Expertise

Diving into the world of email marketing? You're in for an exciting ride! Crafting the perfect email campaign is an art, blending strategy, design, and an understanding of human behavior. While that sounds intimidated, fret not.

Whether you're a newbie or a seasoned marketer, this guide is your golden ticket. We'll walk you through the ins and outs of creating email marketing campaigns that not only captivate but also convert. Ready to boost those conversions? Let's get started!

What is an email marketing campaign?

Think of an email marketing campaign as a way to connect with new and existing customers. It is how businesses, big or small, connect with their audience, share valuable content, and encourage their readers to take action. Whether that be to make a purchase, go to a landing page, or simply to engage with the email content.

Benefits of email marketing campaigns

A study by the Data & Marketing Association found that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment (ROI) is $42. Not only is email an cost-effective way to market your products and services, but they are great in building lasting connections with your audiences, regardless of which phase in your lifecycle they live in. Here are some benefits of creating email marketing campaigns to nurture your audience:

• Awareness Stage: Become a familiar face to those who might not know you yet. Introduce your brand, our products or services. This is a great place to set a welcome series once someone subscribed to your list. Email campaigns at this stage help with brand recognition.
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• Consideration Stage: Once your new audience becomes acquainted with your brand, they might start looking to you to help meet their needs. If you're a SaaS platform, this is a great time to send product tutorials or share case studies and testimonials. Campaigns at this stage help to increase traffic to your website and help to nurture your audience to eventually become paying customers! 

• Decision Stage: Once a subscriber becomes familiar with your product and how exactly you can help them meet their needs, you're a solid contender. This is where email campaigns serve as a way to show why you are a better solution and help differentiate you from the competition. Consider sending exclusive discounts, free demos, or limited-time offers to incentivize action.
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• Retention and Advocacy Stage: Once a subscriber turns into a customer, it's time to build a long time relationship! Send thank you emails to express gratitude for their purchase. Additionally, you can send additional support or resources to enhance their overall experience. Email campaigns in this stage encourage repeat customers and build brand loyalty.

10 Steps to creating an effective email marketing campaign

Embarking on an email marketing journey? Perfect! Crafting a high-converting email marketing campaign might seem daunting, but with the right steps, it's a breeze. Let's walk you through the ten steps of this journey, ensuring you're on the right track from the get-go.

Step 1: Set clear campaign goals

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 62% of the most successful content marketers have a documented strategy, whereas only 16% of the least successful have one. Before you even type out that first email, it's important to know where you're headed. Setting clear, actionable goals for your campaign is the foundation of any successful marketing campaign.

Whether you're aiming to boost lead generation, ramp up sales, or simply engage more with your audience, having a defined goal will guide your strategy and content.

Think of it as your email marketing compass – without it, you might find yourself lost in the vast sea of content possibilities.

Step 2: Select your email marketing campaign type

Once you've set your goals, it's time to plan how to achieve them.

This is where selecting the right type of email campaign comes into play. Your campaign type should align seamlessly with your goals. For instance, if your goal is to welcome new subscribers, an onboarding email series would be your best bet. Take a look at some of these example email campaigns below:

• Onboarding Emails: Perfect for introducing new subscribers to your brand.
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• Promotional Campaigns: Ideal for showcasing new products, services, or special deals.
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• Re-engagement Emails: Great for reigniting the spark with subscribers who've been a tad inactive.

By aligning your campaign type with your goals, you're setting the stage for a more focused and effective email marketing strategy.

Step 3: Understand your audience

Understanding who you're sending your email campaign to isn't just about knowing their email addresses. Instead, it's about diving deep into the data to identify their preferences, needs, and behaviors. Tailoring your campaigns to resonate with specific audience segments can skyrocket engagement. 

For instance, if you're a clothing brand and notice a group of subscribers frequently shopping for activewear, why not send them a curated campaign on your latest gym gear? By tuning into their interests, you're not just sending emails; you're sending value.

Here are some additional strategies and examples to consider:

• Segmentation: Divide your email list based on specific criteria like purchase history, location, or engagement level. For a tech store, you might have segments like "Gadget Enthusiasts" or "Home Office Tech Lovers."
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• Personalized Recommendations: If you're a bookstore and notice a subscriber frequently buying mystery novels, send them an email highlighting the latest releases in that genre.
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• Special Offers: For a beauty brand, if a segment of your audience often buys skincare products, offer them an exclusive discount on a new skincare range.
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• Feedback Loops: Send out surveys or feedback forms. If a segment of your audience expresses interest in eco-friendly products, launch a campaign showcasing your sustainable range.
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• Behavioral Triggers: If a subscriber often abandons their cart, send them a personalized reminder with a special offer to complete their purchase.

By truly understanding and catering to the unique interests of your audience segments, you're crafting experiences, building trust, and most importantly, ensuring you stay in the minds of your customers.

