Designing the perfect marketing email: Do's and don'ts to make your message stand out

A digital marketing strategy is one of the most crucial elements of a business or organization’s marketing toolbelt, and it can contain many moving parts that ultimately work together to reach short and long-term businesses goals. Good digital strategy has the potential to transform business operations by driving revenue, building broad brand awareness, uncovering new and untapped audiences, boosting online engagement, and increasing customer retention and loyalty. But, quite frankly, it can be overwhelming for businesses and organizations to navigate the best ways to reach customers, new and returning.  

Even with the boom of social media marketing tactics, don’t be too quick to abandon good old-fashioned email as a powerful communication tool. Emails grant the ability to tailor the exact information going out to recipients, customize visual elements, track analytics, and provide a sound return on investment with little effort on the backend compared to pay-per-click advertising, strenuous ad campaigns, or promoted content on social media channels.  

Here are some quick do’s and don’ts to make the most of marketing email efforts, and a few of the ways that Dynamics 365 Marketing is the perfect tool to automate email campaigns.  

Do:

Establish a brand identity

Make sure customers know exactly who they are interacting with. Clear branding makes businesses and organizations recognizable across different platforms, and the impression should be distinct and memorable. Emails should clearly display logos, use cohesive imagery like brand color schemes and the established brand voice, and live links to the website and relevant social media profiles.  

Branding allows businesses and organizations to build relationships with their audiences, which can translate into sales and brand loyalty over time. Customer (or prospective customer) perception of imagery—like social media presence, logo use, values, and voice—overlaps and builds into an overall “personality,” which can make or break their likelihood of completing a purchase, attending an event, making recurring donations, or other key activities.  

Make it personal

Emails are a rare direct line of communication to a target audience, so don’t pass up the opportunity to show the customer you care. When content feels tailor-made for each individual recipient, they may feel like they’re part of a community as opposed to someone who occasionally buys things from a certain brand. Carefully curated emails can mention the recipient by name, recommend certain products based on their viewing history, use imagery based on demographic information, send personalized or “just for you” offers, and more. The less general or generic an email feels, the more likely it is to strengthen the customer relationship and increase trust in the brand overall.  

Generate interest

Although marketing emails ultimately serve the purpose of generating revenue, they shouldn’t be overtly so—sales will come after trust is formed, and businesses should be mindful of the language used to avoid coming off too strong. It’s best for emails to be informative and generate brand interest, not pushy and overly sales oriented. With that in mind, however, don’t forget about the email’s call to action—without it, marketing material just becomes inbox clutter and leaves potential customers directionless.  

The call to action is the specific action email recipients should take that ultimately leads to a conversion, or the desired outcome of an interaction. For example, a conversion could be when an embedded video is watched, a link is clicked, a webpage is visited, tickets are purchased for an upcoming event, etc. Common calls to action are “learn more,” “sign up,” “shop now,” and “register today."  

Keep segments in mind

Create tailored content for specific audiences using segments. Contacts and mailing lists can be segmented into lists and broken down into microscopic details like click interactions in marketing emails, completed journeys, geographic location, number of sales to date, and even when their birthday is— allowing for a high degree of customization for each experience. The more specialized a customer’s experience is, the more connected they may feel, and in turn, the more sales they may complete over time. 

Tell a visual story

Of course, emails should contain information that is important and relevant to the recipient, but messaging should also be visually compelling to keep recipients interested from top to bottom. Break up monotony with one to three images to create visual appeal without overwhelming the reader. 

Get creative! This is the perfect opportunity to incorporate exciting elements like color, graphics, GIFs, and clickable buttons to keep recipients interested and engaged with the content and messaging. Key information can be emphasized with graphic elements, custom fonts, and thoughtful placement within the email contents. 

Be strategic with subject lines

The subject line is the first impression an email makes on the recipient, and it should generate immediate interest and persuade them to open it. Dull subject lines don’t compel recipients to open the message, it compels them to send it to the trash. Subject lines should be eye-catching and get to the point in about six to ten words.  

There's no golden rule to the length of the email itself, since length can vary from industry, audience, segment it’s sent to, purpose of email, etc. but generally should be no longer than 20 lines, and should not be one consecutive block of text. Readers should only have to scroll twice or three times to reach the bottom of the email and complete the call to action. The thesis statement, or main selling point of the email, should be easily articulated and identifiable in one or two lines, and then elaborated in the copy to follow.  

