The long-used cornerstone for measuring email success – the open rate  – could be in danger as a result of Apple’s changes associated with iOS 15. Their new Mail Privacy Protection, which most Apple Mail users are expected to opt into, essentially means that senders will no longer be able to accurately measure open rates, see information about opens by individual subscribers, or use a subscriber’s IP address to understand their location or generate dynamically-loaded content.

“For the longest time, we’ve encouraged email marketers to segment traffic based on engagement… now the open rate will not be a useful metric for things like reputation management or segmentation,” says Kate Nowrouzi, VP of Deliverability at Pathwire. 

The result is that many email marketers are preparing to face challenges with testing subject lines or accurately measuring the reach of emails. It will also become difficult to use open rates to clean lists, build effective triggers, or segment lists. This could lead you to think, “No more open rates?! Broken personalization and automations?! I’ll never be able to tell what’s working! Performance is going to tank!”

So is it time to start looking for a new profession? Not exactly. 

Who stands to lose the most? 

Apple’s Mail Privacy changes apply to… Apple Mail.

So how much this impacts your email campaigns – and thus your level of concern – should be based on the proportion of your list that actually uses Apple Mail to read their messages. 

This is where things get a bit tricky. While the changes will only affect emails opened with Apple Mail – not with the Gmail app or other clients – it impacts any email opened with Apple Mail. 

“The client is the key thing here,” says Alex Rubin, Sr. Director of Partner Sales at Mailgun, “If people are accessing a Gmail address through Apple Mail, it doesn’t matter where mail is hosted, it will be impacted.” 

The greater percentage of your audience that uses Apple Mail, the more data you’ll lose. If most of your audience is comprised of ride-or-die Apple fans, you have some nervous nights ahead. If it’s just 3%, you may barely notice. 

Apple use statistics: what it means for email marketers

The extent of the impact on your efforts depends solely on the percentage of your subscribers using Apple Mail. “For clients on our platform, data shows that Apple mail usage is around 33-37%,” says Kate. “This number is different from industry to industry… there are numbers as low as 4% and as high as 54%.”

We’re going to look at some stats about Apple products – who uses them, where they live, their income, preferred languages, etc. – to help you understand how hard these changes might hit your email marketing efforts. 

And while this will help you roughly gauge just how concerned you should be, it’s not a perfect science. Even if someone prefers to use their iPhone to review emails, it doesn’t mean they’re using Apple Mail to do so.

“We’ve looked at our user base and the majority of people read Gmail email via the Gmail app. So even if you are on the latest iPhone on iOS 15, but you use the Gmail app to read your emails, that won’t be impacted. It will only be impacted if you have configured your Gmail accounts through your Apple Mail client on your iPhone, Desktop, or iPad.”

 Kate Nowrouzi,

VP of Deliverability at Pathwire.

So use the numbers in this article as a heads up. But there’s a much more precise way to measure the percentage of your audience that will be impacted. We’ll reveal that later.

Apple’s mobile and desktop presence

One billion people use Apple devices. This means you can safely bet that at least a few of your subscribers are amongst the Apple fanbase. And this massive reach is why the Mail Privacy Protection changes can’t be ignored. 

A billion users is nothing to laugh at. But when it comes to PCs, if the world’s users were split like a pizza pie – into eight even slices – Apple would barely get their own piece. Apple only makes up about 15% of the global PC market, with less than 10% of its income originating from desktop sales. Depending on whether you count Chromebooks as a PC, Apple claims somewhere between 7.4 and 8.5% market share. 

However, Apple’s mobile market share is more competitive than their PC efforts. According to StatCounter, in 2020, Android owned 73% of the worldwide mobile operating system while iOS took 27%.

So since Apple’s mobile devices are more popular than their desktop counterparts, if your audience prefers to check mail on their smartphone (more on that later), a greater percentage might be impacted. And that will only be exasperated as people move more towards mobile devices as a whole.

Like we mentioned, less than 10% of Apple’s income originates from desktop sales. iPhones make up 55% and iPads another 8%. So as subscribers’ preference for checking email skews towards mobile, the use of Apple Mail is likely to go along with it. 

People use a variety of devices to check email

Apple’s mobile market share is more competitive than desktop. So does that make Apple Mail more or less influential when it comes to Apple Mail as an email client? 

People still use a variety of devices to view their messages. While Email Monday says at least 50% of emails were opened on mobile in 2018 (a number we suspect has only increased), it depends dramatically on age. 40% of people under 18 open emails on mobile first. But in the 55-67 age group, that number drops to 8%. 

Geographic distribution 

iPhones are the long-standing favorite of Americans. At its peak, Android passed 45% usage, though briefly. iOS usage was more than 60% as of early 2021.

But it’s not just the US. Apple’s mobile iOS dominance is even more pronounced in Japan. Apples boasts a nearly 70% market share of mobile operating systems as of mid-2021.

In the United Kingdom, Apple narrowly leads mobile market share. iPhones were the preferred choice over the last year but by the narrowest of margins. 

But while iOS has a strong presence in Japan and the UK, Apple’s American revenue outpaces the rest of the world. This graph from Business of Apps breaks down Apple’s revenue by its top regions. Regardless of the kind of device sold, Apple claims almost twice the revenue from the Americas as it does from Europe. Its American revenue is three times greater than China’s and six times greater than Japan or Asia Pacific. 

But revenue can be deceiving – it’s not a perfect ratio to users. It does, however, hint to us that if your subscriber base is mostly located in the Americas, you might stand more to lose than if it’s mostly in Africa, which didn’t even make this list. 

English is the language of iOS

 iOS seems to be the preference among English speakers. Apple is on par, or even beats Android, in a relatively small group of major countries (all of which speak majority English except for Japan and Sweden):

• The United States
• The United Kingdom
• Sweden
• Canada
• Japan
• Australia

Notably, English-speaking Australia’s iOS usage also outpaces the global average. 

Europe provides further proof of an English language preference. To the point about iOS being preferred by English speakers, iOS only has 30% market share in Europe as a whole. But in the English-speaking UK, it’s closer to 50%. 

The age of iOS of users

iOS smartphones are popular with the young crowd. 

If 16-24 is your key demographic, your ears should perk up. Younger demographics don’t just prefer to view emails on mobile, they tend to lean towards iOS devices specifically. This is especially true in America, where 40% of iOS smartphone users in 2019 were concentrated in a relatively small age range: 16-24. In fact, only 30% of users in this demographic used Android. 

However, older demographics spend more on iOS devices. This stat has aged a bit itself, but a 2015 study suggests that individuals 65+ spent more than any other demo. So if your audience is older, you can’t ignore the Apple Mail Privacy update either.

The wealth of iOS users

Apple products are priced at a premium, so it’s not a major surprise that Apple users have higher incomes than those that use competing products. 

Yes, Apple users are wealthier. In fact, in 2014, Comscore estimated that, in the United States, iPhone users made 40% more than the median Android user. A 2018 study found similar results. 

So should you worry? How to know for sure.

If your audience is decidedly affluent, young, English-speaking, and located in the United States, UK, Japan, Sweden, or even Australia, you stand to lose the most.

Then again, it’s not a rule; it’s a trend. Your audience might meet every single one of the above criteria and none of them could own a single Apple product. While the stats in this article are super interesting, they probably don’t give you complete clarity about how many of your subscribers will be impacted.

The only way to know for sure, and thus the degree of resources that need to be allocated to your efforts, is to look at your own data. What email clients, exactly, does your audience use right now? 

Email on Acid’s email analytics tool will actually tell you this information. That’s right – you don’t have to guess. You can determine, with accuracy, how much of your audience will be impacted and then take appropriate action. 

What’s next? 

By now, you’ve probably figured out that you can’t ignore this change. No matter your audience, you’re likely going to feel at least some impact. We suggest that you look at your data to determine the extent of your audience that prefers Apple Mail. This can help guide the appropriate amount of resources to prepare. 

And there are things you can do, like segmenting your lists based on their preferred email client. If you do this, you may be able to use open rate data from minimally-affected segments to continue to guide your campaigns in some capacity.

But the point is that this is a big change and you can’t go forward without being informed. We’ve put together a lot of content to help you prepare, including our guide to the Apple Mail Privacy Policy update, an article to help marketers prepare for the Apple Mail changes, and an amazingly-helpful webinar about adapting to Apple Mail Privacy Protection. Stop what you’re doing, go read the posts and watch the webinar, and start planning for the future. 

Still interested in learning more about the Apple Mail Privacy Policy? Catch our Apple Mail panel at Email Camp to hear directly from Pathwire and Bloomreach experts! Register for Email Camp 2021 to get access to the best keynotes and panels!

The post Apple Mail Demographics: What It Means for Email Marketers appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

Does the possibility of dark mode email disasters give you nightmares, or has your team overcome the fear of emails in the dark? Results from our new dark mode survey reveal what keeps email marketers up at night.

The rise in the popularity of dark mode created interesting challenges for many designers and developers. But in the world of email, dark mode challenges can be extra perplexing.

We wanted to know if marketing teams are thinking about dark mode or ignoring it as they design and develop email campaigns. If dark mode email basics are being considered, what are the issues that cause the most frustration?

Pathwire partnered with Ascend2 on an industry survey we call Email After Dark. Check out some highlights from the results in the infographic below.

Key takeaways from Email After Dark

Shedding light on the dark mode survey

Let’s take a closer look at what the Email After Dark survey reveals about the state of dark mode and email marketing. We spoke with Pathwire’s Senior Email Developer, Megan Boshuyzen, and Senior Graphic Designer, Francois Sahli, to get their insights and advice.

Dark mode on your mind?

Just 11% of marketers in our survey say they’re always considering dark mode, but that doesn’t paint an accurate picture of dark mode adoption. We also found that only 28% of respondents said they have no plans to address dark mode at all.

That means 72% of the marketers we surveyed have dark mode emails on their radar. A total of 44% are designing emails specifically for dark mode at least some of the time. That could mean they’re creating/using dark-mode-compatible templates. It could also mean they’re coding separate emails for those who prefer light or dark mode.

“What this survey shows is that dark mode is more than just a trend,” says developer Megan Boshuyzen. “Dark mode emails aren’t going anywhere.”

Google Trends data back this up. Check out the graph showing interest in the term dark mode email over the last five years.

The Email After Dark survey also found that small businesses were less likely to consider dark mode than marketers at larger organizations.

The typical small business marketer has multiple roles and responsibilities, which makes it difficult to take on the extra work dark mode email design entails. Plus, small businesses are less likely to have a dedicated email developer around to help out.

The best advice for these marketers is to use email templates that will look good in both light mode and dark mode user experiences.

Top dark mode email challenges

Regardless of company size, or whether marketers are targeting a B2C or B2B audience, some common dark mode challenges emerged in our survey results.

Optimizing logos and images for dark mode

One issue that made the top three regardless of company size or audience is the challenge of getting logos and images to display properly in dark mode.

The typical advice for logos and graphics is to use PNGs with transparent backgrounds. This helps you avoid an unsightly logo or icon surrounded by a white box in dark mode. But, that fix may also create a problem. If parts of your logo are black, they may disappear against a darker background.

A quick fix that’s often recommended is to add a glow or drop shadow to the logo. However, graphic designers like Francois Sahli cringe at that idea, which is seen as sort of an amateur move. Plenty of brand guidelines strictly forbid adding glows and shadows to logos.

Adding glows and drop shadows is basically something you just don’t do in terms of design on a logo. It’s a bit of a touchy subject.

Francois Sahli

Sr. Graphic Designer at Pathwire

Francois and Megan suggest a few alternatives:

1. Placing the logo on a header graphic that uses a brand color and will remain the same in dark mode. You’ll need to be sure the header and logo create an acceptable mobile experience. The logo could look very small on a mobile device.
2. Using the CSS query @media (prefers-color-scheme) and apply classes to show or hide the logo you want. Be aware that the prefers-color-scheme media query is not supported in Gmail and certain versions of Outlook.
3. Placing the logo on a gradient that gradually blends into the background of the email. Keep in mind, using a gradient with a logo may not work with every email design or follow your brand’s style guidelines.

Optimizing email code for dark mode

Overall, coding struggles related to dark mode emails ranked second highest among the survey’s most-cited challenges. Yet, it only made the top three for mid-market organizations. Smaller companies are less likely to optimize email code and enterprise organizations may already have dark mode figured out.

If you’re part of a marketing team that does have email developers working on campaigns, there are some ways to adjust your code to create a better subscriber experience. That mainly pertains to using the @media (prefers-color-scheme) query to deliver a different experience based on whether a subscriber’s inbox is using dark or light settings.

Unfortunately, this won’t work with some major email clients such as Gmail. As of this writing, it only works with those that use WebKit as the email rendering engine.

Megan Boshuyzen says email developers should always strive to deliver an ideal experience for subscribers. Despite the lack of wide support, using @media (prefers-color-scheme) will work for many subscribers viewing emails on Apple devices. So, taking the time to add the code may be worth the effort.

There are also some specific dark mode coding fixes for Gmail and Outlook that help optimize the inbox experience for other subscribers. However, Francois and Megan remind us that at some point you’ve got to move on and hit send.

There’s no such thing as pixel perfection in email. The goal has to be to provide the best experience possible for subscribers.

Megan Boshuyzen

Sr. Email Developer at Pathwire

Francois points out that it’s highly unlikely your subscribers will be comparing your email design in different inboxes. Go for consistency if you can, but don’t sweat the small stuff.

“If there are small discrepancies in dark mode, it’s not the end of the world,” says Francois. “Unless it’s a very important element of the email, it may not be worth trying so hard.”

Keeping email designs on brand

Concerns over the brand experience in dark mode emails also rose to the top of the list of challenges in the survey. A third of all respondents called it a problem, and that percentage was about the same across company sizes.

Because some email clients will invert an email’s colors, it may feel like the dark mode brand experience is out of your control.  That could be why our survey found 31% of marketers call automatic color inversion one of the biggest dark mode challenges.

Certain email clients reverse all the colors in an email while others only partially invert colors, (typically the background and text). In the case of full inversion, you can get some funky colors combinations that may be totally off-brand

Francois’ advice for email marketers is to keep designs as simple as possible. That way, you’ll have fewer issues with color inversion.

“If the CSS elements of an email use mostly black, white, and neutral colors, you can still add your brand colors with things like logos, illustrations, and icons,” Francois explains. “These wouldn’t be inverted, so you’d stay closer to your actual branding.”

Notice how Nike uses a simple black and white design to build ideal experiences in light and dark mode emails.

Francois adds that a type of email element you should watch carefully is the CTA button. These are typically coded with a specific brand color that may not be ideal when inverted.

Because dark mode is more than a passing trend, both Megan and Francois think it would be smart to start including dark mode options in brand style guides and design systems. If you’re rethinking brand colors or building a new brand, make dark mode part of the conversation. This will benefit email designs, and it’s also important for web development as well as dark mode UI in application development.

Why test emails in dark mode?

The Email After Dark survey found that 36% of marketers are always testing emails in dark mode or previewing them before hitting send. That’s more than triple the 11% who say they always design and develop specifically for dark mode.

Among those who say they design for dark mode at least some of the time, 62% say they always test/preview their emails. Testing before you launch an email campaign is like seeing into the future. It’s the best way to catch potential issues in dark mode before it’s too late.

There are two ways to test your emails in dark mode:

1. Manually send the email to various devices and inboxes and view them in dark mode.
2. Use a state-of-the-art email testing platform to deliver reliable previews of your emails on all major clients and devices.

Manual testing can be time-consuming and unreliable. It’s usually done by finding people in the company who have a certain type of phone and can access a certain mailbox provider. Plus, you’ll also have to get those colleagues to turn dark mode settings on.

Email on Acid by Pathwire is an AI-driven email readiness platform that delivers accurate previews from all of the major email clients and more. That includes dark mode email previews that help you catch unsightly design issues and color inversions before your subscribers see them.

Dark mode challenges could make it harder for a segment of your list to interact with your emails. If they can’t read the text or see a CTA, they can’t engage. That’s why 28% of survey respondents call reduced engagement a challenge. Dark mode email testing helps you avoid that possibility.