Step 4: Plan your email schedule

Flooding your subscribers with daily emails might seem like a good idea at first, but let's be real – no one likes an overstuffed inbox. It's all about finding that sweet spot. By planning out an email schedule, you're ensuring that you pop up in their inbox just enough to be remembered, but not too much that you become that annoying friend.

Now, when plotting out that schedule, put yourself in your subscribers' shoes. Think about their time zones – no one wants a 3 AM email alert. Consider their daily routines – are they morning email checkers or evening readers? And of course, tailor your content to fit the moment. A weekend might be perfect for a leisurely read, while a quick mid-week offer might be more apt for a Tuesday.

Oh, and speaking of tailoring content, those follow-up emails? Pure gold. Imagine your subscriber eyeing a product, adding it to their cart, but then getting distracted. A gentle reminder, like "Hey, you left something behind!", can be the nudge they need to complete the purchase. It's these little touches that can boost your conversion rates sky-high.

Step 5: Consider automation

With email automation tools, you can set up your emails and follow-ups to be sent out at specific times, ensuring you never miss a beat. Beyond just timing, these tools can craft personalized email journeys for each subscriber based on their actions.

Imagine a subscriber browsing through a product but not making a purchase. Automation can swoop in with a tailored email nudging them to revisit. Or if someone just made their first purchase, why not send them a warm welcome email? It's all about ensuring every email feels like it's been handcrafted just for them, based on their actions and preferences.

Step 6: Create attention-grabbing subject lines

Let's face it; we all judge emails by their subject lines. It's the first thing your subscribers see, and it can make or break their decision to open your email. Crafting a compelling subject line is like creating a movie trailer—it should give a hint of what's inside without giving everything away. 

For instance, instead of "Sale on Shoes," how about "Step Up Your Shoe Game: Exclusive Sale Inside!"? A sprinkle of curiosity, a dash of excitement, and you've got yourself a winning subject line.

Here are some tips and tricks to master the art of subject line creation:

• Use Power Words: Words like "Exclusive," "Limited," or "Unlock" can add a sense of urgency or exclusivity.
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• Ask a Question: "Ready for Summer?" or "Looking for the Perfect Gift?" can engage the reader's mind instantly.
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• Keep it Short and Sweet: With many people checking emails on mobile, a concise subject line ensures your entire message is visible.

• Personalize: Including the subscriber's name or a recent purchase can make the email feel tailored just for them: "John, Ready for Round Two of Our Bestsellers?"
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• Use Emojis Wisely: A well-placed emoji can make your email stand out, but ensure it aligns with your brand and message.
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• Create a Sense of Mystery: "You Won't Believe What's Inside!" can pique curiosity and drive opens.

And always remember, testing is your best friend. A/B test different subject lines to see what resonates best with your audience. By blending creativity with strategy, your subject lines won't just be read; they'll be remembered.

Step 7: Craft engaging email copy

You've got them to open the email with that killer subject line, now it's showtime! Crafting engaging email copy is all about speaking directly to your audience's needs and interests. Remember our chat about understanding your audience? This is where it pays off. 

If you know your subscribers love eco-friendly products, highlight that in your copy. "Sustainably made, just for you!" or "Eco-chic picks you'll adore!" are just a couple of ways to resonate.

The copy is a perfect dance of information and allure. You copy should tell a story that doesn't just inform but truly captivates and guides your reader through the email with ease.

PRO Tip: Adding language from your customers via testimonial is a perfect way to tell a story and show your readers the value that you offer.

Step 8: Nail Your email design

While words can paint a picture, the design brings it to life. A well-designed email isn't just about looking pretty; it's about creating an experience for your subscribers. Think bold colors, captivating images, and intuitive layouts. For instance, a CTA button that pops or an interactive carousel showcasing your products can elevate the user experience. 

With tools like Beefree, a no-code HTML email builder and a range of templates, you can craft stunning emails in no time at all.

Step 9: Test and optimize

Once you've crafted your emails, it's time to ensure its effectiveness.

By A/B testing different versions of your email, be it the subject line, design, or copy, you can pinpoint what resonates most with your audience. 

Monitor the results, analyze, and optimize for future campaigns. It's all about that continuous cycle of learning and improving. After all, the email marketing world is ever-evolving, and staying ahead of the curve ensures your campaigns remain top-notch.

Imagine you're launching a new product, and you've designed two potential email campaigns to announce it. One email has a subject line that reads, "Introducing Our Latest Innovation!" and the other says, "You Asked, We Listened: Meet Our New Product!" Which one will drive more opens? Which copy will lead to more clicks? 

Start by sending the two versions to a small segment of your audience. Monitor which one gets better engagement. Is it the direct announcement or the one that hints at customer feedback? Once you've gathered enough data, send the winning version to your entire list.

It's not about guessing; it's about making data-driven decisions. By continuously testing and iterating, you ensure that every email you send is optimized for success.