Don’t:

Bury important information

Nobody checks their email to read a novel. If recipients consider an email too wordy, they may just skim it or delete it after the first glance—and all its crucial contents (and your hard work) are now down the drain. And what’s the point of sending an email if the whole point is glossed over because crucial information is buried? Be strategic with the wording of email contents to make sure that the main focus or selling point is clearly laid out and sticks in the reader’s mind, even after moving on to clear the rest of their inbox.  

Of course, event invitations and sales promotions are different than a lengthier monthly roundup or newsletter, but a good rule of thumb is to keep content as concise as possible, with a clear call to action laid out at the end or mentioned throughout.  

Send too many emails all at once, or none at all

Email frequency can make or break a prospective customer’s willingness to interact with brand content, and may unsubscribe if they feel bombarded with daily, or even weekly emails. Similarly, send too few emails and an item that once excited a prospective customer is old, forgotten news. Be strategic with timing and reap the benefits as subscribers become more consistent and engaged. 

For example, be sure to send confirmation when someone has successfully subscribed to a newsletter, but don’t start blasting new subscribers with every piece of marketing material in the vault. Instead, spread email campaigns out over the course of a few weeks and months, and stay consistent enough to stay on a prospective customer’s radar until they complete their first purchase. 

Leave mobile users behind

Unsurprisingly, most emails are now opened on mobile—a whopping  81% of emails, actually. If a message loads slowly or is awkwardly formatted for mobile screens, some readers will delete it within seconds of opening it. Take smaller screen sizes into account when formatting emails and make sure that layout, contents, images, and buttons are all optimized to not just be viewable, but to flow seamlessly for mobile users.  

Ignore analytics

Email marketing packs a punch when it comes to the effort that goes into emails vs the metrics received in return. Campaign reporting can offer useful insights on open rates, click through rates, and customer behaviors. Emails offering discount codes could have noticeably higher click through rates compared to newsletters or emails asking for a year-end donation. Gathered analytics can help refine segments and email lists to better assign which emails are sent to whom. 

Poor performance analytics could be discouraging, but this information can be used advantageously with a little strategic planning. Inactive subscribers could be enticed back in with a reactivation campaign, offering an exclusive discount to regain their interest. Analytics can also report the health of subscription lists with insights on inactivity, interaction with email contents, low open rates, or incomplete customer journeys for list cleanup made easy.  

Forget to follow up

Good email marketing is not a one-and-done event. Leads can turn into loyal, lifelong customers if the relationship has been invested in over time. Consistent contact will keep content on the recipient’s radar to the point where they look forward to messages from your business or organization.  

Email tools in Dynamics 365 Marketing

Dynamics 365 Marketing is the premier marketing automation platform that gives users a personalized experience to customize everything from segments and user permissions to forms and event management. One major tool to utilize in a digital marketing strategy is the email template creator and campaign automation. The drag-and-drop interface of the email designer is an easy way to create email templates ahead of time to grab and go with each new campaign. Templates allow the user to add personalization features like the contact’s name, location, or other relevant information. Marketing email reports can be run to gain valuable insights into how specific customers interacted with messages and content as well.   

Customer journeys create customizable models that guide members of a segment, including prospective customers, through a process that can potentially end in a sale. Journeys can be made up of strategically timed emails, moments of follow up with individual leads, enticing old customers back in, and more. Segment through this process by using automated messaging, activity generation, interactive decision points, and more. Email campaigns can be easily embedded into customer journeys to automatically send compelling marketing content at critical times in the customer lifecycle. 

The marketing email workspace allows users to run reports and gain insights on campaigns, gathering useful analytics like total delivered messages, opens, unique opens, open rates, clicks, click through rates, generated leads, unsubscribes, and more. Once this information is integrated into a digital marketing strategy, it can offer a new look at the best way to reach every contact. 

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Don’t settle for boring digital marketing materials. Dynamics 365 Marketing has powerful tools to help businesses take control of their digital strategy and take it to the next level. Think this is a good fit for your business? Connect with a consultant to discuss your marketing goals and see how Dynamics 365 can help you achieve them.