.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

    Manage Email Frequency<\/h3>\r\n

    Another best practice is to deliver what you promise. If you promised a monthly newsletter, make sure you send it monthly. Not bimonthly, not every other week\u2014monthly. Not only do you want your communications with your subscribers to be personal and relevant, you want them to be anticipated<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

    Bounce and Purge<\/h2>\r\n

    When you send out marketing emails, you often receive bounce-back messages alerting you to defunct email accounts. It\u2018s critical that you remove any bounced addresses from your mailing lists between one marketing message and the next that you send. Even though most email marketing systems stop sending to addresses that bounced a set number of times, a bounce rate over 20% for any single mailing can have serious consequences. This is because if deliverability is bad, your IP address can be put on a blacklist.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    We also recommend purging old or inactive addresses from your mailing lists. Don\u2019t keep those names and emails that you haven\u2019t emailed in months. Don\u2019t spend money on sending emails that aren\u2019t even being opened.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

    Best practices for Salesforce<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nRoles: https:\/\/members.s7.exacttarget.com\/Content\/Administration\/Roles\/RoleDetails.aspx?id=26dfc03f-a279-e411-b14e-38eaa731a765\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Best practices in general Subject Line Best Practices Subject lines are the first thing a subscriber reads. If it doesn\u2019t grab their attention, the work you put into the email is lost. How can you ensure your subject lines are effective? Keep them short and sweet. Short and medium-length subject lines have higher open rates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2940","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability-innovation.asu.edu\/support-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}