Step 10: Don't stop building your email list

You've got your goals and campaign type down, but who are you sending these emails to? Enter the importance of building a robust email list. Think of it as gathering an audience for your grand performance. A well-curated email list ensures that your content reaches people genuinely interested in what you have to offer. 

A quick tip? Offer value! Whether it's an exclusive discount, a handy e-book, or a sneak peek into upcoming products, give your audience a reason to share their email. Remember, quality over quantity is the name of the game here.

Here are some more actionable tips that you can take to grow your email list:

• Offer Value: People love perks! Whether it's an exclusive discount, a valuable e-book, or early access to a new product, give them a compelling reason to hit that 'subscribe' button.
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• Engage on Social Media: Use your platforms to promote sign-ups. A captivating post about an upcoming newsletter can pique interest.
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• Host Webinars or Events: These can be a goldmine for collecting emails. Attendees are already interested in your content, making them prime candidates for your list.
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• Leverage Pop-ups on Your Site: But remember, timing is key. Don't bombard visitors the second they land. Instead, consider exit-intent pop-ups or time-based ones.
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• Prioritize Quality Over Quantity: It's tempting to chase big numbers, but a smaller, engaged list is far more valuable than a large, disinterested one.

Building an email list is a continuous journey, but with these tips in your arsenal, you're well on your way to email marketing success.

Create Your Email Marketing Campaign Today With Beefree

If you're ready to make a splash in the email marketing world, focus on creating campaigns that really resonate with your audience. Give them something they'll look forward to receiving, and you'll see the results in your engagement metrics. Each email you send is an opportunity to engage your audience in a meaningful way. It's not just about the words and images you use, but also about the overall experience you create for them.

With Beefree's email builder, crafting those moments has never been easier. Dive in, explore, and watch your campaigns come to life in no time! The best part? It's free.

Today, digital interactions dominate, and gamification has emerged as a powerful tool to capture and maintain audience attention. More than 70% of businesses included in the Global 2000 have adopted gamification as a key strategy.

In this article, we'll explore the significance of gamification in email marketing, understand its core concepts, delve into the psychology behind it, and provide insights on implementing and overcoming challenges in your gamified campaigns.

The psychology behind gamification in email

At its core, gamification in email marketing revolves around incorporating game-like elements to enhance user engagement.

This strategy involves understanding human behavior and motivation and leverages the psychological aspects that make games inherently appealing, such as competition, achievement, and rewards. Together, these insights help email marketers determine the best use of gamification to help drive engagement and shape consumer responses.

Here are the 3 key psychological drivers in gamification:

Intrinsic motivation

Gamification triggers users' desire to participate by incorporating challenges, rewards, and competitions. As a result, this creates a sense of achievement in users brought on by the idea of "winning" and reinforces positive engagement.

Operant conditioning

By strategically designing gamified elements that reward specific actions, marketers create a positive association between user engagement and valuable incentives. This conditioning strengthens the likelihood of users repeating desired behaviors, establishing a cycle of ongoing engagement.

Cognitive biases

‍Leveraging cognitive biases like scarcity bias allows marketers to prompt quicker responses by offering exclusive rewards or limited-time promotions.

In short, by appealing to individuals' inherent need for achievement and recognition, gamification becomes a powerful tool for capturing and maintaining their attention.

How to use gamification in email marketing

The concept of rewards and incentives helps amplifies the gamification strategy. Offering tangible benefits like exclusive discounts or access entices users to not only engage with emails but also to seek out additional interactions. Let's delve deeper into how you can use gamification to create a competitive edge and engage users in your next email campaign:

• Points, Badges, and Leaderboards: Creating a competitive edge by rewarding users with points, badges, or leaderboard positions based on their interactions with your emails. This not only helps promote a feeling of accomplishment in users, but also helps foster a sense of community and competitiveness that leads them to climb leaderboards and stand out.
  
  
• Rewards and Incentives: Offering tangible benefits such as discounts, exclusive access, or special promotions to incentivize user participation. This exclusivity makes users feel valued and special, fostering a stronger connection with your brand.
  
  
• Interactive Elements: Enhancing user experience by introducing interactive features like quizzes, polls, or challenges within email content. These elements not only enhances engagement but also provides valuable insights into customer preferences, helping you tailor future content and offerings.

By tapping into users' motivations, whether it be competition, a desire for recognition, or the pursuit of exclusive benefits, you can create dynamic emails that help build a loyal and active audience for your brand.

Benefits of gamification in email marketing

Gamification transforms the user experience from a passive act of scrolling through emails into an interactive and dynamic journey where each click or purchase brings them closer to a tangible reward.

Increased customer engagement:

By turning the email experience into a game-like, subscribers are encouraged to engage with the content, spending more time exploring and interacting with the messages. This heightened engagement not only improves the chances of users absorbing the information presented but also creates a memorable and enjoyable experience, setting the brand apart in the minds of the recipients.