6 quick tips for dark mode emails

Here’s a recap of the advice Megan and Francois have for email developers and designers:

1. Don’t ignore dark mode: A significant portion of your list is likely viewing emails this way. Plus, by ignoring dark mode, you could be giving the competition an edge.
2. Use dark-mode-friendly templates: This advice is best for marketers without coding experience who are using a drag-and-drop email editor.
3. Find a dark mode logo fix that works for you: That could mean compromising on adding a glow or getting creative with a different dark mode logo solution.
4. Start implementing @media (prefers-color-scheme): Doing so helps you optimize the dark mode email experience for many subscribers.
5. Keep email designs simple: You’ll avoid unfortunate color inversions that are off-brand and ugly.
6. Include dark mode styles in brand guidelines: Develop a clear plan for dark mode email challenges. Define what dark mode looks like for your brand. That could include building a library of email elements that work in dark mode.

Interest in dark mode among email marketers is going to grow. The Email After Dark survey found that 28% say they have plans to start designing and developing emails for dark mode. Don’t be one of the brands that get left in the dark. Start thinking about how you can address these challenges and start testing emails in dark mode.

Be sure to catch Megan Boshuyzen’s session on dark mode at Pathwire’s Nightmare at Email Camp.

Want to stay on top of all the email marketing trends? Sign up for our newsletter and get our content in your inbox every other week.

The post Dark Mode for Email Survey: What Do Marketers Think? appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

Some things keep coming back faster than you expect them to. As soon as the summer heat starts to fade, stores magically become filled with Halloween and holiday decorations…and suddenly, you’re thinking to yourself, “oh, right, it’s that time of the year again…”. Yep, now’s the time to take your brushes and tools out to craft your Black Friday and Cyber Monday email marketing campaigns.

In our recent survey, more than three-quarters (77%) of email marketers agreed that investing in Black Friday email promotions provides a significant return. So raise up, email marketers: it’s time to design the perfect Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails. Just follow our steps and check out all the amazing Black Friday email examples we’ve picked out for you, and you’ll create a masterpiece.

Plan ahead by listening to your customers

This year, Black Friday weekend will be even more important for retailers and ecommerce stores, as we all prepare our holiday shopping for what will likely be an atypical holiday season.

60% of marketers will send multiple emails between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That means customers receive a huge volume of offers during these hectic days, so it’s important that you set clear goals and build a winning strategy that targets your core audience. Have a look at the data and analyze what worked and didn’t work during last year’s holiday season.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What did you do last year that really worked or even didn’t work so well?
• What did your competitors do?
• Do you want to drive your customers to your store or focus on online sales?
• Which items were most popular in the past few weeks?
• How can you segment your audience to send them more of the right kind of content?

One tip that’s guaranteed to work for all retailers: provide information to your customers in advance. Shoppers are tech-savvy and know how to prepare their sales season way ahead of time to get the best deals in their Black Friday shopping – 81% of consumers now do online research before purchasing. Send them pre-sale emails with a little teaser of what’s to come and give them everything  they need to make their online shopping decision at least a week before.

Use email content to your advantage

Don’t get us wrong – we just told you to make sure your emails look pretty, but moving forward, you also need to make sure design and content go hand in hand. In the past few years, we’ve seen a minimalist trend out there with a lot of beautiful Black Friday emails that don’t tell you much about the sale because…they’re just pretty.

Be careful with being too mysterious

Unless you’re sure everyone knows who you are and what you offer perfectly well, be careful with sending emails that only focus on the discount.

Sure, a sleek design and a good CTA can go a long way, and some Black Friday emails are real works of art. But think again – this could work well when you launch a brand new mysterious collection or tease your loyal customers. But here, we’re talking about the most competitive time of the year in the inbox. Plus, there’s little surprise or suspense to what the Black Friday promotion is made of.

Create a sense of urgency in your Black Friday email campaigns

Now, this can seem like Marketing 101, but it’s a time-tested marketing psychology tactic. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are all about time-sensitive deals, and fear of missing out (FOMO) kicks in when your customers believe they might miss out. The best Black Friday emails use email copy and images that drive a sense of last-minute urgency to improve open and click-through rates.

Focus your wording on deadlines and scarcity, like:

• “Time is running out” or “Get it before it’s gone”
• “Sale ends tomorrow” or “Sale almost over”
• “Last chance” or “While supplies last”
• “Only 5 days left” or “Only 3 spots left”

And don’t forget to use all the magic marketing words that we’ve found to be successful:

• “Great deal”, “Special offers”, “Prime offers”, “Limited-time”
• “Off everything”, “Reduction”, “Only”, “Savings”

However, be careful not to use Black Friday email subject lines that don’t deliver what you promised. They might get higher open rates, but if your subscribers think you’re being purposely misleading, they might decide to unsubscribe or send your email directly to their spam folder.

Showcase your products to attract attention

If your contacts don’t immediately get what’s on sale, it’s double or nothing: either they’ll be intrigued and click to see more, or they’ll be annoyed to search for themselves what you’re offering and move on. Yes, your contacts can be lazy, never underestimate that.

However, with 80% of consumers seeking personalization from retailers, you can capitalize on that laziness with tailored product recommendations. Why make your audience trawl through your website when you can give them exactly what they want, delivered straight to their inbox?

Send more than one email

Don’t get missed or ignored during the hustle and bustle of the holiday shopping season. 84% of the most successful email marketers – those that see high ROI during the holiday season –  are sending at least two emails per week leading up to Black Friday. 

But before you pepper your subscribers inbox with shiny deals and reminders, stop and take an informed, strategic approach. Introducing untested tactics at this crucial time of year for sales could backfire. Take the time to first A/B test the waters using a small portion of your subscriber base. 

Respect your brand identity in your Black Friday email designs

We’ve said it before: having a dedicated email voice helps you stand out in the inbox. It’s even more crucial during a noisy period like Black Friday and Cyber Monday when all the brands use similar wording and content with percentages of discounts and similar designs.

Focus on your own brand identity to make your customers feel at home. Remind your customers of how they feel when they connect with your brand. Whether your specific touch is humor or emotion, use your DNA to write and illustrate your emails.

• Brainstorm with your marketing team on a specific product or idea to promote it in an original way – as Chubbies did with their “Turkey pants” promo email.
• Ask your copywriting magicians to create marketing messages that reflect your brand and use marketing psychology tricks.
• Use graphics, illustrations, and colors that reflect your brand identity.
• Don’t feel like you have to go black: you can also make color the new black and use a dark touch only here and there.

There’s no one recipe to create the perfect Black Friday email. The main idea is to make sure that your customers recognize you and read it in the crowd of other Black Friday emails. So we recommend that your emails clearly display your brand identity (logo, style, voice, type of subject lines, images…) to capture your reader’s attention.

Make your Black Friday email stand out in the inbox

We’ve already said this: your contacts’ inboxes will be completely full on Black Friday, and most of your subscribers will only dedicate a few seconds to each email they’ve received. But you don’t want this to happen to your campaign, and you’re prepared to do whatever it takes to prevent it. Great.

To stand out in the inbox and ensure that your contacts pay attention to (and appreciate) your offers, sometimes you have to go all in and give your campaign an innovative touch. Want some design ideas that can capture your reader’s attention? You can play with these elements to create an unforgettable email:

• GIFs
• Countdown timers
• Videos
• Interactive carousels and accordions
• Shopping within the email

You’re probably going to spread your efforts across several marketing channels: ads, website, online store, social media, you name it. But since email is a consent-based channel and your subscribers have actually chosen to be part of your email list, why not use your Black Friday email marketing campaign to reward your email list for being such a faithful audience?

• Create deals that are exclusive to your email database – don’t forget to mention this in the email subject line for a better open rate!
• Offer a giveaway in addition to the Black Friday deals.
• Encourage referrals in the body of the email to grow your contact lists.

Create matching Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns

Are you preparing a Black Friday sale and a Cyber Monday sale? Make sure that your contacts recognize you by pairing up your Black Friday and your Cyber Monday emails with similar designs and slightly different messages, like Jonathan Adler.

4 all-time-best Black Friday email examples

Designing a great Black Friday email is not easy. Check out some of our favorite examples.

Less is more

A picture says a thousand words, so J Crew has let their image do most of the talking. Animals are always hard to say no to, and this, combined with clever wordplay makes for a click-worthy message.

The red theme is festive as well as energizing, ideal for triggering a post-holiday spending spree.

Laugh your customer into the checkout

Using humor is a great way to stand out in the Black Friday inbox, whatever your industry. Make like Chubbies and sell your brand’s personality as well as products. Maybe you’ve got a couple of funny subject line ideas and want to find out which to go with. Split test to find out which line splits your subscribers’ sides.

Show them what you’ve got

Be sure to include a few product examples that entice people to use your amazing discounts right away. Pair up products and discount codes, like Urban Outfitters’ Black Friday emails do, to drive more click-throughs.

A little less choice, a little more action

Sometimes, however, too much choice can overwhelm shoppers and actually be bad for business.

Nasty Gal offers a promotion only on black items – narrowing the selection and embracing the Black Friday theme. The succinct, urgent headline gets the subscriber pumped up and primed for impulse-buying. Not the first time a blackout and marketing campaign has worked perfectly together.

Choose the right Black Friday email template

Yes, we’re being Captain Obvious here. But no matter how attractive your prices are, you can’t afford to send out an average looking sale campaign with multiple call-to-actions (CTAs), a festival of different fonts, and kaleidoscopical colors. Last Black Friday, we still saw a lot of these.

A few rules to follow to avoid a design disaster:

1. Stick to a simple structure with columns (easier to get your email responsive).
2. Keep a 60/40 ratio fair mix of images and text (about 60/40).
3. Align fonts and size of your messages.
4. Decide which CTA buttons to use and make sure they are clearly displayed in a contrasting color.
5. Follow email accessibility best practices to ensure your email is accessible to all.
6. Have a look at our Ultimate Guide to Holiday Emailing to dig further.

Download our beautiful Black Friday email template

Does all of this sound like Mission Impossible to you? Don’t panic: you don’t need to hire the latest fancy designer in town for that.

Download our free Black Friday email template here and adapt it now using Mailjet’s Email Editor.

Try our beautiful Black Friday & Cyber Monday email templates 

Does all of this sound like Mission Impossible to you? Don’t panic: you don’t need to hire the latest fancy designer in town for that.

Our popular Black Friday & Cyber Monday email templates are now available directly within the Mailjet app. Simply open the Mailjet app, head over to “Templates”, and click “Using a template from gallery”. From here, you can select our new Black Friday or Cyber Monday template and begin designing your campaign.

It’s your turn: Create a stunning Black Friday email

And voilà: now that you’ve got all our master tricks, you’re all set to be the next Picasso of email marketing this season.

Remember these Black Friday tips:

1. Spend some time analyzing your customers’ behavior before Black Friday.
2. Choose a responsive email template and throw in the right number of CTAs (less is more).
3. Wisely select your email content to suggest urgency and scarcity: Black Friday is just one day indeed!
4. Add a few carefully-selected images from your brand library that highlight your top products.
5. Respect your brand image so your clients know it’s you.
6. Add interactive content and GIFs to stand out in the inbox.
7. Create an exclusive email deal for your customers.

With Mailjet’s drag-and-drop email editor you can easily build a stunning email from an existing gallery of templates, so you don’t need to stress about getting it right. We’ve got a great template gallery for you to choose from.

And if you’re not sure where to start or don’t have time to adapt one of our traditional templates, download our free Black Friday email template here. Designing a great Black Friday email this year couldn’t be easier.

Want to learn more about holiday email strategy? Check out Mailjet’s Ultimate Guide to Holiday Email Marketing.

***

This blog post is an updated version of the post “Crafting the Perfect Black Friday Email Campaign“, published on the Mailjet blog on November 3rd, 2016 by Mylène Blin.

The post Black Friday Email: Tips, Examples & Free Templates [2021] appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

Digital marketing is such a broad subject that university students spend up to five years studying it. The internet can seem overwhelming for a small business when you consider the scope of possibility for your marketing strategy. 

But that’s no cue to pull back. If the last decade has proven anything, it’s that digital marketing is the best (and most cost-effective) way to reach your audience. And over the next five years, global digital marketing spending is set to double. 

Don’t worry – we’ve condensed everything we know into this handy 101 guide. Grab a coffee and pull out your notebook as we dive into the evolving space of digital marketing.

What is digital marketing? 

Digital marketing refers to any form of marketing that appears on the internet or electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, or tablets. This includes social media promotions, search-engine-optimized (SEO) content, email newsletters, and any other form of marketing that happens online.

Since digital marketing only includes new and evolving methods of marketing, television ads are not considered a form of digital marketing. 

Consumers and businesses are both spending more time and money on digital channels, respectively. 

The average person now spends 4.2 hours a day in apps on their phone. Consequently, businesses are spending more and more each year to find customers on digital channels: Global spend is projected to reach $645 billion by 2024, nearly double that of 2019 ($335 billion). 

Why is digital marketing important? 

Digital marketing is an essential way to reach the 21st-century customer. It’s more affordable than mass forms of advertising, such as billboard and television ads, and taps into high-traffic online channels to help businesses grab user attention and acquire customers. 

Some advantages digital marketing offers over traditional marketing include: 

It’s cost-effective

The cost of running digital ads ranges from $5–$10 on Instagram and Facebook (for reaching 1K users), and the cost per click on an ad is as low as $2 for Google Ads. You can also sign up for a free account on any social media platform or launch an email newsletter at a negligible cost and engage with your target audience.  

On the other hand, the cost of broadcasting TV ads is $150K–$350K for a 30-sec spot on national TV, while radio ads can cost $200–$6K per week. The cost of producing TV ads can also run from $20K to $1M, depending on the length of the ad. 

The cost of producing digital ads and digital marketing content is also much lower, especially if you use free tools like Canva (image editing software) and YouTube.  

It allows for increased audience targeting 

Digital marketing allows you to target marketing to the exact audience who may likely purchase your product. Digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google collect data such as age, occupation, hobbies, location, and interests, from users’ browsing habits and online profiles. You can use this data to make your marketing efforts more precise and targeted. For example, if your womenswear brand is geared toward tech-savvy 25- to 30-year-old professionals, you can choose to show your digital content to those women only.  

The ways to target traditional marketing are limited. At best, you can match ads to specific types of media. For example, you might place ads for a womenswear brand in a women’s magazine, but you cannot target traditional marketing by age group, hobbies, or profession.  

It helps you quickly test and compare marketing strategies 

Digital marketing is cheaper to produce and distribute, and it allows you to test various content ideas, channels, timings of posting, and creative design. It’s common for digital marketers to A/B test Facebook campaigns, Google ads, and Twitter strategies. They release two versions of the same marketing campaign on the same channel, changing a few elements like copy, button colors, or call to action to see which version performs better. 

Testing helps digital marketers identify and double down on marketing messages and channels that work best for their business.

On the other hand, traditional media is costly to produce and broadcast to viewers, and so it’s unviable to test multiple approaches or ideas. You have only one shot at getting it right, and a lackluster TV or print ad usually means a lot of wasted resources. 

Its results are easy to track

Digital marketing allows you to track each click, view, or share you receive on digital content. This helps you identify the number of new users a digital campaign helped you reach. Further, you can also track how many users purchase a product after clicking on an ad or the number of email subscribers you receive after publishing a new blog post. 

Better results tracking helps you spend your digital marketing budget more efficiently. 

Mass media like TV or radio may give you ballpark figures of the number of viewers or listeners at a given time, but you can’t track the number of people who actually watched a TV ad or the number of passersby that glanced at a billboard. Since you can’t track the number of views or engagement with traditional marketing, it’s difficult to gauge brand awareness and the number of sales a piece of marketing leads to.  

What are the different types of digital marketing? 

SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing might be the first to come to mind when you hear the term digital marketing, but the field includes many more diverse channels. 

Below, we’ll describe six of the most popular forms of digital marketing. 

