subject line best practices

Email marketing is a great way to reach your clients, no matter where they are. This is because on average 91% of people check their email on a daily basis and 58% check their email first thing in the morning. As a small business owner, email marketing offers an effective way to grow your business by targeting existing and potential clients. Additionally, email marketing has a greater return on investment (ROI) than other digital marketing strategies. Here are some email campaigns designed to increase ROI.

Recall Reminders

While acquiring new clients is essential to business growth, your existing clients are the bread and butter of your business. It’s important to maintain a steady flow of current clients to your office. Recall reminders are an effective way to keep track of your clients and remind them to book an appointment if it’s been a while since their last one. Most communications softwares will automatically trigger an email to your client based on the settings that you choose. Recall emails free up your office staff from making phone calls to clients, saving you time and money.

Promotional Emails

Nothing gets better engagement rates from clients like a good offer or incentive. Promotional emails with an offer in the subject line receive a high open-rate, which can lead to a completed action. In fact, 61% of consumers enjoy receiving promotional emails weekly, according to Marketing Sherpa. Simply including an offer for a discount on a service or product can lead to additional business for your shop. Just be sure to find a good balance in offering promotions. Once a quarter could keep a consistent flow of business coming in without leaving clients expecting deals all of the time.

Social Following

Social media creates an great opportunity to connect with your clients on a more personal level. However, you need to grow your following in order to have meaningful engagement on your social pages. A great way to gain followers is by asking your current customers through an email – maybe after an appointment. The email should include a clear ‘Follow Us’ call-to-action and lead them to the social media page that’s most important to your business. Social media engagement often leads to referrals and sales which is great for your bottom line. By combining social media with email marketing, you can grow your client list and your ROI.

Email marketing can be a great addition to your marketing mix. It’s important to stay consistent in your branding, and send frequency. Be sure to strive for staying at the top of your client’s mind, but not necessarily the top of their inbox!

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-stats-list

Email best practices for small business

Email marketing is an effective way to engage current customers and keep your small business at the top of their mind. When done right, it can increase foot traffic, sales and word-of-mouth referrals. According to a Direct Marketing Association study, email has a median return on investment more than four times higher than other marketing formats surveyed, including social media and paid search.*

But how can you get a piece of that pie? It’s all about creating an effective strategy that is supported by email best practices. Follow these tactics for your small business email marketing to see profitable results.

Build your email list from legitimate opt-ins

It may be tempting to purchase email address lists, but you’ll soon find out it’s a waste of your budget. Since these people didn’t actively opt-in to your emails, they will likely end up in their spam folder, or the user will add them to their junk folder themselves which is detrimental to your email deliverability score. If that score is affected negatively, your emails will rarely reach any inboxes.

Tip: Add an email sign up sheet at your front desk, or include an email opt-in field in the footer of your website.

Implement CAN-SPAM Act requirements

The CAN-SPAM Act rules are simple, and must be followed.

Your ‘To,’ ‘From,’ or ‘Reply to’ information cannot be false or misleading
Subject lines must be relevant to the email message
Include your business mailing address at the bottom of every email
Make your ‘unsubscribe’ button obvious and put it in every email
Remove email addresses who have opted-out within 10 days of their request
Identify what messages are ads, like sponsorships or advertorials
Monitor what third party agencies are doing for you in regards to email

If you’re in Canada, the CASL rules are different, and a bit more specific, so be sure to keep yourself updated on them.

Tip: Use an email marketing platform to easily implement most of these requirements.

Segment your email list for relevancy

Each of your customers are unique, so they should be communicated to in specific ways. When you see them in person you don’t offer each of them the same treatments or services, so it shouldn’t be done via email either. For example, as a veterinarian you can target your customers who own dogs and separate their messaging from those who own cats, or ferrets. Cat and ferret owners would be segmented into their own category as well.

Plan a series of communications for your segments. It’s not a good practice to email your audience once and never again. Find a good balance in your email frequency.

Tip: Segment your dog owner emails even further by separating their messages by puppy, adult and senior. The more relevant the content, the better your results will be.

Use clear and concise writing and formatting

There is a ton of competition out there for your audience’s attention, so clear and concise writing is really important. Here are some helpful guidelines:

Your subject line should never be more than 60 characters long so the full subject can be read in the inbox. This will help your open rates.
Your preview text – also known as a ‘preview’ of your email in the inbox – should only be between 60-90 characters long.
Headlines make it easy for the reader’s eye to skim the body of your email. Make sure your headline font is at least 30 pixels and your body font is 13-16 pixels.
Formatting your content with bullet points and bolded phone numbers call help draw attention to important information.

Tip: Use actionable content in your call to action buttons instead of ‘Click here.’ For example: Get Started, Learn More, Schedule Today, or Request an Appointment.

Personalize your emails to each individual

Personalizing your emails will really help boost your click-thru rates, which often lead to conversions. Use your customer’s first name when you start your emails, send them a birthday message with a coupon, and send them an email reminding them to reschedule any missed appointments. With personal, relevant and concise emails, you’ll be surprised to see how well your emails perform.

Tip: Use your customer’s first name in the subject line when applicable.

Email marketing takes time to set up properly. But once you’ve done that, you can have fun with testing different messaging with different audiences. Once you have your first successful email campaign, you’ll be motivated and excited to create the next one. For more advice on starting your first email, read our Step-by-Step Guide to Sending Your First Email Campaign.

*https://thedma.org/marketing-insights/response-rate-report/