Enhanced brand loyalty:

One of the significant benefits of gamification is its ability to create deeper connections between a brand and its audience. When users consistently engage with gamified email content, they become active participants in a brand experience, leading to stronger brand-customer relationships and increased loyalty.

Higher conversion rates:

Gamification can be a powerful motivator for users to take desired actions. Whether purchasing, sharing content, or subscribing to newsletters, the gamified elements provide incentives and rewards for these actions. This motivational aspect drives increased participation, as users are more inclined to interact with emails, complete tasks, and actively engage with the brand, contributing to a more dynamic and participatory audience.

Improved data collection and analytics:

Gamification allows valuable user data collection through interactions and participation. Users willingly provide information while engaging with challenges, quizzes, or other gamified elements. This enriches your customer database and provides insights into user preferences and behavior. Improved analytics enable marketers to tailor future campaigns based on a better understanding of their audience.

5 Best practices for using gamification in email marketing

Embarking on a successful gamified email marketing campaign requires meticulous planning and strategic considerations. The following strategies and tactics can transform your email campaigns into immersive and rewarding journeys, making a lasting impression on your audience and optimizing your marketing efforts.

1. Define campaign objectives: Clearly outline the goals of your gamified campaign to align with your overall marketing strategy. Use data-driven insights to identify the objectives and strategy for your emails. This means regularly tracking key metrics such as open rates and click-through rates. Once your campaigns launch, assess the effectiveness of your gamification elements to refine future campaigns.
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2. Identify target audience: Personalization is key to creating a more engaging experience. Understand your audience's preferences and tailor gamification elements to their interests. By leveraging data and what you know about your unique audiences, you can create better segmented gamified content that tailors to individual preferences. This includes personalizing challenges, rewards, and interactions, making the entire experience more relevant and appealing to different audiences.
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3. Choose appropriate gamification elements: Select elements that resonate with your brand and align with customer preferences. Ensure rewards align with audience interests. Go beyond generic incentives by offering enticing and meaningful rewards such as exclusive discounts, early access, or special promotions. It is crucial to adhere to data protection laws, like GDPR and CCPA, in your gamification practices. Communicate clearly how user data will be used and ensure compliance to build trust with your audience.
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4. Integrate gamification into email design: Ensure a smooth transition to gamified content for an intuitive and enjoyable experience. This means visually appealing emails with a user-friendly interface that offers a seamless transition from the email to the gamified elements.
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5. Develop clear calls-to-action (CTAs): Encourage user participation by crafting compelling CTAs that drive desired actions. Clearly communicate what action you want the user to take and highlight the benefits of doing so. Whether it's clicking a link, participating in a challenge, or making a purchase, the CTA should be persuasive and aligned with the gamification goals.

Overcoming challenges in gamified email marketing

When using gamification in email, it is important to find the right balance between gamification elements and the core message of the email. It's essential to integrate gamified features seamlessly without overwhelming or distracting recipients from the primary content. This lack of harmony brings forth two main challenges:

User fatigue

With the increasing use of gamification in various digital platforms, users risk experiencing fatigue or disinterest in engaging with gamified content. If not managed carefully, this fatigue can decrease overall participation and effectiveness.

Mitigation Strategy: To counter this, marketers should introduce variety and novelty in gamified content, keeping users engaged with fresh challenges and incentives. A/B testing is a great way to experiment with different gamification elements to identify what resonates best with your specific audience.

Lack of brand recognition

Maintaining consistency and alignment with your brand image while implementing gamification can be challenging. If gamified elements feel disconnected or misaligned with your brand identity, it may create confusion or a lack of authenticity among your audience.

Mitigation Strategy: Regularly analyze performance metrics and gather user insight to continuously improve your gamification strategy. Actively seeking insights from your audience about their preferences and perceptions allows you to adapt and iterate on your gamified content.

Unleashing the power of email gamification with Beefree

In an era where consumer attention is a prized commodity, the integration of gamification has emerged as a dynamic strategy to captivate and engage audiences within the realm of email marketing. It's important to remember that the essence of success in this area is rooted in persistent experimentation and creative thinking. Embrace the opportunity to try fresh gamification techniques in your email campaigns to maintain a competitive edge.

No-code solutions like Beefree simplify this process by providing an intuitive and user-friendly solution that empower marketers to seamlessly incorporate interactive and gamified elements into their email designs.

So, create a free account and start infusing some fun and interactivity into your email marketing efforts. Here's to the exciting gamification journey – may it bring you great results and enjoyment!

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In today's fast-paced digital landscape, where algorithms and technological advancements evolve rapidly, we're excited to highlight the ongoing promise of email marketing for those aiming to broaden their reach. Despite the increasing challenge of standing out in crowded inboxes, one consumer need remains unwavering: the desire for a seamless experience.

