When it comes to email marketing, a great rule of thumb is to ask yourself this question: if I had to pay between 50p and £2 to send this email, would I still send it? You may think this sounds random, but the temptation with email marketing is just so go ham but oftentimes quality should be prioritised over quantity. Your email is more likely to intrigue the person you’re trying to reach if there’s already a mutual connection or purpose there.

Grab their attention

Imperative to any email marketing strategy is having a target audience to send your content to. Work your niche and hone in on who loves it; this means researching your target audience and finding what type of imagery they like to see, what their beliefs and values are, where they hang out and what they like to do. Before you send the email, wonder if that person could genuinely benefit from your services.

Lead Magnets, maybe?

Maybe try some lead magnets to grab their attention and entice them into your services. A lead magnet is a free gift you’ll offer in exchange for email signup. This could be a free trial, video access, ebook or other downloadable content. Some brands offer subscribers exclusive access to content before it goes public, for instance, pre-sale tickets for an upcoming gig.

Responsive email design

43.5% of emails are accessed over mobile devices. This means that responsive design is paramount to your strategy even more so than desktop design—not that it’s a contest. Design with versatility in mind: visual hierarchy, navigation image/font size and actual content are all subject to modification when designing for mobile devices as well as desktop.

Call to Action (CTA)

Your first decision is where the call-to-action leads. What action, exactly, do you want the reader to take? You can build an email marketing strategy around any number of business goals: increasing sales/conversions, driving more website traffic, getting more followers on social media, improving your brand reputation, strengthening bonds with loyal customers or even just creating an account.

Your calls-to-action should reflect your business goals, in both what they say and where they lead when clicked. While it’s fine to have multiple CTAs in the same email, it’s best to limit them. It’s easier to test what works for your different customers this way and maintain focus to whichever offer/service you want to push. It’s also a nice idea to create consistency and have them complement each other across a similar theme.