25 essential rules for email marketing

Each advertiser has different strategies and ways of approach, regardless of the marketing channel used, but there is also a small set of rules that each of them has to respect if they want to get good results.

So we have for you 25 essential rules for email marketing:

1. Send emails people want to receive, to people who want to receive them.
2. Clicks and opens are not an appropriate primary goal for an email send.
3. There is no excuse for sending emails that aren’t mobile optimized.
4. If you don’t have permission, get out of their inbox.
5. It might not really matter when you send your email: Experiment with different times.
6. Every unopened email has an opportunity cost.
7. Aim to create emails that get forwarded, not just opened and clicked.
8. Check your email replies carefully and consistently.
9. Beware of the number of links in your email. it may pop you into the Gmail promotions tab.
10. When writing an email, two beers max. An intoxicated marketer is a sloppy marketer.
11. Don’t over email – less is more, and sended blindness is real.
12. Personalization goes a long way. Experiment with custom fieleds, do more than just “Dear *|FNAME|*”
13. Consider an email’s attention ration – every email should have one goal.
14. Create a text-only version, make sure it’s readable.
15. Have fun with your unsubscribe page.
16. The average attention span of an adult is 8 seconds. Time is ticking.
17. Always send email from a real person, not an alias.
18. Send your audience content that’s relevant to them, not just your latest creation.
19. If you’re not sure what people want – ASK. Would you prefer your emails in Spanish? Click this link, etc..
20. A/B test your email subject line and email body. make sure the sample size used is large enough for statistical signifigance.
21. An email should never be an end point of communication. Always give people somewhere to go, and reason to do so.
22. Don’t be afraid to tell people that you will remove them from your email list if they are unengaged. A healthy email list is a happy list.
23. Try training your audience by sending at regular intervals.
24. Every email is an opportunity to test and experiment.
25. Test, test and test again.