This is precisely why the combination of email campaigns and landing pages forms an ideal synergy. Together, they empower organizations to seamlessly guide readers from an email to a purposefully crafted landing page, designed to captivate, nurture relationships, and spur action. Let's face it: emails offer limited space for genuine audience engagement. Landing pages step in to meet consumers where they are, providing valuable and relevant content to assist them in making decisions that lead to conversion.

Let's delve into the essential steps for leveraging the potential of landing pages to supercharge your email campaigns.

What is the impact of using landing pages for email marketing?

Unlike a page on your website, a landing page is not part of your site’s navigation. Rather, it is a single page designed with a specific focus and objective, often to help amplify a specific campaign or help increase email subscribers via a sign-up form. 

In email marketing specifically, landing pages are designed to help increase conversion by moving readers toward a desired action in a tailored and cohesive environment. According to a study by Omnisend, landing pages built to drive sign-ups have a conversion rate of 23%, the highest of all forms of “sign-up forms.” 

While emails are often kept short, sweet, and to the point - landing pages offer more real estate to share your why, behind the scenes, and social proof. As a result, this allows your readers to learn more about your brand and products, fostering a deeper connection and engagement.

4 ways to use landing pages in your email marketing

Depending on your desired goal, landing pages vary in structure, design, and layout. Here are the most popular ways landing pages are used in email marketing and how to easily implement them in your email efforts. 

1. Create a sign-up page to capture and nurture leads

Capturing and nurturing new leads is essential for growth. Every email you send is an opportunity to build strong, lifelong relationships with your audiences, but it all begins with a sign-up page. This often simple page can be the bridge between someone being an anonymous reader and an engaged lead.

By designing tailored sign-up pages for multiple campaigns, you can build segmented email lists with automated sequences and consistent messages that appeal to your readers' unique interests.  

It is best practice to keep sign-up forms short and to the point, only asking for essential information, such as name and email address.

In addition, to help nurture your audience, you can ask: 

• Birthday: Personalized birthday emails are a great way to showcase gratitude towards your audience continuously. We recommend not asking for their birth year, though, as some don’t like to share this information. 
• If applicable, professional information like their job title or industry. This will help you send personalized content related to their interests or resources they can use for their work life. 

The Omnisend study referenced above recommends only asking three questions in your sign-up form for optimal performance, so keep this in mind when building your page and form. 

2. Share more information about a specific deal or product

Email marketing campaigns focusing on a particular product or promotion can be amplified with landing pages. 

By pairing both, you can streamline and reduce the necessary steps for users to take desired actions. For example, if you are promoting a limited-time discount on a specific product, your landing page could enable customers to directly purchase the item directly at the discounted rate, eliminating the need to navigate through your website to locate the product and input the discount code.

Free Available Templates: Pair our "Color of the Year Collection" email template with the "Color of The Year Collection" page template, to create an immersive experience when sharing your latest curated selection of products and commitment to staying ahead of the trends.

3. Event registration

If you’re hosting an event like a webinar or conference, a landing page is an excellent way to capture event RSVPs smoothly. 

While your promotional emails are usually short announcements, landing pages offer more information and excite your audience, all while offering a convenient way for them to register.

Once they’ve registered on the landing page, you can use this audience to create a segmented list of registrants, send reminder emails, and post webinar materials to further build brand recognition. This is a really great way for new subscribers to get to know who you are. 

For this type of landing page, you’ll want to include elements such as:

• A straightforward registration form with essential fields like name and email address 
• Date, location, and time (with time zone) of the event
• A brief itinerary or agenda of topics you’ll cover
• A brief introduction to the speakers and their areas of expertise
• A payment form if this is a paid event
• If applicable, a list of perks for attendees, like a special offer on your products, a goodie bag, complimentary refreshments, and so on
• Social media icons to make it easy for registrants to share their attendance or more information about the event to a friend

Free Available Templates: To captivate your audience and maxime registrations, pair our "Agency Webinar Registration Page" with our "Agency Webinar Announcement Email." Whether you're sharing industry insights, showcasing new services, or hosting thought-provoking discussions, this template sequence is your ticket to an unforgettable webinar experience.

4. Asking and receiving valuable feedback

Asking for feedback from customers is abundantly valuable for your business. Not only do you get genuine insight about how you can improve, but you also help build trust with your customers because they see that you’re trying to serve them better.

It’s helpful to set up an email marketing campaign at routine intervals to ask for feedback. A landing page is the perfect way to make it easier (and therefore more likely) for customers to give you their thoughts. On your feedback landing page, include elements such as:

• A simple and user-friendly feedback form, whether you prefer a survey or a blank comment box
• Optional customer contact information so you can follow up on particularly interesting feedback
• An incentive to leave feedback like a special offer the person receives after they submit their answers

Landing page best practices

Landing pages have great potential to boost your business, especially if you design and execute them well. If you’re unsure where to start or how to make your landing pages more effective, use these best practices.

