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Oct 21, 2024

The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing in 2025: Strategies, Tips and Best Practices

The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing in 2025: Strategies, Tips and Best Practices
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Augustine Ojeh
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Is email marketing outdated? That’s one question that has sparked a lot of arguments among digital marketers.  Since email marketing has lasted for over 40 years, it’s normal for many to assume that it has lost its potency amid the new shiny digital marketing channels, especially social media.

Despite being the oldest digital marketing strategy, over 4 billion people still use emails every day. That’s about half the world’s population. No other form of digital communication has achieved such numbers despite the hype around them.

Also, email marketing revenue is predicted to hit 17.9 billion by 2027. Social media platforms can experience glitches and shut down for hours, depriving business owners of reaching their target audience. However, email marketing remains one of the most stable channels that businesses can trust to retain contact with customers.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a digital marketing channel that uses emails to send personalized messages to customers and prospects to keep them updated about the products or services a business offers. This marketing strategy allows you to educate and inform your audience about how your brand impacts them to achieve customer loyalty.

It gives businesses direct access to an individual’s inbox, which makes your marketing efforts more targeted. With a solid campaign strategy, you can generate leads, increase brand awareness, build relationships, and boost customer retention by engaging customers.

Email Marketing Essentials

Before we dive deep into how to send an email, you must understand the essentials of creating a successful campaign. Here are some email tricks to keep up your sleeve:

1. Put your audience first:

Despite the benefits of AI tools in creating emails, there are still some limitations in producing human content. If you want to succeed in email marketing, it is essential to prioritize your audience, show empathy and create relatable content that shows the human side of your company.

2. Avoid clickbait:

Customers are wary of spam emails with misleading titles that offer no real value to users. Your business can only stand out using engaging titles with content that keeps readers glued to the end. For example, using words like “shocking”, “last chance” or “limited time,” to create a false sense of urgency can work once. However, it will only make your readers distrust you and even unsubscribe.

According to Adobe, 85% of users use smartphones to access email.

Clickbaits also make it easy for your emails to end up in the spam folder. And that’s something you don’t want.

3. Less is more:

According to Adobe, 85% of users use smartphones to access email, this trend is particularly prominent among individuals aged 25-34, with 90% using smartphones to check their emails.

Owing to this, you must keep the content brief and simple to retain their attention and make them anticipate your emails. In cases where you want to share tons of information, you can direct them to your website just like ClickUp does.

Concise email copy from ClickUp

4. Always remember CTAs:

Every effective email marketing campaign aims to get customers to take a specific action. You need a strong CTA strategically placed in your emails to inspire customers to take action. When you sign up to monday.com, you receive an email with an unconventional CTA, “Show Me How.” This CTA is a clear way this software company uses to encourage customers to use the tool.

Call to action on monday.com email

 

5. Keep your word:

The world is full of people who say one thing and do another. Whatever you do, don’t allow your brand to be classified among those. Avoid shortcuts, never buy email lists, and always provide customers access to impressive offers.

Tips to Get the Most of Email Marketing

You’re a business sending emails to your prospects, and you must handle such an opportunity with care because you can be sent packing anytime. You must implement these proven steps to gain new leads, retarget old customers and gain automated feedback to improve your services.

Create an email marketing strategy

For your marketing efforts to succeed, you need a campaign strategy. Creating the best email marketing strategies first involves defining your target audience, understanding their needs, and building targeted email campaigns to meet their desires.

Study their age range, demographics, gender, and behavioral patterns so you can serve them with relatable content.

 

Define your email marketing goals

You must highlight what you want to achieve with the emails you send to your customers. Are you trying to drive sales? Do you want to nurture leads? Do you plan to boost customer loyalty?

Asking yourself these questions and identifying your category will significantly impact the kind of content you create. Your goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timebound for your team to achieve.

Build an email list

What’s the essence of drafting emails when no one receives them? Your email list covers all users who have given their consent for you to send them content that relates to your brand. The ideal way to build your email list is to start small and build your way up. The next section covers how to build an email list in more detail. 

Choose your campaign type

There are different email marketing campaigns, and you must choose the ideal one for your business. In a case where you have more than 1 email list, you should separate your contacts into different groups so they’ll only receive emails that are valuable to them. You can decide to send newsletters to deepen your relationship with customers or transactional emails to sell directly to your clients. Whether you’re running an e-commerce business or providing a service, identifying the right campaign type is key.

Find a suitable email marketing software

An email marketing software, also known as an email service provider (ESP), makes life easier for marketers and business owners. This software helps you manage your email list easily without getting overwhelmed. With this software, you can automate tasks, send email blasts, save time, and focus better on other business activities.

In addition, when choosing email marketing software, you must consider your budget, needs, and team size. Also, check for specific features your business needs and ensure the email marketing software you choose delivers them excellently. For example, if you’re sending a mobile-intensive campaign, you should consider using software that helps you preview them on mobile before sending them. A myriad of email marketing software offers this feature, including, Sendinblue, SendGrid, Hubspot, and others.

