1. Don’t purchase contact lists

Email campaigns rely on a healthy open rate, and if you’re contacting people whose information you purchased – rather than earned through previous interactions – your emails’ performance will quickly deteriorate.

The GDPR requires that you obtain consent from each European recipient prior to contacting them, and most purchased email lists do not include this consent.

2. Avoid using ‘No-Reply’ in the sender’s email address

Have you ever heard of the CAN-SPAM Act? This long-standing piece of legislation is a popular and critical guideline for all email marketers in the United States – and many businesses are still attempting to comply. One of the most important CAN-SPAM rules is to never use the phrase “no reply” or a phrase similar to it as the sender’s email address (for example, “[email protected]”).

“No reply” in an email message prevents recipients from responding or even opting out of receiving future emails, which they have the right to do at any time under CAN-SPAN. Rather than that, have all automated emails originate from a first name (for instance, [email protected]). Your customers will open emails significantly more frequently if they know they were written by a human being.

3. Stick to fewer than three typefaces

The less clutter in your email, the higher the conversion rate. Avoid overloading your email with more than two, and no more than three, fonts or typefaces.

4. Optimize the email’s preview text

You’ve probably seen this link in marketing emails you’ve received, and to be clear, it’s a helpful warning. However, including it in the email’s preview text could be fatal to the email’s open rate, which averages 22% across industries, according to a GetResponse report. In this case, you’re effectively communicating to recipients that “this email may not work.”

By default, preview text extracts the first few words from the email body and displays them alongside the subject line prior to the recipient opening it. The issue is that custom email templates frequently include conditional statements such as “can’t see images?” or “not displaying properly?” along the top banner, which allows them to sneak into the preview when the email is sent.

5. Include an email signature

Even if your newsletter is sent to your contacts on behalf of the company rather than an individual, the email should include a specific person’s signature. People are naturally more receptive to reading and listening to emails sent by a human being, rather than a collective marketing team. And your email signature is your admission ticket into their inbox.

6. Clean your mailing list regularly

While some of your email contacts may not have opted out of your email campaign, they will never open it. While it may be tempting to send emails to as many people as possible in order to reach more prospects, keeping your least engaged recipients on your mailing list can significantly reduce your open rate. Individuals who never open emails diminish the quality of your campaign because you are not comparing it to your most loyal recipients.

Analyze who hasn’t opened or clicked on your emails over a specified time period and delete them on a regular basis. This provides a more accurate email open rate and ensures that your email campaign is free of people who have expressed an interest in no longer hearing from you.

7. Keep your email 500-650 pixels wide

If your email template exceeds 650 pixels in width, you are requiring users to scroll horizontally to read your entire message. This is made even more difficult for a recipient reading your email on a mobile device. The width of your email’s pixels is critical to its lead-capturing ability.

8. Put your logo in the center or upper-lefthand side of the email

People instinctively look for logos in the upper left-hand corner of emails, often because this is the standard placement for a logo on most websites. It is acceptable, however, to center your logo to align it with the email content beneath it.

Whether your logo is centered or to the left, branding your email’s header reminds recipients that it came from you and is part of a series.