SEO-focused website or blog 

SEO means search engine optimization. An SEO-focused website or blog optimizes content using the right keywords, so search engines such as Google or Bing show the website or blog as a top result when users search for a specific keyword. 

To optimize websites for SEO, marketers first identify keywords their target audience actively searches for using keyword tools like Ahrefs or Moz. Then, marketers create content around those keywords to help answer possible questions related to that keyword. For example, a running gear retailer might conduct research and find that many people search for “How to choose a running shoe,” and create a comprehensive, search-optimized guide. If the post is effective, it will bring runners to the retailer’s site, provide them value, and hopefully lead to an Instagram follow, email-list signup, or even a sale.

SEO-focused content could include blog posts, sales pages, landing pages, or product pages. Keywords are added to a web page’s URL, headers, and subheaders to optimize the page for search engines, or they tell search engines that the page is a relevant search result for a given keyword.  

Apart from researching and using specific keywords in content, a great SEO strategy also includes improving site speed, getting other websites to link to your content, and ensuring your content looks good on mobile devices. Each of these factors helps your website rank better in search results, too. 

Optimizing web pages for SEO as described above is also known as organic or unpaid SEO. You could also use paid SEO to show your page as a top result for specific keywords on search engines. You select keywords your business wants to rank for and pay search engines to show your web page or blog post as a top result for that keyword. Paid SEO is also known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Here’s a good resource that explains the difference between SEO and PPC in more detail. 

SEO contributes to a major share of paid and organic website traffic, making it a great way for new businesses to attract potential customers to their website or product. 

But SEO is not for businesses that expect immediate results. It takes around 4–12 months to drive results from SEO, that is, to start ranking in search results and drive traffic to a website or blog. 

Social media marketing 

Social media marketing (SMM) refers to any form of marketing that appears on a social media platform such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Quora, and niche social networks such as Goodreads. Like SEO, SMM can be organic or paid, too. 

Social media marketers use social media posts and other forms of social media content like stories, hashtags, videos, and images to engage their existing audience, grow brand awareness, and promote products and services. 

An Instagram page for a business, such as this one by Pura Vida Bracelets, counts as social media marketing. Its Instagram page helps Pura Vida relay its contact information to customers, share support for causes that matter to it, and showcase new products to its customers. 

One of the biggest perks of social media marketing is it gives you access to engaged audiences of all ages. A majority of Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram users say they visit the platforms daily, with many users checking these platforms several times a day. While social media usage is highest among 18- and 19-year-olds, it’s also significant among those aged 30–65+. 

On the flip side, it’s difficult to rise above the noise on social media since many businesses already have a social presence. A 2016 blog post stated that more than 3 million businesses advertise on Facebook, while Instagram had 25 million business accounts per a 2017 report. These numbers have likely increased over the years. 

Email marketing 

Email marketing refers to the use of different types of emails such as newsletters, courses, and product offers to engage audiences and promote products. Email is a particularly valuable channel for digital marketing because most people check their email at least twice or multiple times a day. 

Email marketing helps you engage potential customers through courses or weekly newsletters, onboard customers to a product or service with a series of emails, and share important announcements and product updates with customers. 

Emails are often also used to nudge customers to use a product or service through promotional offers, discounts, and updates on features that customers requested. Email marketing also offers the best return on investment (ROI) according to this 2019 report by DMA: “The ROI of email marketing is £42.24 for every pound spent.” 

Take a look at how Strava uses email marketing to intimate customers about new features and improvements it has worked on – users who don’t use the app on a regular basis may be interested in checking out new features, thanks to this email. 

While email is a good way to connect with new and old customers on a regular basis, email deliverability can be a bottleneck when sending emails in bulk. Unless readers add your email to their list of contacts, your email might land in Spam never be opened by readers. 

Content marketing 

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing content with the purpose of educating and informing business prospects about a product and eventually converting them to buyers. 

Content marketing and SEO may look similar at first, but there’s a key difference: SEO is a technical process that focuses solely on optimizing online content for higher rankings on search engines, while content marketing is a broader concept that involves the use of any form of content on any digital channel, not just search engines, to drive traffic to a website, build a list of leads, drive sales for a product or service, and educate customers. SEO is one way to get content marketing materials in front of a target audience, but it’s not the only one. 

Content marketing includes creating varied types of content like blog posts, videos, podcasts, courses, white papers, and e-books. This content is then distributed through different digital channels like SEO, email, and social media. While content marketing is most popular among B2B (business-to-business) companies, it’s equally effective for B2C (business-to-consumer) companies. 

The most common example of content marketing is a company blog, but podcasts such as Mailgun’s “Email’s Not Dead” and video series such as 360Learning’s “Onboarding Joei” are also good examples of creative, engaging content marketing.

Content marketing helps you nurture prospective customers into buyers. In 2019, 96% of marketing decision-makers said content marketing proved effective for their brand. These respondents measured the effectiveness of content marketing as an increase in website visitors, subscriber growth, and increased sales. 

Similar to SEO, content marketing also requires a time commitment and consistency to show results such as traffic and sales. As one study shows, blogs with more than 1 million views are at least a decade or more than nine years old and have been consistently publishing for a long time. 

Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is the process of using third-party sellers (sellers who don’t work at your company) to drive traffic and sales for a website or product. Third-party sellers are also called affiliates in affiliate marketing. 

Businesses set up affiliate marketing programs to increase sales of their services or products. Affiliates sign up for affiliate marketing programs and promote affiliate products or services by using a unique affiliate link. When customers view or buy a product by clicking on an affiliate’s link, the affiliate earns a commission. 

Amazon Associates, Amazon’s affiliate program, is a popular example of affiliate marketing, where affiliates earn money for selling any of Amazon’s exhaustive list of products.  

Affiliate marketing is a popular way of setting up a small sales army for your brand. 81% of US consumers report purchasing through links and images shared by influencers, which makes affiliate marketing a lucrative option for both brands and affiliates. 

However, affiliate programs are also prone to fraud, with affiliates using spamming, illegal transactions, and fake clicks to drive up purchases and earn higher commissions. 

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising generally refers to PPC advertising on Google, Facebook, and other social media platforms. Additionally, paid advertising includes online partnerships where companies pay publishers to promote or review their product or service in a blog post or video. 

Here’s a PPC ad on Google for the term “cloud storage”: 

Paid advertising also includes native ads, which are paid content that blends with the publication it appears in by using the publication’s editorial style, design, and tone. 

Here’s an example of a native ad by publishing giant HarperCollins in BuzzFeed. It doesn’t directly promote HarperCollins or look like an ad at all, but it casually mentions the brand at the end of the piece. On the other hand, the blue box on the right side is clearly an ad for Coordinate software. 

Paid advertising allows you to reach target audiences faster than organic marketing. A paid ad on Google only takes 24 hours to display to audiences when they search for your chosen terms, while you might spend months trying to rank for a similar keyword through SEO. 

However, the downside of advertising is that people tend to tune out ads, so consumers will likely skim over your paid ad when browsing the web.  

How to create an effective digital marketing strategy in 6 steps 

A digital marketing strategy is an action plan that outlines your buyer’s needs, your digital marketing goals, and the channels and tactics that help you meet your goals. The strategy also details who will be responsible for managing digital marketing for your business, how you’ll create engaging digital content, and how you’ll track results from digital marketing. 

Here are six steps to creating an effective digital marketing strategy – one that makes the best use of digital marketing channels and meets your business goals. 

1. Conduct customer research 

You might have a basic idea about who your customers are, but you’ll need a deeper understanding of your customers’ preferences, habits, and challenges to choose the right digital channels and create relevant digital content. 

The goal of customer research is to find out: 

• Who your customers are (age, gender, location, profession, hobbies, social causes they care about). This helps you craft engaging and relevant marketing messages. 
• Where your customers like to hang out (email, social media, blogs, podcasts). This ensures you choose the right digital channels to reach your target audience. 
• What are customer pain points your product helps solve (low productivity, hunger, boredom). This helps you write calls-to-action that lead to sales. 

If you’re marketing to businesses (also called B2B marketing), you’ll want to focus on not just the business you’re selling to, but also the specific employee within the business you’re selling to. The experience level of your product’s users, their day-to-day job, pain points, work tools, and online hangouts are all important for B2B marketing. For instance, if you’re selling to marketers, you want to know what kind of marketers (content marketers, social media marketers, SEO specialists), their experience level, challenges, and where they spend most of their online hours. 

Online surveys are a good way to collect information about your target audience. Create an online survey using a tool such as SurveyMonkey and share it with existing customers through email or social media to get an understanding of who they are. Offer an incentive such as a gift card or free products to get customers to complete your survey. If possible, get on a call with a few customers to get a closer look into what their day-to-day looks like, what their challenges are, and the digital channels they frequent. Here’s a detailed guide on conducting customer research the right way. 

Your website is also a goldmine of information about your audience’s age, interests, location, and behavior (how they found your website, which pages they frequent most, and which pages they leave from). The widely used Google Analytics platform lets you track existing website visitor data for free, which can inform how you proceed.  

2. Choose digital marketing channels your unique audience frequents 

In theory, investing in a wide variety of digital channels could net at least some positive effects for your business – traffic, sales, subscribers. In practice, you could burn through your entire marketing budget trying to master several digital channels without getting substantial returns on investment. 

Len Markidan, CMO at Podia, recommends choosing digital marketing channels that lie at the intersection of where your customers hang out in the digital world and the digital channels you’re most familiar with. According to Markidan, this is a low-risk way to kickstart your digital marketing efforts.  

The customer research you conduct early on should give you a list of digital marketing channels to pursue: social media websites, blogs, video platforms, digital publications, podcasts, and more. 

Instead of going after each digital customer hotspot at the same time, play to your strengths. Choose one or two digital marketing channels you have at least some experience with or are familiar with. For instance: 

• If you frequently spend time on social media, you probably know what will stand out in a crowded Twitter feed.
• If you regularly read long-form content, you understand the importance of thorough, well-researched blog posts.
• If you have journalism experience, you know what makes an interesting pitch for online publications.
• If you’re familiar with journalism, you know what makes compelling news stories for digital publications. 

Once you’re successful with one or two digital marketing channels, you’ll find it easier to build momentum on other channels as some of your target audience will already be familiar with your brand. For instance, if you run a popular newsletter, you’ll find it easier to build a following on social media as your newsletter subscribers will be one of your first few social media cheerleaders. 

3. Set clear digital marketing goals 

A digital marketing goal is an objective you wish to achieve from your digital marketing efforts. Digital marketing goals provide clarity and direction to you and your team, if you have one. Unsurprisingly, marketers that set digital marketing goals are 376% more likely to report success with digital marketing than those who don’t. 

Common digital marketing goals include raising brand awareness, generating leads, converting prospects into customers, and educating customers about how your product works. 

Your larger business goals are a great starting point for your digital marketing goals. For instance, let’s say you’re a startup, and one of your biggest business priorities is to generate awareness about your brand. Marketing goals that could help you achieve this objective include growing your social media following, getting more blog visitors, or getting more shares for your digital content. 

Now that you have a list of potential marketing goals, use the SMART framework to make marketing goals more actionable for your team. Here’s what it stands for: 

For your marketing goals to be SMART, your goals should list specific timelines and results to be measurable, be comparable to common benchmarks in your industry so they’re both realistic and aspirational, and make sense for your business at a given point in time. 

Here’s a template from CoSchedule for setting SMART goals: By {insert day, month, year}, the {insert your organization’s name} marketing team will reach {insert number} {insert metric} every {insert time frame}. 

Following the template above, here’s what a SMART marketing goal for a company in an industry that averages 15K blog views per month might look like: 

“By July 2020, the ABC marketing blog will reach 10K blog views per month.” 

The goal above provides a specific timeline for the marketing team while also listing an achievable result for them to work towards.  

4. Set up a digital marketing team 

If you have the time and budget, set up a dedicated digital marketing team for your business. Most digital channels take at least a few months of consistent effort to show positive results and a team helps you achieve consistency. 

A survey of over 1.5K marketers across different countries found most content marketing teams consist of three people or fewer. You don’t need a large digital marketing team to get results, but you do need people with the right set of skills. 

Another survey found three most important skills for content marketers (or digital marketers) are social media, SEO, and building a content strategy. Social media skills mean familiarity with different social media channels and an understanding of audiences across different social media platforms, while SEO skills refer to technical abilities to optimize pages for search engines and experience with writing SEO-focused content. Digital marketers should also be good at writing, research, storytelling, analyzing data, communication, and empathizing with customers. 

If you’re building a digital marketing team from the ground up, Toggl Hire, an employment screening tool, lists some basic steps to follow: 

• Conduct a skills test to gauge their proficiency.
• Find and read their past work (blogs, social media, email) on the web.
• Check out their social media activity and ability.
• Ask for references and testimonials.
• Interview them to see if they’re a good fit, skills-wise and culturally.

Kevan Lee, VP of Marketing at Polly, also has a handy set of interview questions to ask marketers and other professionals when growing your team.  

5. Create engaging digital marketing content 

Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon rightly said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” With an overwhelming amount of content published each day – over 3.5M blog posts on WordPress and 300M photos uploaded to Facebook each day, for example – your content needs to be engaging if you want your target audience to pay attention. 

Engaging content means different things for different digital platforms. On social media, high engagement refers to more likes, shares, and clicks on links, while for emails, engagement means high open rates and click-throughs on links. For blogs, high engagement refers to a high reading time for each post and more time spent on a website. Photos and videos drive the most engagement on social media, while tutorials or content that teaches audiences something specific drives most engagement for blogs. 

In general, to boost engagement for content of all types: 

• Cater to audience preferences: From customer research, you know what your audience’s preferences are – their favorite types of content, hobbies, interests. Use that knowledge to dictate the content you produce, so your audience finds it engaging.
• Use visuals: Visual content like images, videos, and GIFs is known to increase engagement on social media and break up walls of text in lengthy blog posts. 
• Organize longer content for skimmability: Readers scan online content instead of reading word for word. Break up large chunks of text into short paragraphs, organize your content with headers and sub-headers, and use navigation links to help readers skip to different sections of a post. 
• Ride on popular content types: Creating popular content types across different digital channels increases your chances of driving engagement. Popular content types for blog posts include tutorials, listicles, and infographics, while on social media, contests, polls, animated GIFs, and Ask Me Anything sessions are popular. For email marketing, popular content formats include text-based newsletters, videos in emails, and link round-ups. 

Most of all, keep a handle on audience feedback for every digital post you produce. Digital content you’ve labored on for weeks may receive a lukewarm response from your audience, while a random tweet in the middle of the day may suddenly blow up on social media. Watch out for trends and outlier content, and mold your digital content accordingly.  

6. Track data for each digital marketing channel 

Be sure to track data such as views, likes, clicks, and shares for each blog post, social media post, and email. This way, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not and tweak your strategy accordingly. 

Most digital marketing channels provide you with some form of analytics data that indicates whether audiences find your digital content engaging and if it leads to actions such as clicks to your website, purchases, subscriptions to your blog, and downloads of your digital content.  

The type of data you can track for different digital channels include: 

• Website analytics: Depending on the platform you publish your website on, you can track daily views per page, how long readers spend on a page, overall traffic per page, and the number of readers that exit from a given page. Platforms like Google Analytics also show you which digital channels send traffic to your website, so you can see which of your promotional strategies are working. 
• Social media analytics: Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn show you views, likes, shares, and click-throughs on links for each of your posts. 
• Email analytics: Most email providers allow you to see email statistics such as open rates for your email, click-through rates for links in emails, the number of emails successfully delivered, and number of unsubscribes. 
• Ad conversions: Ad publishers such as Google tell you how often your ads appear in search results, the number of people that click on your ad, and which of your as lead to conversions such as a purchase or subscription. 

You can also use advanced analytics tools such as MixPanel, Heap Analytics, and Hotjar to collect more data on the actions users take on your website. User actions like clicks and scrolling tell you if your website content offers users what they need and if you need to tweak your website content to improve conversions. 