How Do I Create a Mailing List for Email Marketing?

Creating a mailing list for email is not rocket science. You only need to find your target audience that’s eager to receive updates from your brand.

There are innovative ways to fill up your mailing list as a campaign strategist, and it’s not about cutting corners. These email acquisition strategies include:

Lead magnets

The average person receives 121 emails daily, which means the chances of you getting your prospect’s email address for free are slim. People already have to deal with tons of emails which makes them super protective of their personal information. 

Lead magnets are built on the principle of give and take, where you attract prospects with a free offering. Once your target audience perceives your offer as valuable, you can gain their personal information.  The best lead magnets relieve your prospects and make their lives easier.

It can be an ebook, infographic, whitepaper, template, course, tool, or report. Creating a lead magnet allows you to introduce your prospects to a paid solution, especially after you’ve gained their trust.

Opt-in forms

An opt-in form is a legal document you present to your target audience through landing pages, pop-up forms, or within your web pages requesting their consent to receive your emails. This is required by privacy laws including the GDPR and CCPA. Also, opt-in forms show that your recipient is really interested in receiving your email.

How Do I Get the Best Email Marketing Results?

Despite how powerful email marketing is, many businesses fail at it. To boost your email marketing results and create scroll-stopping campaigns, consider the following tips:

 

Segment your contact lists

Segmenting your contacts is basically splitting them into small groups. Let’s say you have 10,000 contacts in total, segmenting will involve dividing your contacts based on gender, demographics, job title, previous purchases, behavioral patterns, and preferences. Instead of sending the same emails to your entire contact list, separating them will ensure that each person receives emails relevant to their needs.

Since 50% of customers are more likely to click segmented emails, you need to ask your customers for their personal details, so you can structure the emails accordingly. When you send emails that genuinely interest your customers, it shows that you care about their needs and increases their trust in your brand. When customers trust your brand, converting them into loyal customers is easier. And all of these benefits can only be accessed when you segment your contact lists appropriately.

Design mobile-friendly emails

Over 60% of emails are opened on a mobile phone which has outnumbered those who use a desktop and other devices. To increase your results as a campaign strategist, you must take email marketing optimization for mobile seriously. This will position you better to harness opportunities of reaching prospects and existing customers.

Ensure the email marketing software lets you view your emails on mobile. This way, you can check if the content aligns well with mobile and make appropriate adjustments. You can also reduce load time by decreasing the image file sizes. The best email marketing software lets you preview your emails on mobile, so you’ll get a feel of how your emails will look.

As seen through this example, Sendinblue allows you to create mobile-friendly emails to reach a large percentage of your customers using mobile.

 Sendinblue email preview on mobile

A/B test or split test your email campaigns

A/B testing is one of the best email marketing tricks you can use to improve the results of your marketing efforts. This method helps you identify the campaigns that’ll attract your customers and those that fall below standard. With A/B testing, you can analyze anything that concerns the targeted email campaigns you’re creating. The elements you can test include:

  • Subject Lines
  • Email copy
  • Email length
  • Images
  • CTAs
  • Style elements
  • Links

Hubspot is an example of an email service provider that allows you to perform an A/B Test easily. It allows you to identify the areas that need adjustment so you’ll put effort into and explore your creative side to create compelling emails.

How to Write Email Marketing Copy That Drives Results 

The success of your campaign strategy lies in the power of your email copy. Regardless of how attractive your emails are, if the content is crappy, it will drive zero results.

Here’s how to write email marketing copy that doesn’t suck:

Subject lines are like book titles. The first thing your audience sees determines whether they’ll open your email or trash it. Also, subject lines play a vital role in avoiding email spam folders. Yea, that’s a lot, but let me break it down.

According to Adobe, 85% of emails are opened on smartphones. So, ensure the entire subject line displayed on the recipient’s screen. Typically, the smartphone shows up to 10 words from an email subject line. Too long, and you miss the chance to send a message.

Speaking of the message, your subject line promises what the reader should expect from the email. Use cliché subject lines, and you’ll fail to excite the recipient. Also, if you sound too “high and mighty”, the recipient may call your bluff. While setting the reader’s expectations, be confident in your subject line without being boastful. Most importantly, to avoid the spam folder, you should avoid selling in the subject line and keep it direct.

Also, nothing is more exciting than being addressed by your own name. It makes you feel seen. That’s why McKinsey and many other big players believe personalization is the future. When building your email list, find a way to collect the recipient’s name. The first name will do. And add the name variable to your email subject line, e.g. {FirstName}. Virtually all email marketing software lets you do this.

So, you can have a subject line that reads somewhat like “Become a Certified Email Marketer in 15 days, Aaron.”