Analyze and understand your target audience

Knowing your audience is one of the most fundamental essentials in marketing, and it holds true in landing pages, too. Understanding your audience allows you to design landing pages that appeal to them and their needs and goals. You want to design your landing pages in a way that is relatable to your audience and aligns with what motivates them to make purchases, sign up for events, or whatever other action you want them to take.

For example, if you have a majority Gen Z audience, interactive elements and videos might help retain their interest, whereas, for older generations, text-only designs may be better suited. If your audience is parents, you might focus more on how your product benefits their families. 

Craft your design with care

With 94% of first impressions being influenced by design, it is crucial that your landing pages are crafted to be user-friendly and help guide and engage the reader without being overly complex. Here are some best practices to keep in mind: 

• Employing a layout that follows readers’ natural eye movement patterns (left to right)
• Break up heavy text with white space and visual imagery 
• Use colors that adhere to your brand’s guidelines to ensure recognition 
• Ensure call to actions clearly define next steps 
• Use type hierarchy, using larger and bolder fonts for headlines and subheadings, and smaller, easy-to-read fonts for body text to ensure readability

A carefully crafted combination of layout, white space, and design influences a page’s ease of navigation and the effectiveness of calls-to-action, therefore encouraging readers to take desired actions.

Ensure your pages are cohesive with email campaigns

Email campaigns help set the tone and user expectations, while landing pages help reinforce your brand's value proposition and encourage users to take action. If you use landing pages to support your email campaigns, staying on brand is essential. 

Brand consistency helps ensure recognition and provides your audience with a seamless and cohesive experience. This results in less friction when going from one form of communication to the next. Whereas having one experience via email and another on the landing page may confuse users on the next steps, impacting your conversion rate.

Utilize social proof

Using a landing page to strengthen your email campaigns means offering customers more ways to learn about you, your product, and what it can do for them. Social proof can be used on a landing page to strengthen your value and what it can bring to your customers.Here are some examples of what you can add:

• Star rating for your product(s)
• Customer testimonials and reviews
• Offering data from your past surveys (e.g., “80% of subscribers say they would recommend this service to a friend”)
• Adding any certifications, badges, and prizes you might have won

Design for mobile first always

When using landing pages to strengthen your campaigns, it’s important to note that 81% of people routinely check their emails on their phones, so chances are that most of your landing page’s visitors will be on mobile devices, too. 

Design your landing page around the mobile experience. This includes avoiding non-mobile-friendly elements such as:

• Pop-ups
• Large images and media files
• Small CTAs
• Small fonts

And embracing the unique needs that come with mobile-friendly design: 

• Creating a design hierarchy and layout that flows naturally when scrolling on a phone
• Ensuring responsive elements that adjust well to each user’s screen size
• Making CTA prominent to reduce the scroll

The future of landing pages for email marketing

Trends in email marketing are always being shaped by advanced technological capabilities, growing user expectations, and an undeniable need for organizations to stand out in the crowded inbox. Here are our top predictions for the future of email marketing and landing pages: 

Increased need for personalization

Personalization has become a need, not a want in email marketing. In fact, according to SmarterHQ “72% of consumers exclusively engaged with personalized messaging.”

The simple act of segmenting your email list shows readers you care and value their time enough to create highly relevant content that meets their needs and expectations. We predict, that we will soon start seeing personalization move into other channels, including landing pages through the use of dynamic content blocks. 

Gamification & interactive elements

‍In the previous years we’ve noticed a rise in the gamification of email marketing. Think of a digital spin-the-wheel to get a discount. Interactive elements not only offer a great way to differentiate yourself in the inbox but also lead to an increase in engagement. In the near future, we’ll see organizations incorporate “gaming” elements, challenges, and reward systems into their landing pages to help increase conversion.
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AI in scale

‍While AI has already made its name in the SaaS space, there is still room for growth in email marketing. AI goes beyond helping organizations create content faster. Rather, it serves as a tool for consumers to make more informed buying decisions.

By integrating chatbots and conversational interfaces, landing pages will become an essential part of increasing conversion as they offer support to consumers on product recommendations in real time without leaving your brand's ecosystem.  

Go from an email to a landing page in seconds with Beefree

Navigating the dynamic terrain of email marketing can feel overwhelming, especially when considering the daunting task of incorporating additional design elements. However, Beefree steps in to alleviate this challenge, making the seamless transition from emails to landing pages a breeze.

Acknowledging the complexity of your to-do list, Beefree offers a solution that not only simplifies the process but also enhances the overall effectiveness of your marketing strategy. In one click, transform your email design into landing page and vice versa.

In addition, our catalog of 1,600+ professionally designed email and landing templates, ensures a seamless experience for your readers. This not only empowers you to enhance revenue and engagement but also positions your campaigns at the forefront of today's dynamic digital expectations.

It's time to embrace the boundless potential of your email marketing approach with Beefree by your side - where connecting with your audience is effortless, stress-free, and ... free.

Getting your audience to engage with your emails isn’t a simple task. 

There are more than a dozen factors that could impact the performance of a given email.