Best digital marketing channels for small businesses 

Some digital marketing channels are more effective for small businesses than others, either because they’re more popular with customers, or they offer a greater return on investment than others. 

Here are the three best digital marketing channels for small businesses:  

Digital marketing channel #1: Content marketing 

Content marketing is effective because it provides evergreen value. Last year’s blog post, for example, can continue generating leads so long as new audiences are able to find it. 

Three out of four B2C marketers characterize their organization as extremely, very, or moderately successful with content marketing. In another report, 60% of marketers said content marketing is very important to their marketing efforts, specifically because it helps them generate sales. 

Content marketing is the best way to grow website traffic and email subscribers from scratch, even if you don’t have an established brand or deep pockets. GrooveHQ is a good example of a brand that grew on the back of content marketing. The blog started with few readers, but today it has more than 250K subscribers. The GrooveHQ blog also leads to trial sign-ups, new customers, and product mentions on social media. 

Here’s a sampling of the content GrooveHQ publishes on its blog: 

To get started with content marketing, you’ll need to publish helpful, interesting content for your target audience, choose how you’ll get the content in front of your target audience, and track how well your content performs over time. SEO and email marketing are the two best ways to distribute content because traffic from SEO increases over time, while your email list is the only digital channel that you have complete control over – that is, it’s not prone to algorithm changes.  

Here are three helpful resources to learn more about content marketing: 

• How to Create or Refine a Content Marketing Strategy 
• How to Build a Content Calendar
• How to do Keyword Research for SEO

Digital marketing channel #2: Email marketing 

Email is the most reliable way to keep in touch with customers, both old and new. 

Marketers in one survey rated email newsletters as their highest performing content type for securing and nurturing leads and a close second for converting leads. According to one 2017 report, 68% of millennials said that promotional emails impacted their purchase decisions at least on a few occasions. Millennials form a large part of the digital audience you’ll be marketing to, and so it’s worth paying attention to their views on digital marketing. 

Email marketing helps you communicate with current and prospective customers on a regular basis and keep them informed about product developments, updates, and offers. For instance, Dribble, a hiring platform for designers, sends newsletters to its designer community informing them about new projects available, as well as uses transactional emails to help companies and potential hires communicate. Their emails are opened by 1.2M designers each week and help keep their community engaged. 

To begin email marketing, you’ll first need to choose an email provider that lets you send emails at scale, without your emails getting caught up in the spam folder, and also has a responsive customer service team. Mailjet by Pathwire lets you easily send emails in bulk to your current and prospective customers. 

To rack up new email subscribers for your website and blog, you’ll also need to set up email subscription forms on your website and social media pages. 

Here are three resources on email marketing to get you up and running: 

• How to Create an Email Newsletter
• How to Set up an Email Campaign
• How to Avoid Spam Traps 

Digital marketing channel #3: Social media marketing 

Your brand needs to be on social media because that’s likely where your audience is too. 

According to the GlobalWebIndex 2018 report, 54% of social browsers use social media to research products. Social browsers are internet users aged 16-64 who say they use social media to fill up spare time. Another report by Adobe shows social media is a great place to obtain new customers, as non-customers are three times more likely to visit retailers from social media than customers.

Social media is the best way to introduce your brand to potential customers, learn more about their likes and dislikes, and sometimes, even get them to purchase your product. Car sharing platform Car Next Door uses social media to “stay top of mind” with their target audience and build social proof for their product. The Car Next Door Facebook page has over 19K followers and enjoys a high level of engagement. 

Creating a social media page for a business is not much different than setting up a personal social media profile. Sign up for a business account (usually free on most social media platforms), fill in your business details, and start posting content. Don’t forget to regularly interact with customers and chime in on relevant social media conversations to boost engagement with your own content. 

To learn more about social media marketing, check out these resources: 

• Social Media Marketing Strategy Guide
• How to Organize Your Social Media Calendar
• 3 Ideas to Do Influencer Marketing The Right Way 

Digital marketing content best practices for small businesses 

Success in digital marketing comes down to the content you produce: Does it strike a chord with your audience? Do they find it compelling enough to take action? Can you keep content frequency and quality consistent? 

Here’s a quick cheat sheet for creating digital marketing content that appeals to your audience: 

1. Test everything, then finalize 

There’s so much you can do for each piece of digital content in terms of copy, calls-to-action, and design, but there’s only so much your limited budget and time constraints will allow you to do. To find the most effective version for digital marketing content, test major elements like design, copy, and images before you launch it on a large scale.  

In the digital world, testing refers to releasing two different versions of a digital campaign such as a web page, email, or ad, and comparing which version drives more engagement and preferred actions from your audience.

There are two types of digital testing methods available. A/B testing is a process where you change a single element such as copy, images, or CTA for a campaign, while split testing is a process where you change multiple elements of a piece of content and compare how the two versions perform. 

For instance, in an A/B test, you might release two versions of a sales page with different headlines and show the different versions to two random samples of audiences. You could do the same with different visuals, different lengths of copy, and so on. After the testing period, you can see which version of your sales page drove more clicks or purchases. 

2. Deliver quality content at a consistent rhythm 

Publish good content on a regular basis is key to staying top of mind for your customers. Consistency beats one-hit wonders, which are quickly replaced by the next Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook sensations. 

Develop a regular publishing cadence for each digital channel and stick to it. 

• For social media, the most common publishing cadence is 3-4 times/week.
• For emails, a common frequency is  3-5 emails per week, though it also depends on the industry, audience, and types of emails you send. 
• If you have a blog, aim to publish 1-2 articles per week. 

To maintain publishing frequency, use project management tools such as Asana, Trello, and monday.com to assign, track, and review content. Use batch production to produce digital content faster. Batch production is a technique where you group and complete similar tasks together, such as writing, editing, or image production. 

To keep content quality consistent, set editorial guidelines for different types of content such as blog posts, social media posts, and emails. Editorial guidelines highlight the tone, grammatical requirements, content depth, and other specifications for your content, so the quality remains consistent across all pieces of content. Here’s an in-depth guide on setting editorial guidelines to uphold content quality. 

3. Get creative 

Creativity makes your audience sit up and take note of your digital content, even as they’re bombarded by digital noise from all sides. Think of the last piece of digital content you saw – a quirky Instagram reel, a blog post with a different opinion, or an email with a sensational headline – it’s likely you remember it because it was creative enough to jolt you out of mindless scrolling and pay attention. 

Creativity in digital marketing can mean many things – it can be a new way to use a digital channel (posting micro-stories on Twitter), a never-seen-before digital take (posting fresh opinions on old topics), or creating new content formats (sending complete blog posts in an email or doing live interviews with experts). 

Creativity isn’t a bulb you can switch on or off at a whim, but there are ways to consistently be creative when producing digital content: 

• Look beyond your industry for inspiration. If you sell furniture, look to related industries (construction, architecture, plumbing…), as well as unrelated industries (software, clothing, food…) for creative inspiration. Social media posts, blogs, and newsletters from other industries may help you pioneer creative content in your industry. 
• Put budget and time constraints on yourself. Set a limited budget and deadline to complete creative projects, so you can think of better and often newer digital content ideas. For instance, with a limited budget, you may be forced to think of how you can use one piece of content in different ways on different channels instead of producing fresh content each time. 
• Talk to your end-users. Chat with end-users about their likes, dislikes, inspirations, and hobbies to uncover possibilities you and your competitors haven’t considered yet. A TV show that’s popular among your audience could be the focus of your next social media campaign. 

Fuel your digital marketing engine with Mailjet

Email is one of the best ways to consistently communicate with your current and future customers. 

On digital marketing channels like social media, users are often looking for distractions from boredom, and you’re competing with flashy content from their family and friends. In the case of email, though, people are there to open and read messages, making your marketing message more likely to stick with users. 

Also, since email isn’t subject to algorithm changes, the only thing that affects your email open rates is the quality of your content. Even as your business evolves and changes, your email list remains a reliable way to communicate with your customers. 

If you want to get started with email marketing, check out Mailjet by Pathwire, an easy and accessible way to send emails at scale.

Want to learn how to ace digital marketing for your business? Subscribe to the Mailjet blog for the latest insights and studies on email marketing and other digital channels. 

The post Digital Marketing 101: How To Build Your Digital Marketing Strategy From Scratch appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

People make companies. That much is true for every business in the world and Pathwire is no different. Without our employees, there would be no path to find and…well…no wires.

Our company is built on the foundation of passionate and dedicated people. Since 2010, we’ve worked hard to forge pillars that would allow us to create a thriving environment. For that, we needed core values that would help guide our efforts: performance, authenticity, human, evolution, and ownership.

And while we always try to ensure these values are well balanced, sometimes one needs a little more love than the others. Yes, it’s easy to be constantly focused on performance, but fostering a culture of authenticity takes some more work. And that’s what makes dates like Hispanic Heritage Month so important.

Today, we want to highlight Pathwire’s amazing Hispanic community and the employees that are creating a future for all by being true to their culture, trusting their own abilities, and growing and influencing representation in the tech industry.

Taking pride in our cultura and our origins

In the United States, the ever-growing Hispanic community represents 18.5% of the total population. In San Antonio (Texas), where Pathwire is headquartered, it’s 64%. And that’s something we San Antonians are proud of – it shapes our history and our heritage. But finding our place while remaining authentic doesn’t always come easy. That’s why standing proud and loud to support our cultura is so important, both inside and outside the workplace.

My Hispanic heritage is an important part of my identity that I’m proud to celebrate. It means understanding where I came from and the impact those before me have had on the world.

Jorge Miramontes

Product Manager at Pathwire

To me, my Hispanic Heritage means understanding the plight of the Latinx people in the US and South America today, and the Indigenous peoples that came before them.

Dante Lawrence

App Administrator at Pathwire

Believing in ourselves regardless of our backgrounds

Being a Hispanic in tech is tough from the beginning. We’re often the first generation to enter a predominantly Caucasian industry, and many of us do so with limited resources.

In the US, 33.5% of the white population, 25 and over, have a bachelor’s degree. For Latinos, the percentage is just 16.4%. Some of us start in our jobs while we’re still working on our degrees. Others simply can’t afford one. We’re also often the first in our families to work a modern-day, Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 job – a lot of our families just don’t come from such a background and have had to work especially hard to help us get here.

Those that came before me have worked so hard to give me a fruitful life in America and it is my honor to keep fighting for a better tomorrow.

Ashley Rodriguez

Sr. Deliverability Engineer at Pathwire

All of this has made the imposter syndrome a common struggle for us Latinos and Latinas as we immerse ourselves in the tech industry. Second-guessing our abilities and thinking “Should I even be here?” or “Am I qualified to work this job?” is not rare. But through it all, it is important to remember we’re here because we deserve to, no matter our background.

Fostering growth in the community

If you’re from a Latino community, you know how much family and community matter. There’s always a BBQ to attend, a quince to celebrate, and even a nephew’s confirmation to honor.
But being Latinx is much more than that. It’s about fostering growth and helping everyone in the community find their place. It’s about keeping it puro and continuing to inspire and give back. That essence has been transmitted from generation to generation, and going back to the root is key to keeping it alive.

My late grandmother helped inspire me to strive for happiness and to do the best that I can in everything I do and to be kind and welcoming to all – be it in helping out a friend, giving someone a place to stay, making a meal for someone, or being honest with myself. She taught me a lot and I’m glad to have had her in my life for as long as I did, as a grandmother, as a friend, and as a teacher in life.

Patrick Tilley

Product Security Engineer at Pathwire

To me, Hispanic Heritage Month means celebrating those who paved the way for you because with out them, none of anything my family has achieved would be possible.

Albert Lopez

Application Administrator at Pathwire

Putting our stamp in the tech industry

The tech industry has been known to be predominantly Caucasian. In 2014, major tech companies began to disclose the demographics of their employees and it didn’t look good. And no matter how much we advocate for diversity as a main driver for innovation change seems to be scarce and painfully slow. A few years into the survey, the Latinx representation had risen by less than a percentage point.

Disrupting this normalcy requires a commitment to expanding minority representation. If we want to challenge the status quo in the tech industry, we need more diverse voices and more opportunities for our Latinx employees to shine.

Personally, I am proud of where I have landed in my career and where I have been able to carve out opportunities to contribute to the community. In particular, getting to do a podcast in a professional capacity after having done a personal one for many years has been really great. Getting to be a voice that helps contribute in the email deliverability space is truly a pleasure.

Jonathan Torres

Technical Account Manager at Pathwire and Email’s Not Dead podcast host

A year-long celebration of our heritage

Celebrating and honoring our Hispanic heritage is not something we do one month a year. We might enjoy the spotlight between September 15 and October 15, but our love for our culture is always present. It doesn’t separate us or divide us – it lights the fire within ourselves to make our ancestors proud, make our families proud, and, most importantly, make ourselves proud.

Our team is pretty awesome. In fact, 94% of Pathfinders said that when they joined the company, they were made to feel welcome. Join us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to hear more of their #HispanicHeritageMonth stories and check out our Careers page if you’re interested in being part of the Pathwire family – we just got certified as a Great Place to Work!

***

Thomas Knierien is a Sr. Multimedia Content Specialist and DEIB Council member at Pathwire. Thomas is a proud Tejano and Vietnamese American and the self-proclaimed leader of the Pathwire Hippie Movement.

The post Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

So, you’ve decided to create an email newsletter. Hooray for you! Or maybe someone’s suggested you launch one, and you really have no idea what they’re talking about? Whether you’re an email newbie or you just want to make sure you’re doing things correctly, we’ve got you covered.

Right on cue, here’s the best email newsletter post ever.

What is an email newsletter?

Basically, an email newsletter is a type of email sent out by companies or individuals to a subscriber list. That list should include existing or potential customers that have signed up and given clear consent to receive digital marketing communications from your brand. Email newsletters are sent regularly and contain valuable content, like guides, blog posts, news, product reviews, personal recommendations, tips, announcements, and other resources.

Newsletters are an essential part of the email marketing strategy. They allow businesses to nurture their contacts by establishing themselves as key players in their industry, sharing insights, and highlighting new products that will drive traffic to the website.

Why do you need an email newsletter?

Email newsletters are one of the most popular ways to nurture existing and potential clients. Why? Well, mostly because it’s low-cost and has great ROI. Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels. The average ROI is £35 for every £1 spent with 83% of customers preferring to be approached via email.

Well-designed marketing emails sent regularly, like email newsletters, webinars, event registrations, and product sales guarantee constant website traffic. Newsletters generally form the largest part of all marketing emails sent and hold a great deal of potential.

Wondering whether setting up an email newsletter is the right step for your business? Let’s have a look at the advantages and drawbacks of sending one.

Pros of email newsletters

Creating a newsletter is not just a way to keep your customers informed about your new product or features, but has many other advantages.

Constant source of traffic

One of the main reasons for creating a newsletter is that it generates regular website traffic. Organic engagement on social media platforms like Facebook is declining dramatically. Banner advertising is rarely noticed in the era of ad blockers. Written press releases sent by email will often be ignored by journalists and online editors.

Luckily, this is not true for newsletters. Emails that reach someone’s inbox are usually seen, and the likelihood that they will be opened is high. Provided that the subject line is appealing and the sender is recognized (so make sure your readers know who you are!). If your newsletter is well designed and contains relevant content, this will enhance your chances of the reader clicking on the calls-to-action (CTA) for more information.

Cheaper than other channels

Budget is important to marketers. So anything that saves you money should be a top priority – and newsletters do.

Don’t underestimate how much money email marketing saves you compared to using other marketing tools. Paid advertisements like banner advertising, Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, and influencer marketing are considerably more expensive than email marketing.

Advanced and easy performance tracking

Measuring the performance of an email newsletter is simple. Your email statistics provide you with all the information you need to do this: open rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates, bounces, device used to open the newsletter and when, which links are clicked on, etc. These metrics, along with UTM tags to track engagement through Google Analytics, will help you accurately calculate your ROI and produce target-audience-relevant newsletter content.

