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9 Things Every Business Email Should Have | iContact – EAL News

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According to a recent Adobe Email Survey, white collar Americans are spending a lot more time with email — time spent with email is up 17% year over year. Millennials spend the most time with email of any age group — most of them (90%), on mobile. It’s the way a lot of them begin their day; 50% of millennials check their email while still in bed in the morning.

There’s no denying that email marketing is one of the best ways to connect with your customers and prospects, pretty much on a 24/7 cycle. That’s why it’s important that everything — from design to proofreading to crafting a perfect signature — be taken into careful consideration, before you hit send.

Here are 9 important elements that every good email must have.

1. An informative subject line

First impressions are everything. If your From name alone isn’t enough to entice your subscriber to open, your subject line must be a winner.

When composing your subject line, make sure it includes specific text so subscribers will know what they are getting when they open your email (In other words, your subscriber needs to have a clear idea of WIIFM – what’s in it for me?). This will pique their curiosity, urge them to prioritize your email, and prove that it’s not spam or junk mail.

Avoid using clickbait subject lines that make your message look like spam. The moment an email subject line tricks or misinforms a subscriber to open an email is the moment you lose that subscriber’s trust. They will either unsubscribe or (worse still), never open another email from you again.

If you need some help writing effective subject lines, these resources will help.

With the holiday marketing/charitable giving season well underway, it’s especially important to use subject lines that stand out in crowded inboxes. You can find some great subject lines for holiday email marketing campaigns here.

2. Your contact information

You would be surprised by how many senders forget to include contact information within their emails. If you want to maintain good channels of communication with your subscribers, make it easy for them to reach you. Make sure to include the basics: your company name and links to your social media channels and website. This makes it easier for people to know who sent the email, as well as making it more convenient to contact you instead of having to search online. Showing your subscriber that there is an actual person behind your emails whom they can contact directly is a great way to maintain engagement and trust.

3. Your website

We mentioned it above, but it’s so important that it is worth repeating: A link to your website is absolutely essential in your emails. The reason? Your website is where your subscribers are going to find out more information about your business, and most importantly, where they’re going to purchase your goods or services. Don’t let your website or landing page link get lost in the fluff of your email; it could be your main call to action and should stand out.

4. The right email address

I don’t know about you, but if I received an email from johnsmith@aol.com who supposedly works for a cutting-edge online marketing agency, I’m not going to take the message seriously. For starters, @aol.com addresses are outdated. And secondly, receiving a brand message from a personal account is simply unprofessional and untrustworthy. Using free, public email providers like aol.com or even gmail.com as your business address makes your email look amateur and can impact deliverability. Your From domain should be consistent with your company name and/or website. This helps maintain your reputation as a credible business sender and will also help you avoid the spam folder.

Today, businesses are expected to have several different contact email addresses, for instance:

  • info@ for general information regarding your business
  • your name@yourbusiness.com so your readers know there’s an actual person on the other end
  • support@ for any troubleshooting concerns or questions.
  • billing@ for accepting online payments.

It’s best to select one email address to send all mass mailings from, and having a business email address is a mark of professionalism and reinforces your brand identity.

5. A great header

The header is the first thing your readers will see when they open your email. Make a great first impression on your audience by including your logo and elements such as colors that reflect your brand identity.

A great header increases your credibility and legitimacy throughout your message. Make it unique, interesting, and relevant with an attention-grabbing headline and clear branding.

6. Personal salutation

Your subscribers receive a lot of emails each day. That’s why it’s important to stand out from the pack by including a personal salutation in your emails. This allows you to nurture the relationship and show that you care about each subscriber as an individual.

How do you approach contacts when you don’t have their full name? To create a personalization field customized to your audience, you need to think about your relationship to the subscriber. Check out these five not-so-personal greetings that can still feel personal (even when you are missing a first name) in this blog post.

7. A clear call to action

Speaking of a call to action — you need to have a clear call to action in every email you send. Why? Because it’s going to guide your subscribers to what you want them to do next, whether that’s simply clicking on a link, visiting your website, filling out a form, or making a donation. The moment you fail to offer a CTA is the moment you (most likely) lose engagement.

A CTA should always be specific, highly visible, and easy to follow. With more than half of all emails now being opened on a mobile device, many of your readers are viewing your message on their smartphones or pads. Because of that, make sure your CTA button is large enough so it’s easy to see and click on a smaller mobile screen.

That said, do not overwhelm your subscribers with too many CTAs in one email. This will appear desperate and spammy and will ultimately detract from the usefulness of your marketing content.

8. Visuals

Including visual content like graphs and compelling images in your emails makes your messages stand out by:

  • Grabbing the attention of your readers
  • Conveying important information quickly
  • Making your content more shareable
  • Encouraging your message to go viral
  • Setting you apart from text-heavy, generic email marketing campaigns

While clear and focused visuals are beneficial to your emails, don’t go overboard. If you have too many images, it may slow down the loading speed of your emails, and that may lead an impatient reader to trash your message without ever viewing its contents. You also want to have a good balance of images vs. text as an image heavy email could trigger spam filters.

9. A professional closing

If you have a salutation, then it makes sense to have a closing. But what is the most professional signoff?

Business Insider found that when in doubt, go with “Best” because it’s safe, “inoffensive, and almost universally appropriate.”

Interestingly, the article states you should avoid using common signoffs like “Thanks,” “Best wishes,” “Sincerely,” “Looking forward;” also avoid slang and acronyms like TTYL (“talk to you later”) or TAFN (“that’s all for now”).

Whatever closing you choose, it should reflect your brand voice and the tone of the rest of your email.

Need more information about crafting a great email? Check out our infographic: Anatomy of an E-Commerce Newsletter

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