Every brand has a unique, engaging voice. I bet your brand does. If you haven’t figured that out yet, here’s how to find your brand voice. While the brand voice should be evident in your web copies, it must also be loudly obvious in your emails.

Also, your email copies need to be scannable. People skim emails. So, keeping your sentences short and straight to the point will help immensely. Most importantly, avoid heavy paragraph blocks. You can have only 2 or 3 sentences per paragraph. One sentence is enough sometimes.

Emails are quick to read but can still be considered a waste of time if it doesn’t offer the reader any real value. So, when writing your emails, remember the reader’s challenges. And be near certain that your email answers their most pressing questions.

So, here’s a quick checklist for creating a crisp email copy:

  • Keep it concise and straight to the point.
  • Use everyday words and avoid jargons that might require looking up the dictionary.
  • Keep the email scannable with short sentences and sparse paragraphs.
  • Maintain a voice that’s consistent with your brand.
  • Keep the recipient in mind and make sure your email answers their questions.

Talk benefits, not features

What is in it for me? That’s the first question that flashes through a customer’s mind when interacting with your content. When writing email copy, resist the urge to glorify your brand and product features. If you’re throwing a discount or giveaway at your target audience, you must ensure they understand the value behind your offering. Avoid being salesy. Instead, craft your email copy focusing on your customers’ concerns and how your offering can solve that.

In the example below, Sendinblue follows this approach by first considering customer needs before suggesting their email marketing tool as the ideal solution. Straight away you can see from their messaging and language that they are talking to the benefits you will get from using their solution.

again – talking about the mail copy, as mentioned above, this should and can be joined to the same paragraph

This is another copy content related

again. Crisp copies and subject lines are not the same things

It’s being mentioned again below. This should be added below

it’s different. It’s not the same thing.

Sendinblue welcome email with benefits

Use second-person pronouns

One of the biggest tricks on how to make marketing emails is to use the second person pronoun, “You.” Using this pronoun all over your email copy helps you be conscious of your target audience so you can draft content around their needs. This pronoun gives an impression that your company is not self-absorbed but that you genuinely care about your customers.

Be clear, not clever

Since your customers receive tons of emails daily, you want to create an email copy that stands out. However, while trying to achieve this, you must never sacrifice clarity. If your reader has to think too hard before they understand your message, your email copy has lost its essence. Try to be funny, cute, and catchy, but make sure it is clear.

Use sound elements

Email copy only gives you a few minutes to create a deep impression on your reader about your brand. Using sound elements like rhymes, alliteration, and repetition gives your copy a punchy feel that makes the content memorable in your customer’s mind.

Tell a story

Storytelling can never lose its potency, not now or ever. Telling your customers a story helps you stand out from your competition that’s absorbed in selling features. Customers relate better with stories because they can evoke powerful emotions that even popular AI cannot achieve. Ensure your stories are brief and related to your company’s goals to avoid jumping off point.

In the example below, Semrush gives an insight into customers’ lives by showing how its software can be easily incorporated into daily activities through storytelling. The content is relatable and speaks at eye-level, telling a brief overview of how this individual in the image has redefined her work-life balance through the use of their platform.

Semrush storytelling email

Proofread 

After spending long hours drafting emails, using an email template, and A/B test emails, finding a typographical error after sending it to your recipients will be nerve-wracking. It makes your brand unprofessional, which is terrible for your brand. Take your time to read through the email before sending it out to avoid errors.

How Much Does Email Marketing Cost for Small Businesses?

Email marketing blogs have different estimates of what it should cost a small business to reach its prospects via email. If you want platforms with numerous pricing plans, and free options, you should try:

  • Sendinblue: This email marketing tool is ideal for starting or independent businesses. It has a free plan that allows you to send 300 emails for free. And when you decide to upgrade, Sendinblue provides an affordable plan with powerful features and performance.
  • Hubspot: Hubspot works best for businesses who want advanced features beyond email marketing. Since it has a marketing hub, sales hub, and operations hub, it is a solution that suits businesses with a robust budget.
  • GetResponse: This email marketing tool fits businesses eager to create email campaigns quickly. It has impressive automation features, autoresponders, and templates that make creating campaigns smooth. The only area it lacks is deliverability.

However, if you want to use more advanced features to manage your emails, you’ll spend between $100-$200 monthly. The only aspect where you might incur extra costs is if you plan to hire a campaign strategist to handle your emails as a business owner.

Conclusion

Email marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses to reach and engage with their audience. By implementing the strategies, tips, and best practices outlined in this guide, you can go on to create effective email campaigns that drive conversions and grow your business.

Most importantly, remember to focus on providing value to your subscribers, personalizing your messages, and continuously testing and refining your approach to find what works best for your unique audience. With dedication and attention to detail, email marketing can become a valuable asset to your overall marketing strategy by providing value to your audience.

If you’re looking for the best free email marketing solutions for businesses and marketers in the industry, read our reviews and find the perfect software for you.

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