Independence from third parties

When you create a newsletter, you are independent of other service providers and software. Publishers, influencers, social media platforms, and Google are much more likely to increase ad costs than an email service provider is.

Easily linked to other online marketing channels

Newsletters and other marketing tools like social media can be easily and effectively combined. And they can reach recipients anywhere, regardless of whether they are in the office on their work computer, on the sofa at home on a tablet, or on the go on their smartphone. Emails can be opened and read anywhere.

Cons of email newsletters

Where there’s yin, there is yang. Or in other words, where there is light, there is also darkness. While email newsletters provide many benefits, there are also a couple of cons to consider.

Absence of physical experience

Unlike analog advertising media like brochures, flyers, magazines, etc., there is no haptic experience with email newsletters. For instance, a desk calendar is visible all year round. Emails, on the other hand, are intangible.

Emails, therefore, have a shorter lifespan but are also less annoying to sort and organize.

Ease of deletion

Let’s be honest: emails tend to be deleted quicker and are more likely to be skimmed through than other media. There are many reasons for this: a full inbox, unappealing subject lines, irrelevant content, etc.

Although we can optimize our messages to prevent this, a 100% interaction rate can never be guaranteed. This is true not only for newsletters, but for all marketing tools.

However, if we weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of newsletters, it quickly becomes clear that the pros by far outweigh the cons.

Don’t take our word for it, though. Create an account and try it yourself! We’re sure you’ll also become a newsletter supporter in no time.

How to create an effective email newsletter

OK, so we have convinced you to give newsletters a go. Hooray! To help you make the most of your new favorite marketing channel, we’ve detailed below all you need to know to plan an effective newsletter strategy. Your contacts will wish all their emails were like yours.

Here are the steps you should follow to create an email newsletter for your business:

1. Set your goals and objectives
2. Find the right platform for your newsletter
3. Build your newsletter subscriber list
4. Segment your contacts for better targeting
5. Design beautiful email templates for your newsletter
6. Define your newsletter content

Let’s run through the nuts and bolts of good email marketing:

Set your goals and objectives

First things first. Before you even start designing your email newsletter template, you’ll need to think about why you want to implement one. Consider the following elements to ensure you’re crafting the right messages:

Identify a target audience

Defining your audience is essential to the success of your campaign. You need to understand your potential readers’ needs and wants to provide value and send newsletters that appeal to your audience.

So think about who you want to reach with your emails and try to be as specific as possible. Consider things like demographics, location, and interests. If you’re aiming at reaching a global audience, it can be hard to get precise in your definition, but segmenting your audience can help send more relevant emails.

Determine basic objectives

What do you want to achieve with your email newsletter campaign? Some companies launch newsletters to drive traffic to their website, others want to increase sales on their online shop or to invite people to upcoming events.

Setting goals gives your newsletter campaign a purpose and helps you measure the performance of your efforts. These specific objectives depend on your individual company’s goals, vision, and values.

Once you have defined your objectives, you need to determine the KPIs you want to track. If you’re not sure where to start, you might want to consider some of the most typical metrics measured for newsletters: 

• Newsletter subscriptions 
• Open rates
• Click rates 
• Spam and block rates
• Newsletter unsubscribe rates

Discover your focus topics 

Planning the topic of your newsletter is closely connected to the objectives you have defined, but coming up with content can be hard at first.

To find inspiration, analyze your competitors’ newsletters and newsletters from companies you think are successful at email marketing. This is likely to give you inspiration about new potential topics, products, events, etc. You could also carry out a survey in advance and ask your contacts to share their thoughts as you grow your newsletter list.

Here are some examples of newsletter content you could include:

• Product launches and industry news
• New or popular blog posts 
• Upcoming events and webinars
• Case studies and customer stories
• New stories around your company culture and job openings
• FAQs and other resources for customer support

Find the right platform for your newsletter

Before you start creating newsletters, you need to find a newsletter solution that allows you to create, send and analyze email campaigns.

The problem is that there are many professional newsletter solutions on the market, which can be both a curse and a blessing for senders. On the one hand, you have a wide variety of suitable email providers to choose from. On the other hand, vetting them may feel a bit overwhelming.

So, what should you look for in an email service provider? 

Email platform functionalities you need for a successful newsletter

Finding the best emailing platform for your business will depend on the needs of your company. But here are a few features that can help you make the most of your email program:

• Drag-and-drop email editor to create newsletters easily in a few minutes.
• A large and responsive newsletter template gallery.
• Email personalization and email segmentation features for creating targeted and relevant email content.
• Structured and clear contact management options that allow you to manage your email subscriber lists easily.
• A/B testing to test your campaigns.
• Detailed statistics that allow you to analyze and optimize your email newsletter.
• Optimal deliverability to ensure your newsletters reach the inbox.
• Integrations with other platforms like WordPress, ecommerce systems, etc.
• GDPR compliant and other certifications that ensure the highest levels of data security.
• Collaborate easily and in real time with your team.

Build your newsletter subscriber list

In order to be able to create and send a newsletter, you obviously need recipients (duh!). Setting up an email contact list with high interaction rates is relatively simple if you take certain factors into consideration.

Add subscription widgets to your site

To gain new newsletter subscribers, the first thing you’ll need is a responsive subscription widget with a double opt-in process. Add the subscription sign-up form to all the relevant pages of your website. Some of the most effective places to include your widget in are: the homepage, the blog, the footer, and pages with gated content, such as guides, white papers, and others.

Double opt-in ensures that no fake email address creeps into your database and damages your reputation and deliverability. If you’re not doing this, you risk being classified as a spammer both by recipients and the ISPs themselves.

Don’t buy email lists

Giving in to the temptation of buying email addresses will result in the same scenario. Purchasing email contacts from third parties is still very popular because many companies still believe that an email contact list must be as large as possible to be successful. This is by no means true; trust us. Buying contact lists is essentially a waste of money.

People included in such lists usually don’t want to hear from you at all, so this usually results in spam complaints and unsubscribes. These lists also tend to include spam traps, which can severely hurt your deliverability.

Create newsletter landing pages

Besides implementing a responsive subscription widget, special newsletter landing pages are a great way to grow contact lists. These pages enable you to use all optimization opportunities that apply to landing pages.

The potential newsletter subscriber is not distracted from other elements on the website. So, they concentrate on all the great reasons your newsletter is the best thing that has been written since Harry Potter.

Explore other channels

There are other ways of growing your email lists, such as promoting it on your social media platforms, incentivizing existing subscribers to share, or encouraging people to join at events or your physical store.

Consider what benefits prospective recipients may have if they subscribe to your newsletter. Ideally, you have already clarified these reasons in your strategy. Real added value, for example, is provided by things like: 

• Special offers and coupons
• Advanced information and booking facilities 
• Invitations to exclusive events
• Regular industry information
• Access to exclusive content like e-books
• Email mini-courses

Get consent from your contacts

But remember, regardless of how you’re getting your subscribers, you should always ask for consent before adding anyone to your email database. Remember what data protection and spam laws (like GDPR) say about consent, and ensure you’re complying with the applicable regulations.

Learn more: For more information and tips on how to build and grow an email list, you can check this complete step-by-step tutorial.

Segment your contacts for better targeting

Instead of sending the same message to all of your customers, leverage segmentation to make the most of your emails. Think about how you can use the information you have about your customers to create segments and send tailored email campaigns that really speak to a specific group within your database.

Build your segments for your email newsletter

To determine the kind of data to use to segment your list, think about what would make sense for your business. Consider if there are some obvious ways to group your customers based on different characteristics.

If you want to get even more specific about your segments, you can combine different types of data and create even more precise groups. For example, you could focus on only women that prefer shopping for shoes and that have made at least five purchases over the past six months.

Once you have different groups of customers with similar characteristics, interests, or habits, it will be easier to understand each segment and craft messages that resonate well with each one.

Craft your newsletter message

Now that you have your segments, it’s time to put them to use. As you start planning your campaign, consider how you can create a message based on these segments. Essentially, you want your campaign to match the segment you’re sending it to, so always keep your audience in mind.

By matching up the segment with a fitting message, your campaigns will be much more targeted. Taking into account the different characteristics, preferences, and needs of your customers. 

Design beautiful email templates for your newsletter

The first step to creating a newsletter is setting up an email template. You can use a newsletter template provided by your email service provider (ours are pretty cool!) and adapt it as necessary to match your brand image and your needs.

Alternatively, you can upload an HTML newsletter template you have already created or that you have bought from a third party. In this case, make sure that the selected layout is responsive so that your email campaigns will be perfectly displayed on every end device.

Ready to dive in? There are five main things to consider when designing an email:

Think about content before building your templates

The first thing to consider when putting a newsletter template together is content. Is it relevant to your audience? Is it engaging enough? Does it follow your brand guidelines? Keep your content brief and to the point, as you only have the reader’s attention for a small amount of time.

How: Use images on top of your email to capture the reader’s attention, followed by brief text and a clear call to action.

Keep your email newsletter simple

Give your newsletters a consistent design and don’t cram your email with too much information. Provide plenty of white space and keep your newsletter simple and neat. If you work with different types of newsletters, you will need to use different newsletter designs. But remember to provide consistency with the same use of colors, font and hierarchy. This ensures clarity and professionalism.

A clear structure ensures that subscribers grasp the content and core message(s) immediately. Insert your company logo in the upper section so that the readers immediately associate the newsletter with you. Add images in order to attract the readers’ attention, followed by a brief text and a clear call-to-action.

How: To have your email render on various devices, be mindful of your email size. The ideal width is between 500 – 680 px. Our article: Email Design: Trends and Best Practices, offers a comprehensive guide on email design best practices. 

Think about colors

Make sure that you’re keeping true to your brand identity and think about your audience. Using specific colors based on your demographic, you can improve your results and ultimately ROI.

How: The more you know your customers, the better you can tailor your emails. To gather information from your existing customers, try running surveys as part of a raffle or competition. You’ll find most users are willing to spend two minutes to tell you about themselves for a chance to win something they want.

Use images wisely

Images and other visual elements optically enhance the newsletter. But beware! Too many graphical elements can negatively impact your deliverability, as this is a favored tactic of spammers. ISPs know this well and often block emails containing large images. So always aim for a healthy 60:40 balance between text and graphics.

Remember to add alt tags to the images and scale them down to the size you want. Bear in mind that some email clients block images so that subscribers just see a large white area. By adding Alt tags, they’ll at least get an idea of what they should be looking at.

Don’t be pushy

If you want your users to take action through your emails, don’t be too pushy with your call-to-action buttons. Imagine your call-to-action is a sales assistant in a shop. Are you likely to trust an assistant that’s pushing you to try on shoes or buy a specific blouse? Or do you trust the assistant who’s knowledgeable, subtle, yet suggestive? The same applies here.

How: Think about the placement of your CTAs and always have your main CTA above the fold (the page you can see without scrolling). Also, make sure it has relevant text. For example, you may find emails sent to a certain demographic may prefer ‘Purchase Now’ to ‘Buy Now’. Research, test and compare your campaigns to improve your call-to-actions.

Ensure your newsletter is responsive

In an increasingly mobile world, your content and entire funnel must be optimized for mobile devices in order to get the most out of your mobile audience. Studies have found that at least 41% of emails are opened on mobile first. In other words, if you haven’t already optimized your newsletters to mobile devices, now is a good time to do it.

To get you started, we have gathered a few of the most important steps to take while optimizing your campaign for a mobile audience:

• Stick to one-column templates, so your emails don’t get too wide for mobile devices. Divide your text into smaller sections and make it easy for readers to get an overview of the contents of the email.
• Make sure your CTAs and links are easily clickable and placed intuitively in the email to increase the chance of users following them. Also, ensure your landing pages are responsive to get the most out of clicks-through.
• Avoid using images that are too large, as they can slow down the loading time of the email for recipients using mobile data to fetch your newsletter.
• Always test your newsletter on several devices and email clients. You’ll quickly see how your layout elements are displayed on the different screens and clients like Gmail and Outlook, and how clear your call-to-action is shown in the email body.

Define your newsletter content

An essential part of email design is the content featured in the newsletter. Yes, this might sound obvious, but it’s still forgotten by many that think a flashy design is enough to wow their contacts.

Tailor your newsletter message

Whether you got inspiration from other newsletters or by conducting a survey, carefully map out the messages you want to share and consider how you’ll communicate these to your audience. Define your email voice and the stories you want to tell, paying special attention to your copy.

Need some content ideas for your newsletter? Here are a few:

• Promoting the latest blog articles.
• New freebies like guides, white papers, studies, etc.
• Invitations to seminars, webinars, and other events.
• Special marketing campaigns like advent calendars, yearly calendars, etc.

Remember that the content you share in your emails should be directly linked to your goals and objectives. Newsletters are one of the few types of email that can draw attention to multiple pieces of content. But try not to promote too much at the same time, as the majority of recipients click on the first call-to-action. Place the most important information first and organize the rest following a clear hierarchy.

Get your subject line right

We’ve talked a lot about how, just as the saying goes, first impressions really do count when it comes to the subject line. Think about this: if your email is the vault and the content inside is the treasure, your subject line is the key.

Remember that the tone and language should match the style of your brand. Be bold and try out something new. Being cheeky, using questions, citing the recipient’s name, or even adding emojis, all jazz up the subject line and draw attention to your newsletter. As you are probably very reluctant to be labeled as a spammer, avoid using words that can trigger the spam alarm.

Also, don’t forget about your “From Name” and pre-header. For the “From Name”, don’t just use your company or department name, but make sure it’s easily recognizable.

The pre-header summarizes the email content and motivates the recipient to pay attention to your newsletter. So make sure it works together with your subject line to incite the readers and encourage them to open your email.

How: Know your audience, personalize, and A/B test to find the best subject lines for your users.

Don’t forget the legal bits

If you conduct email marketing activities, you must adhere to certain legal guidelines. This means that your newsletter must contain an unsubscribe link.

How to optimize your email newsletter over time

With your content ready to go, it’s time to start sending your newsletters. As we mentioned before, the easiest way to go is by using an email service that lets you integrate your contact list, create your newsletter layout, and send your emails in one platform – like Mailjet.

Understanding email metrics

Make sure to choose a service that offers tools for tracking and analyzing the newsletters you send. It’s important to see how your audience responds to the emails you’re sending them. Most newsletter services offer tracking of delivery, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes, which are essential in measuring your efforts.

Here are the main metrics explained:

• Open rate: The percentage of subscribers who opened the newsletter.
• Click rate: The percentage of recipients who clicked at least one link or call-to-action.
• Conversions and/or revenue per click: The percentage of readers who executed the desired action after clicking on the target page (purchase, download, read blog article, etc.).
• Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of users that canceled their newsletter subscription.

Once you’ve sent your first few newsletters, the opens and clicks should give you an initial idea about how your audience is reacting to your emails. This data is a great source for deciding how to optimize your future newsletters since it tells you which elements of your newsletter can be tweaked.

Make sure you know how to read email stats properly and how to identify what needs to be improved. If your open rate is low, perhaps your subject line isn’t clear enough. If only a few people click on the links in your newsletter, try to make your call-to-action (CTA) stand out more. If a lot of users are unsubscribing, take another look at your contact list or try grouping your contact list into more specific segments to get a more narrowing targeting.

Use this data to determine the exact performance of your newsletter and make any adjustments to individual elements. We recommend always implementing these adjustments using A/B testing.

Tracking results and optimizing your newsletters should be an ongoing process that you keep doing to continually improve your results. Even when you reach positive results, try aiming even higher and find things that can improve even further. For example, try experimenting with different fonts, colors, or the number of images.

Finding the best time to send your newsletter

The time at which your newsletter is sent is a crucial factor for success. If you are new to email marketing, try different times. Testing and comparing the results of newsletters sent at different times is the best way to know what works for your business.

In most cases, there are some basic rules about the best time to send emails that you can follow for best results. If you work in the B2B sector, you should send your newsletter during regular working hours. Peak times are usually between 10 and 11 AM and between 3 and 4 PM. If your business model is B2C, then you should send during the week between 6 and 9 PM and on weekends.

