7 Best Practices You Should Know Before Starting an Email Campaign

Launching an email campaign can be an incredibly effective way to connect with potential customers, nurture leads, and ultimately boost conversions. But for it to be successful, you need a plan that ensures your emails aren’t just opened, but also engage and convert your target audience. Without the right strategy, your emails can end up ignored or, worse, sent to spam.

To help you maximize your email marketing efforts, we’ve put together a list of seven best practices you should follow before starting your next campaign. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just getting started, these tips will guide you towards creating an effective email campaign that delivers real value.

1. Define Your Goals and Audience

Before hitting “send” on any email campaign, it’s critical to define what you want to achieve and who you’re talking to.

Establish Clear Goals

Ask yourself, what do you want to achieve with this campaign? Your goal could be anything from building brand awareness, nurturing leads, driving sales, or re-engaging dormant subscribers. Having a clear and defined goal helps you measure the success of your campaign and keeps your messaging on point.

Identify Your Target Audience

Different segments of your audience will respond to different messaging. Take time to identify the audience you’re reaching out to, considering factors like demographics, behavior, and pain points. Customizing your messaging to speak directly to a specific audience can significantly improve your email’s effectiveness.

Pro Tip: Use customer personas to visualize your target audience—this helps to create messages that resonate and drive action.

2. Build and Clean Your Email List

The success of any email campaign starts with a clean and well-maintained email list. Sending emails to incorrect addresses or uninterested recipients will affect your open rates, engagement, and deliverability.

Grow Your Email List the Right Way

Quality trumps quantity when it comes to email lists. Use methods like signup forms, landing pages, and value-added incentives (such as ebooks or exclusive discounts) to build a list of subscribers who genuinely want to hear from you.

Clean Your Email List Regularly

A clean email list is key to maintaining high deliverability. This means removing inactive subscribers, incorrect email addresses, and duplicates. Services like Heybounce can help you verify and validate email addresses to ensure your list is up-to-date and free of errors.

Pro Tip: Regularly cleaning your list will help keep your engagement rates high, and reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam.

3. Craft an Irresistible Subject Line

Your subject line is the first thing your recipients see. It determines whether they open your email or send it straight to the trash. Spend time crafting a subject line that is intriguing and directly speaks to your audience’s needs.

Best Practices for Subject Lines

• Keep It Short and Sweet: Aim for under 50 characters to ensure readability, even on mobile devices.
• Create Curiosity: A subject line that sparks curiosity will encourage opens. For example, “Are You Making This Common Marketing Mistake?”
• Use Personalization: Including the recipient’s name or something specific about their interests can make your email stand out. E.g., “Sarah, See How You Can Save 20% Today.”

Pro Tip: A/B test different subject lines to see which ones drive more opens. What works for one audience segment might not work for another.

4. Optimize Your Email Content for Engagement

The content of your email must be relevant, engaging, and deliver value to the reader. After all, getting someone to open your email is just half the battle—getting them to take action is the ultimate goal.

Use Personalization

Personalizing your emails goes beyond adding a recipient’s name to the subject line. You can reference their previous interactions with your company, or offer product recommendations based on their past behavior. Personalized emails tend to see higher open and click-through rates.

Keep It Scannable

People are busy and often skim through emails rather than read them in detail. Use headers, bullet points, and short paragraphs to make your content easy to digest.

Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Your email should have one clear goal, and your CTA should reflect that. Whether you want recipients to visit your website, sign up for a webinar, or make a purchase, make sure your CTA is prominently displayed and easy to click.

Pro Tip: Use action-oriented language in your CTAs—phrases like “Download Now,” “Get Your Free Trial,” or “Shop the Sale” are effective.

5. Pay Attention to Design and Mobile Optimization

Email design is not just about aesthetics; it’s also about functionality. With over 60% of emails being opened on mobile devices, it’s crucial that your email design looks great on both desktop and mobile.

Keep It Simple

A clean and simple design works best. Avoid overly complicated graphics or too much text that can overwhelm readers. Stick to a clear hierarchy with visual cues that guide the reader to your CTA.

Test for Mobile Responsiveness

Make sure your email is optimized for mobile users. Use tools to preview your emails on different devices and email clients to ensure it looks great no matter where it’s opened.

Pro Tip: Buttons should be large enough to be clicked easily on a smartphone—aim for at least 44x44 pixels for touch targets.

6. Timing Matters: Choose the Right Time to Send

When it comes to email marketing, timing can be everything. The time and day you choose to send your emails can have a significant impact on your open and click-through rates.

Best Days to Send Emails

Studies suggest that Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are generally the best days to send email campaigns. However, this can vary based on your audience and industry.

Optimal Sending Times

Early morning or around lunchtime often works well, as these are times when people are likely to check their emails. But, like everything else, it’s important to experiment with different times to determine what works best for your audience.

Pro Tip: Use tools to schedule your emails based on your audience’s time zones to maximize visibility.

7. Analyze and Refine Your Campaigns

The work doesn’t end once your email is sent. In fact, one of the most crucial steps in email marketing is analyzing the results of your campaigns to understand what worked and what didn’t.

Track Key Metrics

Metrics like open rate, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and unsubscribe rate provide insights into your campaign’s performance. Use these metrics to identify areas for improvement and understand your audience’s preferences.

A/B Testing

Never stop testing. Run A/B tests to experiment with different subject lines, email copy, CTAs, images, and send times. Small tweaks can lead to significant improvements in your campaign’s performance.

Pro Tip: Make data-driven decisions. Use the insights from your tests to continuously optimize and refine your campaigns for better results.

Conclusion

Launching a successful email campaign is both an art and a science. By defining clear goals, maintaining a clean email list, crafting compelling content, and continually analyzing and refining your approach, you can create email campaigns that not only get opened but also drive results.

If you’re serious about improving your email marketing game, take time to follow these best practices before hitting “send.” And remember, your efforts are only as good as the quality of your email list—using a reliable email verification service like Heybounce can make all the difference in achieving high deliverability and reaching your audience effectively.

Ready to Supercharge Your Email Campaigns?

Start by ensuring your email list is verified and ready for action. Visit Heybounce to see how our service can help you keep your emails out of the spam folder and in front of the right audience.