• The audience’s familiarity with your brand
• The list segment - does the email cater to a specific group or interest?
• Email list quality - Are the email addresses valid and active?
• Your average campaign metrics - bounce rate, spam complaint rate, past engagement
• The content - subject lines, preheader, call-to-action
• Use of spam trigger words
  

We know you’ve likely felt an impact from one or more of these. Finding actionable solutions feels daunting.

The good news? You’re not alone. Companies and email marketers around the world encounter these issues regularly.

But you can achieve stronger email engagement by using the tactics below. Let’s help you connect with your email audience.

How to get more email clicks: from content to deliverability

Poor email performance is challenging to address if you’re unsure what to measure. When emails don’t get traction, many marketers focus on fixing a single aspect of their strategy when it’s likely a combination of two or more elements. 

Before you click send, ask yourself:

• What does your email deliverability look like? Are your previous campaigns being delivered to the inbox, or are they landing in the spam folder?
  
  
• Is your email design on-brand and congruent with your other marketing channels (social media, ads, blog, etc.)?
  
  
• Does your email list contain valid contacts, or have some of those emails expired?
  
  
• Are you segmenting your email database by their specific interests or needs and creating customized content for each group?

Getting a clear understanding of your previous campaign performance will then help you identify the exact factors impacting your email engagement. As a result, you can use data-driven insights to adjust your strategy and increase overall email engagement and clicks.

According to Mailchimp, the average open rate is 21.33% across all industries, and click rates are 2.62%. Although nuanced, if your metrics fall below Mailchimp’s benchmarks, that’s a sign that there’s room for improvement.

1. Keep emails out of spam and reach the customer's inbox

Even a well-crafted, beautiful email is not guaranteed to land in your recipient's inbox.  

A significant cause of spam placement is a poor email sender reputation (sometimes called sender score). Your sender reputation is a numerical score from internet service providers (ISPs) to measure your email domain’s health and trustworthiness. 

Companies with high sender scores are viewed as legitimate, safe senders, while those with low scores are more likely to be persons or groups associated with spam or phishing attempts. It makes sense that ISPs want to keep those emails out of the inbox. 

Here are the known factors that contribute to your sender reputation:

• High bounce rates - Internet service providers want yours to be 2% or lower.
  
  
• Spam complaint rate - Aim for no higher than 0.1% (1 in 1,000 emails sent).
  
  
• Email list hygiene - Connected to the above, ISPs expect businesses to clean and avoid invalid emails, spam traps, etc.
  
  
• Email blacklisting - Blacklist services keep track of untrustworthy, high-risk senders. If your domain is on a blacklist, your reputation will be hit hard.
  
  
• Email engagement - When subscribers open your emails and click on the content within. It tells ISPs that your emails are relevant. Staying out of spam will help you improve these metrics.
  

The risk of spam placement is higher than ever with Google and Yahoo’s latest revised sending requirements. The two tech giants partnered to enforce new email-sending requirements to protect users from malicious senders and high-risk email content.

An overview of Google and Yahoo’s new email sender requirements

In order to fight spam and phishing attacks, both Google and Yahoo revised their sending requirements for those that send more than 5,000 daily emails. 

According to Google’s Group Product Manager Neil Kumaran, starting February 1, 2024, “We’re requiring those who send significant volumes to authenticate their emails by following well-established best practices. Ultimately, this will close loopholes exploited by attackers that threaten everyone who uses email.”

So, what does this mean for you? Google and Yahoo both now require each of the following:

• Authenticate your emails - Email authentication verifies that an email sent from your domain comes, indeed, from your organization. While not new practices, the different types of email authentication are now required. They include
  

• Sender Policy Framework (SPF) - A record that establishes a list of email domains and IP addresses that your company sends email from
  
  
• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) - A digital signature that verifies your emails. Your email domain has a public key on its DNS records, while the email service provider has a private key. These keys must align.
  
  
• Domain-based Messaging, Authentication, and Conformance (DMARC) - A DMARC policy tells email receivers what to do if authentication fails (requires SPF and DKIM).
  
  

Email authentication doesn’t just keep you out of the spam folder; it will protect your company and your audience from email fraud. Tools like a DMARC Monitor can simplify the process of authenticating and monitoring your sent emails.

• A one-click unsubscribe method - People should be able to unsubscribe from your email list with just one click, Google and Yahoo state. Adjust your settings to comply with this requirement and honor unsubscribe requests within two days.
  
  
• Maintain a low spam complaint - As described above, Google and Yahoo will take note of your spam complaint rate. Keep it below 0.1% (1 in 1,000 emails). You can do this by removing subscribers who report spam, maintaining a predictable sending frequency (don’t send too many emails), and keeping your emails relevant to the audience. 
  

Assess the performance of your latest email campaigns with the above metrics in mind.