Of course, there are many different tools that can be helpful. Use a web analysis software like Google Analytics and analyze the exact time when customers visit your website. Send your newsletter at the same time or shortly before peak activity, as potential recipients are engaged with your topic and/or they are on their computer at that time.

You can also test to find the best schedule for your company’s newsletter. Weekly and monthly newsletters are the most popular, but that doesn’t mean you need to default to this email frequency. Find what works best for your business. For example, the recruitment or the real estate sector might go for daily emails to promote their new listings. Keep a close eye on your engagement metrics to understand what works best for your subscribers.

Want to know more about how to optimize your email newsletter over time? Check out our Email Growth Playbook, a database of 60+ tactics to help you increase the performance of your email campaigns.

Email newsletter examples to inspire you

Want to see some of these tips in action? We’ve got a whole blog post with newsletter examples for you to check out, but we’ve also selected four of our favorites for you to get inspiration and learn the basics.

Check them out below!

Product Hunt

What’s great about Product Hunt is how they use their brand identity to their benefit, using their signature red to make their CTA stand out on the white background.

Product Hunt features one key element, which is placed first and adds in-depth value for those avid readers that are always keen to scroll down. Their text-image ratio is also on-point, using their visual elements perfectly aligns with the brand identity.

Netflix

Ah, yeah, have we mentioned we love Netflix already? Netflix uses personalized content to make sure their readers keep coming back to their newsletter and find true value in it.

Also, check out their clever use of CTAs! Not everyone will be ready to indulge when Netflix’s email arrives. But by adding a combination of ‘Play’ and ‘My list’, they maximize their click rates and potential conversion.

Skyscanner

When someone signs up to the Skyscanner newsletter, they generally know what they’re looking for. Wanderlust-provoking articles with travel tips and suggestions that will help us daydream about being somewhere that’s not the office… And, oh man, do they deliver.

There’s no question about the value that Skyscanner’s content offers, which makes their newsletter a great way to nurture contacts until they are ready to convert. And when they are, they’ll find personalized deals to inspire them and encourage them to click-through.

Fitbit

At Fitbit, they have a clear goal in mind with their newsletter: to drive traffic to their blog. The content is meant to inspire readers to become more active and make the most of their device. So they highlight their content value at the top (‘Top articles picked for you’) and smartly present their articles with a responsive design that is easy to read (and click!) on mobile.

Send awesome email newsletters with Mailjet

Ah, yeah. This is where we try to convince you about how much you need Mailjet… Well, you do!

As we’ve said before, sending newsletters requires the right email partner that’ll make it easy to create, send and track your email performance, and that’s what we’re great (like, really great) at.

With Mailjet, you’ll be able to build and manage your email lists using our subscription widget Contact List Management features. Plus, you’ll get to carefully segment your database to send content that your readers really want to read.

If you haven’t already, try our drag-and-drop editor, Passport, which will help you leverage our amazing template library. Alternatively, create your designs from scratch on the interface to create stunning responsive emails that look good on all devices.

Once your email is sent out through our interface, via SMTP or with our flexible APIs, you’ll be able to effectively track and optimize performance. Use our detailed metrics, testing, and comparison tools to help you take your email to the next level.

Want to learn all that Mailjet has to offer? Check out all our features here!

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The holiday season is almost upon us, which means marketers (especially those in retail) will begin to increase their sending frequencies, and will also widen their nets to reach out to as many contacts as possible. At Mailjet, we’re expecting to see very high volumes coming from our senders and the risk to deliverability increases as a result of emails being sent to older and more inactive or disengaged contacts.

Both of these actions can lead to poor deliverability if not done with care.

Of course, this isn’t something that only Mailjet faces, as anyone in the email industry – email marketers, other email service providers, and deliverability services – can all attest to. So, in an effort to ensure the email industry is best prepared for the holiday season, we thought we’d share some tips on how we are approaching it this year.

Plan ahead for the holiday season

In short, just like preparing for your holiday parties and gift exchanges, the best piece of advice we can give to you is… plan ahead!

We understand that most retailers make the bulk of their revenue during Q4, so the stakes are high. But at ISPs like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo!, the email volume level is also incredibly high, and they can tend to take longer to mitigate deliverability issues during this period of high email activity.

While we cannot magically fix all problems, preventing a deliverability issue through responsible sending and a well-planned holiday strategy is how we can help ensure success this season.

Here are some key dates with huge sending volumes to keep in mind this holiday season:

• Nov 20 – 25: Week leading up to Black Friday, to advertise upcoming sales
• Nov 26: Black Friday (historically the biggest email day of the year)
• Nov 27: Small Business Saturday
• Nov 29: Cyber Monday
• Dec 6 – 24: Weeks leading up to Christmas, to advertise holiday sales & wish their customers a happy holiday season

At Mailjet, we often see increase in email volume of nearly 60% on Black Friday, and 17% on Cyber Monday. Considering that sending high email volumes during the holiday season is a global trend, it’s important to remember that ISPs have to handle this additional load of emails from everyone around the world.

This can lead to delays in email delivery and sometimes even temporary deferrals for good senders since the ISPs servers are overloaded with messages. Holiday sending activities are also known to lead to stricter and more aggressive ISP spam filtering (making it harder to hit the inbox), and longer turnaround times on responses from ISP Support teams when email service providers like Mailjet reach out to them to resolve deliverability issues.

The key to strong deliverability during the holidays is to plan ahead and have a well-thought-out approach.

The most common mistakes we tend to see during the holidays

Increasing sent volume “overnight”

An example of this would be going from a smaller and more targeted list of “active recipients” (those who have signed up, opened, or clicked on an email within the past 3-6 months), to contacting “everyone in their contact list” without ramping up to the larger volume slowly, over the course of several sends.

ISPs will perceive any large increases in volume from one campaign to the next as “spikes“. These are viewed very suspiciously by the ISPs, since they mimic spammer behavior, and can lead to spam folder placement and blocks.

To play it safe, any increase in volume from one day to the next should not be more than roughly 25% larger than the maximum daily volume you’ve sent within the past two weeks. For example, if you typically send to 100,000 recipients, you should target no more than 125,000 in the next campaign, then 156,000, and so on). Given this compounding growth, you should get to your necessary list size relatively quickly.

Senders with great data quality and reputation can sometimes get away with much larger increases in volume, but this is not recommended – especially during the holidays.

This recommendation is especially important for senders on dedicated IPs, but it is also important for shared pool senders because some ISPs (like Gmail) track reputation at the sender address and domain level, so spikes in volume from one particular domain can also be viewed as suspicious.

Want to know more about how to warm up your IP address to ensure good email deliverability? Check out this Email Is Not Dead podcast episode from our friends at Mailgun.

Sending to inactive or disengaged contacts who haven’t been targeted in a long time

Some examples of this include “addresses which have not been emailed to since last holiday season” and “anyone who has not been sent an email in more than 3-6 months”.

Sending to inactive or disengaged contacts can lead to high hard bounce rates and spam trap hits if the addresses being contacted no longer exist. Both of these can cause deliverability issues.

We can also expect to see low user engagement (i.e. opens/clicks) as well as higher-than-normal user complaints and unsubscribes if someone hasn’t been contacted in such a long time that they “forgot” they signed up. These also lead to deliverability issues, particularly high complaints.

It’s ok to reach back to your more inactive or disengaged segments but do so carefully. It’s important to remember that you will make most of your money (and receive the highest engagement) from your active recipients. The only way to optimize your ROI on your active subscribers is by ensuring 100% of your email is going to the inbox. Sending to inactive or disengaged contacts can compromise this.

We recommend keeping the new “inactive/disengaged” segment to no more than 10% of the daily volume you plan to send as a start. If the test goes well, then you can try increasing it the next time you send. But do it slowly!

If you see signs of any of the problems mentioned above, you can pause and re-assess if it’s still worth targeting inactive or disengaged contacts (knowing it will lead to poor inbox delivery for both inactives AND actives).

Increasing the frequency of sending to the point where users are overwhelmed by “inbox noise”

This is another very common example around the holiday season. An example would be a company that normally sends newsletters about sales once per week, and is now sending 3x per week (or daily).

If recipients are not used to this high frequency and become overwhelmed or annoyed by it, or simply don’t find the content useful at that frequency, it can lead to higher complaint and unsubscribe rates, as well as lower open and click rates. All of these reactions are viewed negatively by ISPs, leading to junk foldering and blocks.

It’s OK to increase frequency, but you need to provide valuable content that is worth the recipient’s time, attention, and inbox placement.

Also, remember that it is not only you who is sending more emails during the holidays… it’s basically everyone on the internet! Which means you are fighting for recipient attention. More email in a recipient’s inbox (from you, and the rest of the internet) means less chance for one particular email to be read. As a result, you might see slightly lower open rates due to seasonality.

Last-minute deliverability checks before the holiday season

Now that we’ve seen the most common mistakes to avoid during the holiday season, here are a few more tips to improve two critical elements for your email deliverability: your sender reputation and the content of your emails.

Sender reputation

ISPs take into account different factors to determine your sender reputation. Authentication is only one of these factors, but it is the first step to success. There are several authentication protocols that you must use to show ISPs that you are a good sender. And trust us, you want to be considered a good sender.

• SPF: An SPF record on the DNS server (a service whose main function is to translate a domain name into an IP address) allows domain name owners to look after their reputation by deciding who has the right to send emails on their behalf. Any person who is not on the list of authorized addresses is considered an imposter.
• DKIM: DKIM is a standard used by ISPs to verify that no phishing acts have been committed during the email routine. It adds a unique signature to the email you send. The receiving server can check the domain signature to confirm the origin of the message and to ensure that its content has not been manipulated along the way.
• DMARC: DMARC is an additional protection measure against domain name theft. If SPF and DKIM systems fail, the DMARC standard tells the recipient’s receiving server whether the message should be rejected or considered spam.

Email content

In terms of content, there are several elements that trigger ISPs’ alarms. Here are the main tips to follow when designing your holiday emailing campaigns so ISPs don’t think you’re a spammer:

• Keep your subject line between 35 to 50 characters long.
• Do not use ALL CAPITALIZED WORDS in your subject line or body.
• Avoid using spammy-seeming words (‘Free’, ‘Sale’, ‘Cash’, ‘Limited Time Offer’, etc).
• Send content that your subscribers have signed up for and are expecting.
• Use a text-to-image ratio of approximately 60% text and 40% image.
• Include an unsubscribe link in each of your marketing messages.

More resources to prepare your holiday campaigns

It’s time to start putting together amazing holiday email marketing campaigns that will help you to embrace the holiday feeling to build your brand and drive sales.

We’ve combined all our holiday resources in one to create your one-stop shop to win the battle of the inbox this season. In our Ultimate Guide To Holiday Emailing, you will learn how to create amazing content for your campaigns, find great design tips from some of our friends in the industry, and get inspiration from great email examples by top brands. Put that holiday cheer to good use!

***

This blog post is an updated version of the post “Deliverability Mistakes to Avoid During the Holiday Season”, published on the Mailjet blog on November 7, 2019 by Lauren Meyer.

The post Deliverability Tips to Avoid the Spam Folder This Holiday Season appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

For the email marketer, the holiday season is here and it’s time for all of us to get ready to make the most of it. It’s time to start putting together amazing Holiday email marketing campaigns that will help us to embrace the holiday feeling to build our brand and drive sales. And, as usual, Mailjet’s here to help you with that, so sit back, relax and get ready to hit the email jackpot!

We’ve combined all our Holiday resources in one, to create your one-stop shop to win the battle of the inbox this season. In our Ultimate Guide To Holiday Emailing, you will learn how to create amazing content for your campaigns, you’ll find great design tips from some of our friends in the industry, and get inspiration from great email examples by top brands.

Preparing for the 2021 holiday season

Last year’s holiday season was very different from what we had been used to. Now, consumers and marketers are slowly adapting to the new normal, but we can’t expect everything to go back to the way it was in 2019. In some markets, holiday shoppers are getting ready for the post-pandemic era, while in others the uncertainties caused by the pandemic are affecting consumer behavior.

At Mailjet, we expect email to continue playing an important role in brand communications, just like it did last year. With more and more businesses competing for consumer attention, it’s time for brands to start carefully planning their holiday messaging and email campaigns.

Here are some key dates to keep in mind:

• Thanksgiving (Canada): October 11
• Halloween: October 31
• Thanksgiving (United States): November 25
• Black Friday: November 26
• Small Business Saturday: November 27
• Hannukah: November 28 to December 6
• Cyber Monday: November 28
• Christmas Eve: December 24
• Christmas Day: December 25
• Boxing Day (UK, Canada, Australia): December 26
• New Year’s Eve: December 31

Remember: the holiday season is a marathon, not a sprint. Plan your email sending accordingly to ensure your holiday campaigns land in the inbox and not the spam folder. Learn more about deliverability best practices for this time of year in our post “Deliverability tips to avoid the spam folder this holiday season“.

Setting email goals for the holiday season

OK, now you know the key dates, it’s time to gear up and get your email marketing campaigns ready for the holiday season. Not sure where to start? Have a look at your goals and set specific targets to identify what exactly you want to achieve with your holiday campaigns.

Setting your goals will make it easier for you to develop a targeted campaign, with a clear idea of the results you want to achieve. Goals will also make it easier to evaluate your performance once the holidays are over, by comparing the targets you set to the actual results.

Here are a few tips to help you set goals that will drive your campaign through the chimney.

1. Start broad, get specific

Your goals determine the purpose of your campaign – what exactly you want to achieve. Therefore, it’s important to be as specific as possible when setting them. Think about what the overall aim of your campaign is: to increase your open rates? To increase your click-through or conversion rates? To promote a special holiday discount?

Once you’ve established an overall purpose, break them down into specific measurable goals, the more targeted the better. If you have precise and measurable goals, it will be much easier to structure your campaign to meet those goals and in turn evaluate your results to understand how successful it was.

For example, if your goal is to increase your click rate, set a specific percentage you’re aiming to increase it by. Other goals you can consider for your campaign could be:

• Increase open rates by 15%.
• 30% of subscribers use your holiday discount code.
• Increase traffic to a specific page by 50%.

No two campaigns are alike though, so set goals that are relevant and important to your business.

3. Identify key KPIs and track them closely

Pin down the KPIs that are important and relevant to your campaign and follow them closely.

For email marketing, the common metrics to follow are open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and bounce rates. These should always be tracked to help you understand how well your message is getting across to your email list and how readers react to your creativity.

But for your holiday campaigns, there will probably be additional figures that go beyond the standard email marketing KPIs you want to follow. You might have a holiday sale page on your website or offer a special discount code. In this case, your KPIs to track could be the number of visits to your holiday sale section, the number of sales from these visits, and the number of times the discount code was used for a sale. Make sure that the results of each of your offers are measured closely so you can analyze the performance once your campaign has been concluded.

4. Learn from the results of your (Christmas) past

To put things into perspective and get inspiration for setting realistic and attainable goals, dive into your historical data from previous holiday campaigns. Look at how your performance developed over the months leading up to the holidays to get an idea of the kind of KPI development to expect.

You can do this by creating benchmarks, which let you easily compare the results of former campaigns and can give you valuable input for setting new goals and understanding how the holiday season impacts your performance. For example, our analytics tool gives you an overview of KPIs from your sent campaigns and lets you compare results and create benchmarks. Keep the data from your previous campaigns in mind and set new goals the will blow old results out of the water!

Defining your goals is key for determining the overall purpose of your campaign, for identifying the KPIs to be tracked, and to use for evaluating the outcome and learn from your results. It’s a crucial step in creating a successful email campaign, so be sure to put time and thought into the process.

Crafting irresistible email content

Coming up with amazing email campaigns throughout the year can be hard, but it can be even more challenging during the holiday season. To help you prepare for this busy period, our Content Marketing team has put together some tricks to kick off your own planning process, so you can craft fresh, compelling content for your holiday email campaigns.

We will get your creative juices flowing and help you prevent burnout in this year’s content creation marathon. Start early and plan ahead to ensure you come up with email subject lines and calls to action that will make you stand out in the holiday inbox.

