Digital Marketing Guide

Here are a few tips to keep in mind before you start writing an email:

• Start your message in a word document. Drafting your message in a separate document helps prevent copy mistakes, grammatical errors and an accidental send.
• Focus on clear, concise, and engaging writing that resonates with your target audience. Attention spans are short. Make sure you get your message as succinct as possible or you might discourage your audience from receiving your emails.
• Use personalization. Make each email feel like it's intended specifically for the recipient. Consider using a first name merge field/AMPscript to easily address each email to your intended recipients.
• Structure your content using the inverted pyramid. Start by grabbing their attention with a large, bold image or headline, then narrow the content focus the further they read into the email. Provide more information and context about the purpose and close with a call to action.
• Always close with a strong call to action. Make it easy for your audience to take action with link buttons or other elements that might help them navigate to the desired destination.
• Don’t forget to include a footer. When sending a customer an email from your or another agency staff member's email address, include a professional email signature! Along with your first and last name, we recommend adding other valuable information — such as your title, phone number, agency website address and office address. If you’re sending emails to customers from the office email address, the footer should include more general company information — like the agency logo, phone number, email address, website address, office address and social media links for example.

After you've created your message, you'll want to devote some time to crafting the perfect subject line and preheader. The subject line and preheader will be your recipient's first impression of your message when your email arrives in their inbox — and often, they'll determine if your email gets opened at all. Here are a few recommendations for crafting the perfect subject line and preheader:

• Keep your subject line to 25 characters long. On some platforms, your subject line might get cut off after 25 characters and as a rule of thumb this will keep your subject lines concise and punchy.
• Write a compelling hook. Your subject line needs to inspire your recipient to open your message. Consider including a question that will entice them to find the answer inside.
• Include a preheader. A preheader is the copy a recipient sees as the "preview" text of your email content, below the subject line in an inbox. The preheader should be no more than 90 characters long and should support the subject line.

Comply with the CAN-SPAM Act³. If you use email in your business, you must comply with the CAN-SPAM ACT. Visit FTC.gov/Business-Guidance/Resources/CAN-SPAM-Act-Compliance-Guide-Business for an in-depth guide for business. Highlights from the Act include:

• Clearly identify your email as an advertisement.
• Include your physical address in every email.
• Provide a clear opt-out/unsubscribe link.
• Honor opt-out requests promptly.
• Avoid misleading subject lines or sender information.

Sending Emails

When sending emails, consider:

1. Beginning by compiling customer data, the basis for your email list. A good place to start might be a list of your existing customers and associated email addresses.
2. Creating a place for people to sign up for your marketing emails. Ideally, this would be a pop-up prompt on your website or a sign-up form in your footer — wherever your customers are likely to find you already.
3. Sending a Welcome Email. When you kick off an email list or when someone signs up later down the line, we recommend sending a Welcome Email letting them know what their email subscription will provide to them and welcoming them to your agency’s inner circle. Unlike regular emails, you can set your subscription welcome email up separately.
4. As your lists grow, segmenting and categorizing your customers can help you build personalized messages for them in future email blasts.

Each of these platforms offers its own Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform to easily build contact lists and track changes, helping to ensure your business operates within CAN-SPAM Act guidelines. Additionally, a strong CRM is a great place to store customer data, which can help you build tailored campaigns based on your customers' unique lifestyles.

¹ Litmus: http://bit.ly/3Ie2mdz
² Email Tool Tester: http://bit.ly/3IfcMJY
³ Federal Trade Commission: https://bit.ly/3FMn8QG