You might read a lot these days about the death of email marketing. Yet it’s a mistake to discount any media channel simply because its effectiveness has declined. With some fine tuning, your email list can remain a powerful asset for a long, long time.

If you’re new to working with email, don’t let these changes, or some shiny new marketing object, dissuade you from starting an email effort.

If you’re an email veteran, it’s not yet time to give up on it because you’re not getting the results you used to get.

Yes, it used to be somewhat easy to get great results. And although we have to work a bit harder to get good results, let’s not forget that your email subscribers are a list of people who asked to receive your message. There’s a lot of value in that.

We just have to find ways to ensure they’re getting the right messages at the right time.

Basic Email Practices to Get More Subscribers to Read and Respond

How do we get our messages through and get them read?

Check out the infographic from email deliverability experts Verias for some tips on email marketing effectiveness.

It includes suggestions for:

• Subject lines
• Timing
• Segmentation
• Images
• Mobile optimization
• Avoiding spam folders
  
  

As with most “best” practices, it’s important to remember two things.

1) Testing is important. What works for some companies may not work as well for you. For example, I discovered that Tuesdays, the suggested “best” day according to many studies, was one of the worst days for my subscribers in one email list. Testing revealed that Friday afternoons delivered the best response.

If your email marketing isn’t working the way you want, it pays to test new things.

2) Resonance is more important than reach. Yes, we all want to reach as wide an audience as possible. Yet for long term results, it’s more important to focus on how your message resonates with those you reach. A small email list who is actively engaged with you and who invests in your products has a lot of value. A large list which doesn’t respond has little value.

Email marketing is but one component of your digital marketing effort. Yet it can be one of the most effective ones, as long as your message reaches your ideal client and resonates with them.