The principles of holiday content

The holiday season is the perfect time to boost online shopping just before the end of the year, but it is also the ideal opportunity to strengthen that special bond with your clients.

Have a look at these three key concepts to create campaigns that drive revenue, but also increase brand loyalty and advocacy:

1. Storytelling

Once upon a time, stories were just passed on by word-of-mouth. Now there are so many different ways to tell and spread your message: email is one of them, but you can embed and connect other media along.

The holiday season is the best time to share with your clients what your company’s all about. Wish a Merry Christmas, say ‘Thank You’ on Thanksgiving or just share your success stories of 2017 and your coolest 2018 projects.

Really powerful marketing ideas are all born from simple psychological principles. Storytelling may be a popular buzzword now, but the truth is we’re wired to like stories. And yes, brand storytelling is essentially storyselling. To stand out from the competition, you have to show your personality and win consumers over with your character.

When done right, storytelling engages your customer in the long-term, allowing them to relate to your brand’s personality and mission, and feel emotionally invested in your success. 80% of consumers want brands to tell their story but can’t remember a good example. So keep this in mind while planning your campaigns: how will you make your clients trust you and remember you this holiday season?

2. Voice

Maybe you never thought of your emails as something that could have a voice – let alone that this voice is something that you should give some thought to. But the way you speak to your customers through your emails matters a lot.

The best way to grow a deep, long-lasting relationship with prospects, users and customers is to make sure that your email content fits in with the bond that you wish to create. Your brand voice is a precious tool to show how you are different from other brands – and, ideally, be immediately recognized by your customers when they open their inbox.

The holiday season brings new challenges and opportunities. While you don’t want to get so carried away by the Christmas spirit that you completely lose yourself in it, the festive spirit can definitely make your brand look more approachable. Think about how you celebrate the holidays internally, as a business, and let a little bit of that happy feeling show in your emails (through text, video, GIFs…), while still having that unique voice that clients have come to recognize.

Let your customers know that you value them by sending them emails that are not focused on promoting offers or products.

Build brand advocacy and awareness by using compelling content that they can share with others. Make sure social media links are clearly visible or drive social sharing with CTA.

3. Copywriting

Nowadays, people are used to being sold to and expect companies to highlight the value of their product or service, but convincing them to do their holiday shopping on your site might be harder during the holiday season than at any other point throughout the year.

Strong copywriting will reinforce your product or service’s unique selling points while guiding the readers through the different actions you want them to take. Don’t forget about these tips when writing copy for your email campaigns, newsletters, and promotional offers:

• Introduce clear and attractive CTAs: Make sure you have a clear idea about what action you want your user to take, and guide them with powerful calls to action (CTAs) that are both appealing and clear.
• Think carefully about your email subject lines: How many amazing offers, discounts, and promotions is your contact going to receive during this holiday season? Think about how to stand out in the inbox, with subject lines that summarize the content of your email, but are also different and engaging.
• Consider your tone and style: It’s the holiday season and many others will be trying to sell something to their audience. Use short and clear sentences. Make sure you sound approachable, and don’t be afraid of getting excited about the holidays – excitement is catching!
• Don’t be too persuasive: Don’t be pushy. No one likes to see an email with too many ‘Buy Now’ CTAs or to receive a never-ending automation series encouraging them to upgrade or repeat their purchase.

Downloadable content brainstorming worksheet

Answer this: “a blank email template is _______”. Did you think “nerve-racking” or “limitless possibilities”? Chances are, your sentiments fall somewhere in between. Coming up with fresh, compelling content while on a time crunch can be creatively draining.

That’s why we put together a handy brainstorm exercise sheet for you to work through while planning your campaigns this holiday season.

Download our Content Brainstorming Worksheet here!

Designing beautiful holiday emails

Like building a house, you need the proper tools to establish a strong foundation to build upon. To help you prepare for the holiday season, we asked some of our designer friends to share some advice for you to build stunning, responsive campaigns.

Visual content is at the heart of engaging, conversion-driving marketing. Did you know that 70% of all sensory receptors in the human body are concentrated in the eye? The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than it does text. Carry this toolbox with you as you hammer in each piece of your next campaign.

Choosing the right color palette

Rachel Vanier, Content and Communications Expert, shares some advice on how to pick the right color palette for your holiday emails. You can find Rachel on Twitter and LinkedIn!

Let’s cut to the chase, when it comes to choosing graphic colors for your holiday email campaigns, you essentially have two options:

1. Choose illustrations that cater to more of the traditional holiday-themed content (Santa, a turkey, etc.) and brand them with your own colors.
2. Keep with your usual visual aesthetic and opt for a more subtle influence of holiday colors.

According to Didier Forest, Creative Partner at eFounders: “Unless you’re a design expert, your best choice is to apply holiday colors to your graphics. As long as you maintain a coherent graphic charter (font, identity, etc), colors are more impactful and make much more sense when used with the right illustrations.”

With that, the number one rule to keep in mind is: “No more than three colors per email”. Consider it a universal rule of design, especially if you’re just starting out.

Another rule to always keep in mind (there are a lot in the design world): there are a limited number of color combinations. In case you’re not familiar, they’re handily listed in the color wheel used in Color Theory: Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, Split Complementary, Triadic, and Tetradic.

“For holiday colors, I’d recommend using Monochromatic or Complementary combinations. They are less complex than the other combinations and will maintain a consistent spirit,” says Didier.

Here are the color palettes we think will work best this holiday season:

Using photography and images

Nuno Silva, ex-VP of Product at Stocksy United, shares four tips for using photography and images in your holiday emails.

1. Make an emotional connection

Your audience will relate more easily to your message if they form an emotional and personal connection when they’re reading your holiday email. Do you want them to feel excitement, anticipation, love? Keep this in mind when selecting the right photo, and take note of how the emotion in your image reflects your call to action.

2. Avoid clutter and confusion

Stay on message! Avoid distracting your audience with too many photos. One effective headline image is often enough to draw your audience to the call to action. Too many and you may lose them on the way.

3. Look toward your message

If you want your audience to find the brand or call to action right away, avoid photos where the model is looking directly into the camera. Our eyes are instinctively drawn to someone else’s. Use this to your advantage by selecting photos where the model is looking in the direction of your primary message, call to action, or logo.

4. Go for the unique

Pick non-traditional or unique holiday images to capture your audience’s attention. Keep in mind your audience is likely getting a lot of email at this time of year. Set yourself apart from other holiday emails with images that aren’t the usual snowman, dreidel, or Santa.

Finding the right balance between content and design

Our very own Aline Tola, UI designer at Mailjet/Mailgun, shares some advice on how to find the right balance between content and design. You can say ‘Hi!’ on Twitter!

The design must work with the content to provide a logical continuity. It should enable the reader to understand the purpose or the information the content provides, but also build confidence.

The design should work well with the content without taking over, and it should also transport the user into the brand universe. Brand visuals and brand voice should work together to showcase the brand and how it’s positioned. Design and content are one when it comes to defining brand identity.

At Mailjet, we use Asana to submit and track our design requests. While we’re huge on design and love exploring different aesthetics and user experiences, we know that ultimately providing value is key. Each new project, content piece or campaign is built with content first in mind. Here’s what our process looks like:

1. Every project begins with a brief and the first step is to understand it. That’s why it’s key to have a conversation with the content creators or project leads, to ensure we’re all on the same page.
2. The content creators write up a draft of the copy and send it off to the designers.
3. The designers work on the draft, not just addressing the points raised by the content creators, but also adding a little extra touch to take the project a step further.
4. Designers and content creators collaborate to find the right balance between content and design for the best user experience.
5. The project is approved and the production process begins, be it print, online or design integration.

Making transactional emails more festive

Laura McLeod, Senior Marketing Manager at 99Designs, shares some tips to make your transactional emails more festive. You can find her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

As you ornament your brand for the holiday season this year, you’ve undoubtedly already started to think about the look and feel of your seasonal email marketing strategy. But have you given thought to your transactional emails?

During the holiday time, you can use transactional emails to your advantage to remind customers of ongoing holiday promos, discounts, and special offers without getting lost in the holiday email marketing whirl.

Here are our top email marketing tips to holiday-ify your transactional emails and make the most of seasonality.

1. Sprinkle in seasonal content

The main content of your transactional email should always speak to the reason the email is being sent. However, that’s not to say you can’t use the rest of the space to your advantage.

• Utilize white space: Keep the subject line and the opening portion of the email focused on why it’s being sent. Then, use extra white space and margins to link to holiday promos and seasonal landing pages. Use clever copy to seamlessly tie the promo into the rest of the email.
• Add a call to action: Your primary call to action (CTA) should always stay the same. However, during the holiday season consider adding a secondary CTA to direct users where you’d like them to go. Consider also linking to a product page showcasing the best gift ideas from your site or add a newsletter signup as the secondary CTA so they can stay in the loop on all your holiday promos.
• Keep it succinct: Be cautious of how much content you’re adding. You don’t want to come off as spammy or lose the reader’s attention. A way to remedy this is to make sure your primary CTA remains crystal clear and use design elements like arrows or boxes to draw attention to the main content of the email.

2. Adapt your design to the season

You’ve already got a great transactional email design, but that’s not to say you can’t make it festive for the winter. With a few simple tricks, your transactional emails will look just as perky as the rest of your holiday marketing emails.

• Spruce up colors: There’s no denying the impact of color psychology. Switching your transactional email color scheme up to a holiday color palette is one of the best (and easiest) ways to boost your transactional email design for the holidays.
• Consider a neutral color palette like dark purple and blue to evoke the holiday season without focusing on a singular denomination.
• Ornament your logo: A festive logo design can be used across all your marketing assets throughout the winter season, including marketing emails, social media pages, and web landing pages.
• But only make small tweaks so that you don’t stray too far from your original logo design. If your logo is a wordmark, you can add iconographic elements that evoke the winter such as snowflakes or a dusting of snow. Or, if your logo is a complicated combination mark, you can keep it simple and switch up the color scheme.
• Keep it on-brand: Even during the holidays, any and all communications that come from your brand should look and feel like your brand. To keep it constant, keep fonts to your brand typekit, and include your logo in the header or footer.

Testing the final product

Content marketing expert Kayla Lewkowicz shares some advice on how to effectively test your emails before sending them. You can find her on Twitter!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for email marketers: the holiday season. With half of email marketing mistakes going undetected, it’s critical to set up a rigorous quality assurance process to catch those common errors that happen to everyone, especially with such high-volume sends during the holidays.

Email marketers face a series of challenges when it comes to delivering great emails, including:

Rendering issues

The key thing to remember when it comes to testing: your subscribers may be opening in completely different email clients than the ones you use. What looks fine in Apple Mail may look completely broken in Gmail or Outlook. Know where your subscribers open so you can optimize effectively for common rendering issues.

Broken images

Are your images displaying properly? Even if you’re using a template, you might accidentally include an old or outdated image. In addition, images are blocked automatically for many subscribers by default, so make sure you’re including alt text on every image for maximum accessibility.

Broken or incorrect links

Broken, incorrect, or untracked links represent a missed conversion opportunity, especially during the holidays. Test every link to make sure you’re not sending your subscribers to a 404 page and make sure you’re tracking them so you can measure your email marketing success.

Broken dynamic or personalized content

No one wants to receive an email that says, “Hi, [First Name!]. It’s important to test your emails to ensure that your ESP’s merge/personalization tags are pulling in the correct information. In addition, ensure that fallbacks are present for instances where you lack subscriber data.

Spelling, grammar, and typos

Despite every marketer wishing it were true, there is no undo button after the send when it comes to email. Sending typos or incorrect grammar can hinder your overall message and make it difficult for your subscribers to understand what action you want them to take. The slip of your finger on a key could cause a simple, easily avoidable error, so always spell check!

Test your emails before sending with Email on Acid’s Campaign Precheck. Easily check your email content, preview your designs across multiple clients and devices, and resolve any deliverability issues before sending. 

Picking the right tools

We’ve rounded up a handful of our favorite design tools that make it easy to create eye-catching graphics. So when your designer goes on holiday vacation or could use an extra hand, you’ll be able to put an email together, no matter your experience level.

Check out these great design tools and pop these graphics into our email editor to create responsive template that look great on desktop and mobile devices.

Holiday email campaign examples

There’s no better way to draw inspiration for your holiday email campaigns than to look at what others have done well and learn from their success. From original ideas to all-time classics, designing an email is as much about creativity as it is about applying some well-known principles.

We’ve gone ahead and broken down how some top brands create eye-catching designs consumers can’t resist. Explore the anatomy of each of these winning campaigns, and learn how to build the right design for your goals – from driving engagement to sales and conversion.

TOMS®

TOMS® is an American brand that sells shoes and accessories, such as bags, socks, and sunglasses. The brand is built around the One for Onemodel: with every purchase made, TOMS® provides shoes, sight, water, and safer birth services to people in need.

Why we like it

Here are a few things we love about this email:

• Don’t underestimate the power of color! TOMS chose green to highlight the CTAs and links, not only because it’s Christmassy, but also because it complements their brand colors.
• The first thing that captures the reader’s attention is the calendar. It is a great way to let the reader know that there is a new holiday offer coming up every day. This creates expectation and urgency.
• The footer of the email highlights the brand’s corporate responsibility. The message “Help improve lives” can appeal to your contact’s emotions and can help you tip the balance when it comes to converting customers.

Key takeaways

• Use design cleverly. Calendars and timelines create expectations and can contribute to driving engagement with your future emails.
• Use colors to differentiate elements and make them stand out. Bolder, brighter colors should convey the most important pieces of information or CTAs.
• Make your brand stand out by sharing your values and ethics.

WHISTLEFISH

Whistlefish is a greeting cards retailer, which also sells art prints, wrapping and gifts. Born in Cornwall 21 years ago, today it brings together over 60 independent artists, working to make lives a bit more artsy.

Why we like it

Here are a few things we love about this email:

• Whitlefish’s email is a great example of branding consistency. It is designed to replicate the layout of the website. This is great for those familiar with the site, as they will find it intuitive and easy to browse through products.
• The offer can’t be missed: is big, bold and red, and is placed before the fold. The reader’s attention will be naturally drawn to it. The countdown time is also a great way of increasing urgency and telling the reader “Hurry, this offer is on for a limited time only!”.
• Showcasing a range of the products on offer is a good way of attracting interest. They are going to want to take a peek at your website to find out even more!

Key takeaways

• On-page placement and hierarchy can be used to emphasize the importance of certain elements. Elements positioned higher up are seen first. If they don’t attract your email subscribers’ attention they probably won’t scroll down, or worse, they’ll bin your email. Put the most important piece of information before the fold to make an impact.
• Emails that replicate the layout of the website are user-friendly. Use branding consistency and layout wisely.
• Give your contacts a flavor of what you’ve got! They are going to want to take a peek at your website to find out even more! Include a few examples of the products you offer, and prove that you can cater to different tastes.

NASTY GAL

Nasty Gal is an American fashion brand rooted in Los Angeles. It mainly sells clothing, shoes, and accessories of its own brand, but also carries a few other ones. Its products are for “gals who have the confidence to just be themselves”.

Why we like it

Here are a few things we love about this email:

• The title is a perfect example of brand voice. It’s a little touch that makes them easily recognizable and unique in an inbox packed with similar emails. Plus, a clever wordplay always catches the eye. HOLY SHiP(PING) is a reference to both Christmas, and the shipping deals the brand offers.
• To set the dates when shipping is last possible, Nasty Gal makes them clearly visible. Calendars are visually friendly: they are a common way of setting reminders and deadlines. By using something so familiar, you ensure that people will have no trouble remembering.
• There is also a clear warning (!) to the readers: they need to remember the dates, otherwise presents will not be shipped on time for Christmas. And who wants to take the risk of not having a present ready for Christmas and upsetting loved ones?!

Key takeaways

• Playing with words is always effective and entertaining. Give it a twist by tying the meaning to the time of the year, while also incorporating a touch of your own brand voice.
• Use calendars and timelines to remind customers of deadlines coming up. Colors and images make it easier for your contacts to spot them and remember them.

