Emai l Market ing: Best Pract icesMeagan Kurnat, West Bloomfield ParksDesiree Stanfield, Oakland County Parks

Why focus on emai l?

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Why emai l?

▪ Cost effective

▪ High ROI

▪ Easy to target demographics

▪ Results are measurable

▪ Consistent communication helps build relationships with

customers

43% of consumersPrefer to hear weekly from companies/organizations

91% of people check emai l dai ly

3x conversion rateCompared to social channels

Bottom LineEmail is still the most highly effective tactic used to drive a large audience to action.

Design Best Pract ices

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• Content & Subject Lines

Visual Design & Color

Design effects del iverabi l ty

Content Best Pract ices

• “Call to action” or CTA• Make it clear from the start of the email what action you want the reader to take

• “Above the fold” still matters• As word counts go up, readership goes down• Content idea: repurpose high performing social media content in e-blasts.

CTA

Subject Lines

• Keep subject lines simple• Include a CTA when appropriate• Strive to keep under 54 characters or fewer than 8 words

• Avoid using excessive punctuation or text in all caps

• Make sure your subject line matches the content of what’s in your email

• Use a preheader to help boost open rates.

Subject Line

Preheader

Preheader Excluded

65% of emai ls are opened on a phone/tablet

48.23%

16.52%

35.25%

MobileTabletDesktop

Use a “mobi le f i rst” approach

Content rules:• Use the two sentence rule• Only include content that is absolutely necessary

• Use multiple headers to break up content blocks

Design Tips

• Use white space• Ensure font size is large enough• Use relevant graphics to compliment text and intice users to take action

• Make sure graphics are optimized for quick download (750 px wide, smaller than 100kb)

• Match brand standards or at least use a consistent template

🎨🎨

Brand Standards

• Logo• Brand colors• Tagline• Tone, messaging• Font• Standard template or headers

Use a “mobi le f i rst” approach

Other things to keep in mind:• Use large buttons as opposed to hyperlinked text.

• Test email on desktop AND mobile before sending.

• If you’re pinching/scrolling left to right, it’s not mobile friendly.

• A one column design will help ensure the email looks good on mobile.

Color Matters

Color Pairings• Four main ways you can pair colors: Complimentary, Arbitrary, Contrasting or Matching

• Complementary colors are the most visually appealing and naturally attract the eye to those focal points.

• Try making “call to action” buttons a complementary color to your email header

🎨🎨 Complementary colors

Design affects del iverabi l i ty

Images:• Limit number of images• Make sure images are sized

correctly• Don’t use images where

HTML could be used (like shaded boxes and borders)

Images Content Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks:• Avoid unnecessary links

• Avoid common hyperlinking terms like “learn more” and “click here”

Content:• Make sure to always include

content in an email• If you send just an image, there

is a high probability it will go to spam. Or users won’t see the text within the image if they don’t download images.

Ask for help!

• If you’re paying a monthly fee for your e-blast service, you are also likely paying for support.

• Most providers have people on staff who can code, help with best practices, evaluate your program, etc.

• Schedule regular “check-ups”

Examples: the good, bad and the ugly

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Segmentat ion4

Segmentat ion

▪ Provide subscribers with choices for areas of interest

▪ Keeps subscribers engaged and results in fewer emails received

▪ Clean list annually; add new categories

Bui lding Your Audience

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Bui lding your audience

▪ Every interaction is an opportunity to grow your list

▪ Require email for registration of programs, events

▪ Collect emails at trade shows, camp registrations, etc.

▪ Add email opt-in to website

Adding a Website Overlay

Pop up notifications or “overlays” can help capture website traffic into your customer database.

Some things to keep in mind:▪ Don’t be too intrusive (can even

affect your SEO if you are)▪ Keep mobile in mind▪ Only ask once

36% increase in new subscribers

Establ ish your frequency

▪ Events/programs requiring registration require longer lead time

▪ Learn your audience’s preferences from staff feedback

▪ More isn’t better

Avoiding the Spam Folder

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Keep subscriber l ists updated

• Remove hard and soft bounced email addresses

• Its better to have less, more engaged readers than a large list of subscribers

• Consider “reactivation campaign” to engage non-active users/remove inactive ones

Sender Score

• Email providers are constantly updating their algorythms to combat the billions of emails sent daily.

• Sender Score is a number between 0 and 100 that identifies your sender reputation and shows you how mailbox providers view your IP address.

• Spam filters consider a long list of criteria when judging the “spamminess” of an email.

• Variety of for-profit companies can calculate your sender score: one is www.senderscore.org.

What determines Sender Score?

• Complaints • List quality • Length of sending history• Subscriber engagement

• Positive engagement: messages read, forwarded, replied to or marked as “not spam”

• Negative engagement: Messages marked as spam or messages deleted before being read

What can you do?

• Follow design best practices.• Avoid cliché content/phrases.• Don’t embed videos directly.• Use a mix of graphics and content.• Know your engagement rate and work to improve it.

Analyzing Metrics

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Which metrics matter?

01 Engagement Rate

02 Click Rate

03 Open Rate

Engagement Rate

▪ Engagement rate tracks your most active audience members (those who clicked or opened an email in the past 90 days).

▪ It is one of the most important metrics to measure as it guages a messaging strategy over a period of time.

Ways to improve Engagement Rate

▪ Utilize the “Three Ts”: tone, timing and targeting

▪ Test what works

▪ Balance images with a strong subject line

▪ Keep it short

▪ Have a compelling call to action

Click Rate

▪ Click rates represent the number of recipients who clicked on a link within an email, divided by the total number who received the message.

▪ Good indication of how effective your call to action is.

Ways to improve Cl ick Rate

▪ Ensure all links are relevant and take users exactly where they need to go (example: don’t lead readers to your homepage and force them to search for a specific page)

▪ Test your call to action (Analyze individual messages to see which ones drive action)

▪ Make it easy for your readers to take action (big colorful buttons, streamlined content and an immediate call to action)

Open Rate

▪ Open rate is the number of participants who opened an email compared to the number who received it.

▪ Not a comprehensive metric but still useful.

Ways to improve Open Rate

▪ Segment your audience

▪ Keep your subject lines simple and sucinct

▪ Personalization

▪ Consider bundling emails to cut down on frequency

Questions?8