FOREVER 21

Forever 21 is a high street fashion brand. It is the 5th largest specialty retailer in the United States. Regardless of the enormous growth, the company has accomplished in the past 30 years, it is still a family-owned business.

Why we like it

Here are a few things we love about this email:

• This email is an example of a brilliant way to promote offers. The use of virtual scratch cards creates a sense of mystery and curiosity. The unknown hidden offers drive customers to the “Reveal your offer now” CTA. Making something personal by using possessive pronouns will always attract a great deal of attention.
• Forever 21 used a very simple layout, with strong brand consistency. Everything is clearly visible at a glance. Social media links are placed before the fold, so we don’t have to scroll down.
• Make life easier for customers by including customer service links and details in your email. It is incredibly handy to have direct links to the app on the email. When browsing on the go, using an app is much more practical and efficient than using a website.

Key takeaways

• Be creative! Make your email and brand stand out using inventive design and content.
• Generate curiosity by not revealing everything in the email. People will visit your website to find out more.
• Make it personal, speak directly to the reader.
• Keep it short, clean, and tidy. This increases the probability of everything getting some attention. Long, boring emails are a big no-no.
• Include customer service information. Quick links to them are always handy.

J. CREW

J.Crew is an American brand that sells clothing and accessories. It caters to all ages and styles. The belief on which the company is based is that magic is in the mix.

Why we like it

Here are a few things we love about this email:

• It’s all in the title! As Halloween is coming up, J.Crew raises curiosity in the reader using a playful tone. Using an effective title can have an incredible impact
• The sense of curiosity created in the title is brought to the next level when the mystery sale is introduced. The call-to-action button below will look very attractive to customers at this point.
• In the very simple, black & white layout of this email, color is used to draw attention to the offers.

Key takeaways

• Choose the title of your email wisely. Play around with it, but make sure your tone should reflect your target audience and that you don’t lose your own identity in the process.
• Adding an element of mystery to your emails can drive engagement and drive people to click through over to your website, to discover what your secretive offer is all about.
• As mentioned before, use color to make important pieces of information stand out. If your email is going to be black & white (like this example), it doesn’t need to necessarily be bright and bold. They will stand out anyway.

TOPMAN

TOPMAN is a British male fashion high street giant. It is the male counterpart of the TOPSHOP brand. As a brand, it is deeply committed to supporting emerging UK menswear design talent.

Why we like it

Here are a few things we love about this email:

• No rambling, no nonsense, no small talk. Straight to the point. TOPMAN states its delivery deals clearly at the top, using colors that make it stand out from the rest of the content of the email.
• At the bottom, some of the brand’s key features are highlighted. TOPMAN offers great deals on shipping and returns, and they want to make sure that customers are aware of it by highlighting it at the top and at the bottom of the mail.

Key takeaways

• Use both color and position to make things stand out: put things at the top, in bright colors, and they will get noticed.
• Highlight, not only your offer but also the add-ons that differentiate you. Whether that’s amazing customer support, free shipping, or free returns, make sure your readers are aware as it could tip the balance in your favor.

Want more Holiday email design inspiration? Check out our awesome holiday email templates and easily create stunning Holiday email marketing campaigns by just dragging and dropping!

Downloadable holiday emailing checklist

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably a bit overwhelmed with everything that goes into Holiday emailing. At Mailjet, we want to help you start planning amazing campaigns that will help us to embrace the holiday feeling to build our brand and drive online sales, so we’ve created a downloadable checklist to make sure nothing gets forgotten during this busy period!

Our downloadable Holiday Emailing Checklist helps you define a holiday email marketing strategy that will win your customers over, with all you need to know, from setting your goals to that last-minute deliverability check.

Download Mailjet’s Holiday Emailing Checklist!

More more holiday email marketing ideas and resources

Still looking for more? We’ve put together some more tips and ideas for your holiday email campaigns for Halloween, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.

Check them out in our posts below:

• Halloween Email Marketing Campaigns: Tips, Ideas & Inspiration
• Black Friday: Tips for the Perfect Email Marketing Campaign
• Thanksgiving Email: Make Your Clients Feel Appreciated
• 9 Responsive Email Templates For Your Holiday Campaigns
• Killer Email Marketing Tips for Ecommerce To Increase Online Holiday Sales

Wrapping up

The holiday season is just around the corner, and there’s more to do than just dust off our Christmas jumpers and light up the whole neighborhood with our festive decorations.

Get ready to plan, design and send great holiday email marketing campaigns with Mailjet, and finish the year on a high note!

The post The Ultimate Guide To Holiday Email Marketing appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

At Pathwire, our mission has always been to solve the hard problems behind communications, and we’ve always strived to offer a reliable path between two connections – a business and its customers.

When Wilfried and Julien founded Mailjet eleven years ago, their goal was to build an email platform that would allow developers to send marketing and transactional emails in a simple and straightforward way

A lot has changed at Mailjet since then – we’ve gone from a small and mighty team based in Nantes working hard to offer the best email experience for marketers and developers to a fast-growing, multinational workforce that serves 100,000 paying customers worldwide – but through it all, our mission has always remained the same.

Now, we’re thrilled to announce this next step in our evolution: Pathwire, including Mailjet and its portfolio of brands, has entered an agreement to be acquired by Sinch, a global leader in cloud communications for mobile customer engagement. Together with Sinch, we will be able to help our customers expand their reach and increase engagement with additional communication channels.

The Pathwire family joins Sinch

Sinch started in Stockholm in 2008 and has emerged as an international communications powerhouse serving enterprises like Nespresso, Toyota, and Macy’s around the globe. Its platform lets businesses reach every mobile phone on the planet, in seconds or less, through mobile messaging, voice, and video. With a local presence in more than 40 countries, Sinch brings a global vision of superior quality and innovation in communications.

Pathwire’s suite of powerful email APIs, innovative email campaign management, and reliable email testing is a natural fit for Sinch. We’re thrilled to bring a business-critical communication channel – email – into the Sinch portfolio for the first time.

Following the close of the acquisition, Sinch will look to accelerate our efforts in building cutting-edge, scalable email solutions, promote further international expansion, and task the Pathwire team to establish a leading position in developer-centric cloud communications. Together, we will be able to empower over 115,000 businesses to engage their customers like never before – on any channel.

What does this mean for you?

We know how critical email is to your business. Our commitment to offering reliable infrastructure, smarter solutions based on machine learning, localized email expertise, and industry-leading support is unwavering.

If you’re a current Mailjet user, rest assured that you will see no change in Mailjet’s platform, support, or service offerings as we work with the Sinch team to drive the acquisition through to a close, which is expected in late 2021 or early 2022. We will continue to operate as a standalone business, but in the near future, we’re looking forward to offering a wide range of communication APIs from the Sinch portfolio to all of our customers.

Follow our path

Since we embarked on this journey, our goal has been to help our customers build connected experiences, and we feel confident that this next chapter with Sinch will further support that mission. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without you. Your advocacy, feedback, and support have helped shape us into the service we are today.

We have big plans for what’s to come, and we can’t wait to share them with you. Keep an eye on our blog or sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about our next steps, and visit the Sinch website to learn more about the Sinch portfolio.

Thanks for choosing Pathwire for all your email needs, and as always…

Happy sending!

The Mailjet crew

Disclaimer: Closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, such as any applicable governmental or other approvals. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2021.

The post Sinch To Acquire Mailjet, Creating a Best-of-Breed Cloud Communications Platform appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.

Shock and horror – you’re sending out a Halloween-themed email campaign but can’t think of any good subject lines… The scariest part? 47% of your audience open emails judged on your subject line alone. 

Fear not – we’ve got you covered. 

Here, we’ll show you some shockingly good Halloween email subject lines from your industry and share our secret recipe for higher open rates. Then, we’ll head to the lab, run through some A/B tests, and discover why data should decide your Halloween-style subject line. You can come out from under the bed now.

21 eye-catching Halloween subject lines

You have around 40 characters to convince your reader to open an email. No pressure.

Knowing your audience is key. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to email subject lines, but you can definitely draw inspiration from what other brands are doing. 

Get your creative juices flowing with these email subject line examples from different industries. 

Ecommerce & retail

Everyone loves a “spooktacular deal.” Online shops are in a prime position to offer scary savings and Halloween flash sales. Sometimes, a short mysterious message is enough to pique a reader’s curiosity. Or, you could be cheeky and ask the reader a direct question – come on, what are you scared of? 

Check out these creative Halloween subject lines from ecommerce and retail brands:

1. Club Kiddo – Boo Ya!
2. Paper Source – Get These Spooktacular Best Sellers Before They Ghost!
3. Motif – Trick OR Treat? Why not both?
4. Crate And Barrel – All treats, no tricks.
5. RIFLE PAPER Co – Send Your Boos Some Love?
6. Etsy – Practically Magic
7. Yellowmoon.org.uk – A frightfully good offer – up to 50% off Halloween costumes

Tech

Larger tech companies generally want to be perceived as thought leaders, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a geeky side too. They might not take it as far as ecommerce businesses, but tech brands also know how to get into the Halloween spirit. 

Here are some Halloween subject lines for the tech industry:

1. Pinterest – Your Guide To Carving Pumpkins
2. Grammarly – A Happy Halloween Quiz from Grammarly
3. Email Monks – Witching You Happy Halloween
4. WeTransfer – Pumpkin spice and all things (not) nice

In comparison, startups are trying to be seen as less corporate and will get away with a more “buddy-buddy” vernacular.

Food & spirits

A Halloween party is nothing without Halloween treats. Tempt your customers this season with tantalizing offers or content they can’t refuse. From trick or treating to parties and movie gatherings, make it clear there are savings to be made in your subject line. Recipe guides are another very popular method to attract users into your email. 

Get Halloween subject line ideas from some top food and spirits brands:

1. FitOn – 3 Scary Good Meals to Die For
2. Dunkin Donuts – Click Your Treat and Earn 3X Points
3. Cadbury – 15% Off All Ghoulish Goodies
4. Betty’s – Double, double toil and trouble
5. Land O’Lakes – Ghoul, treat yourself with these recipes
6. Blue Apron – Forget the candy, this deal is the sweetest one yet!

Entertainment

The battle for our attention is fierce around Halloween and you only have one seventh of a Tweet to work with. Curiosity is your best weapon, but that doesn’t mean going too vague or your email will just sound generic. The best email subject lines tease out content. Use imperative words like “see”, “fall into”, or “go” to encourage readers to open the email.

Draw inspiration from these Halloween subject lines from some top entertainment brands:

1. Disney+ – See what’s screaming — er, streaming!
2. Vimeo – Fall into these sweet new features!
3. Universal Orlando Resort – Go Behind the Screams

Finance

After the last credit card statement, nobody expects another scary email from their bank. As a trusted institution, it’s best to tread carefully with your subject line. You don’t want to be seen as suspicious and marked as spam. Make sure your subject line clearly states the matter at hand – with Barclaycard, it’s fraud. 

Finally, adding some personalization to your subject line conveys trust, don’t you think, Mr Krueger? 

How to write a killer Halloween email subject line

So, we’ve seen the best of the best. But what exactly makes these headlines fit for Halloween? 

Get creative with your tone of voice

The holidays are a time of fun and joviality, so take this opportunity to get creative. While writing your subject line, keep in mind that people love authenticity and fun, but be mindful not to stray away from the anchor that is your brand voice. If your brand voice is human and approachable, then avoid overbearing or indecisive wording.

Take advantage of puns (Hallow-queen) and wordplay (All treats, no tricks) to set the stage for your email content and tap into the mystery and intrigue of Halloween by choosing out-the-box vocabulary like “enchanting”, “magical”, and “potion”.

If your brand voice allows so, you can also go wild with punctuation, including exclamations for excitement and question marks to challenge your reader. Emojis bring color and fun to people’s inboxes, tempting their cursor to take a look. Don’t abuse them, though – keep it to one to two emojis. 

Use marketing psychology to increase open rates

Halloween comes but once a year, so advertise your Halloween sale as “last chance”, creating a feeling of scarcity (or FOMO) in the reader. Your Halloween deals can tie in nicely with a countdown to Halloween marketing campaign. For instance, you could send “One week until…” or “3 days until…” emails to remind your subscribers they are running out of time.

As always, character length is key. Aim for no more than 40 characters to avoid being cut off by Hotmail, Live, and Yahoo Mail clients. There is evidence to suggest that shorter punchier subject lines can improve open rates. However, every audience is different. The only way to truly know your reader’s appetite is to A/B test a variety of subject lines to determine the winner. 

Similarly, highlighting the value proposition of an email can improve open rates significantly. Don’t get lost in wishy-washy Halloween lingo; tell the reader why they should open the email. Whether it’s discounts, free gifts, ideas, or advice, make it clear in the subject header.

If you prefer to save the value proposition for your email body, try something short, mysterious, and punchy like this email from Etsy and use the preheader to complement your subject line. 

Make it personal with contact properties

Personalize your campaign with contact properties. Nothing grabs your attention more than hearing your own name. Your ears perk up; it’s a reflex response.

Yet, many marketers still don’t personalize email marketing, giving you the competitive edge if you do. Go further by segmenting your subscriber lists into categories like age and gender. Put yourself in their shoes and adapt your tone of voice for that person.

Avoid the dreaded spam folder

Spam is such a dirty word that we should really call it s***. There are some misconceptions regarding subject line spam words – no, there’s no secret list out there that will take you straight to the spam folder – but certain terms can be deceiving and tend to get lower engagement and higher-than-normal complaint rates. Just think of all those emails promising a “free” gift. How many of those were actually “free”?

If your sender reputation and email engagement are high, the content of your subject lines probably won’t land your email in spam folders. But if your sender reputation and email engagement are low and you talk like a spammer, chances are you won’t land in the inbox. Spam is a complex and ever-changing subject, so check out our definitive guide on how to avoid spam filters.

Utilize software testing to polish your copy

When you have done everything you can, turn to robots for help. Try running your subject line(s) through an email subject line tester to see how it performs. Once your robot gives you the green light, run the copy through email preview software to preview emails on all devices and clients. 

A/B test your Halloween subject line to success

At this point, you may have the most original and engaging subject line to grace the email space. But without A/B testing, we won’t know for sure. Let the audience decide what they like and dislike.

A/B testing is the practice of sending a variety of different subject lines to 20 – 35% of your audience. The winning subject line, which will be sent to the remainder of your list, is decided by the highest open rate. 

Here are some A/B test ideas for your Halloween email subject lines:

• Long vs. short subject lines
• Subject lines with and without personalization
• Subject lines with and without emojis
• Negative Statements, questions and exclamations
• FOMO vs. clickbaity subject lines
• Vague vs. straightforward subject lines
• Subject lines promising discounts or generating a sense of urgency

A/B testing is OK. A/B/C/D/E/F/G testing is better. That’s why Mailjet’s A/B testing feature allows you to test up to 10 versions of an email subject line simultaneously. Try a combination of the techniques mentioned above to create subject line variations for testing. 

You could try 10 small variations of the same subject line. Or you could go with 10 totally different ideas altogether.  

There are limitless options when it comes to A/B testing – master the art with our “Definitive guide to A/B tests”.

Create Halloween email marketing campaigns with Mailjet

It’s that time of year to celebrate Halloween, go trick or treating, and get creative. However, between email design, A\B testing, and subscriber list segmentation – there’s not enough time in the year. 

Mailjet’s intuitive and collaborative email platform comes packed with tons of treats to help with those troublesome details. Tools like the A/B Testing feature automatically discovers the best-performing headline and completes the campaign for you.

You can spend less time with the troublesome details and more time writing that killer subject line. We’ll look out for your email in our inbox soon! 

Have you created a killer subject line? Maybe you found a pretty cool headline in your inbox? Send them to us on Twitter and we might feature it here! 

The post Create Eye-Catching Halloween Email Subject Lines: Tips & Examples appeared first on Email Marketing - SMTP services - Mailjet.