If you bounce emails, observe lower-than-average open rates, and haven’t cleaned your email list, your sender reputation might be low. Additionally, You can check your email sender reputation with domain lookup tools like Google’s Postmaster Tools or Barracuda. A score of 70 and above is acceptable, meaning your sender reputation is not the cause of low performance. 

However, the lower your sender score, the more likely your emails will land in the spam folder (or get blocked entirely). Fewer eyes on your emails result in fewer clicks, less website traffic, and fewer signups/sales.

2. Email validation is essential for improving email marketing results

Invalid email addresses lead to bounces. If you’re unfamiliar, an invalid email address has one or more of the following issues:

• The email address doesn’t use the proper email address format. A valid email contains a username (the local part) and a domain (e.g., company.com), separated by an ‘@’ symbol.
  
  
• The email address uses restricted characters. It’s best practice to use numbers (0-9) and letters (upper or lower case). Special characters (e.g., ! or #) depend on the mail provider. For example, Gmail only allows letters, numbers, and periods.
  
  
• The address doesn’t exist on the specified domain. 

An email bounce occurs when your email service provider cannot deliver your message due to permanent or temporary errors.

As mentioned earlier, the accepted benchmark for email bounce rate is about 2% (20 out of 1,000 emails sent).

Exceeding this threshold is risky as it increases the likelihood that your future emails will be relegated to the spam folder. Recipient email servers will prioritize companies with better reputations than yours.

Email validation for your email list can help to identify invalid email addresses before you send your next campaign.

According to Yahoo, regularly auditing your database is essential for email deliverability. So, at least once a quarter, validate your database and remove invalid and dormant accounts. On average, 23% of your contacts decay every year, according to the ZeroBounce Email List Decay Report. 

Weeding out those poor-quality addresses helps you build a list of real, valid contacts, boosts the visibility of your emails, and provides better opportunities to improve email engagement and conversions. 

Even if you don’t see an immediate improvement in email open rates, link or image clicks, or conversions (whatever your goal may be), you’ll have better data to measure performance. 

For example - if a campaign has a high bounce rate due to invalid emails, you can’t reasonably attribute poor email performance to other factors like email design or content. Those failed deliveries heavily skew your campaign performance metrics. 

With a clean, validated list, you can enjoy the peace of mind of knowing your emails are being delivered. Then, you can accurately assess whether or not an email works or if it’s time to experiment with a new approach.

But before you chalk up a poor campaign to low-quality content or design, know that your audience segment can make a difference. Let’s look at what we mean by email list segmentation and how it impacts engagement.

3. Segment your email list to create more relevant messages

Once you’re confident that your email list is valid and healthy, it’s time to think about

• Who’s on my email list?
• What’s the signup source (a specific blog article, a product page, a social post)?
• Is the reader interested in a specific topic that we can speak to?
• Is this a current customer, a lapsed one, or a new lead?
  

Leads come to your company for various reasons based on their specific needs. They want answers to their questions and solutions for that need. To further study your audience and understand who they are, you can break down your email list into groups based on demographics, behavior, and psychographics. 

Here are some great recommendations to help you start thinking about segmenting your email list:

• Create a list for first-time buyers - They’re new to your service. Welcome and make them feel special by acknowledging their support and suggesting resources relevant to their purchase.
  
  
• Create lead nurturing lists - Some subscribers are brand-new to your company, so don’t treat them like any other subscriber. You can further segment your email leads by tracking what caused them to sign up (a webinar attendee, reading a blog article through organic search, in-person meetings).
  
  
• Create churn lists - A lapsed customer also represents a unique audience. They’ve used your company, so you can skip the introductions and get right to their needs. Try to find out why they haven’t purchased recently or unsubscribed, and tailor your emails based on the feedback.
  
  
• Segment by product interest - If someone is interested in a CRM tool, don’t clutter up their inbox with emails about design tools. If an email lead tells you what they’re interested in, believe them. Create emails explaining your product's benefits and why it’s better than competing options.
  

You can use a wide variety of attributes to justify email list segmentation depending on the nature of your business and your audience. Some companies even use social data such as gender, age, location, occupation, or income level. 

The better you understand the subscriber individually, the better equipped you will be to create a highly effective, personalized email message. Segmenting your list into smaller groups fosters genuine customer relationships and helps build anticipation and loyalty for your brand.

4. Keep your content on-brand and relevant

Creating a cohesive brand experience across all channels builds a recognizable identity for your company. Everything matters – your content, visual assets, and tone of voice all work together to build the public perception of your brand.

To ensure your emails look and sound uniquely like you, assess these key aspects:

• Design: Are your email visuals aligned with the imagery you use on other platforms? From your color palette to the overall vibe of your design, every aspect should further build audience familiarity with a brand. 
• Content: Are your emails addressing topics relevant to your industry? Sticking to your niche and sharing high-quality, educational content helps you build trust and authority with your audience. 
  

In streamlining your email creation process and enforcing brand guidelines, consider tools like Beefree.

With Beefree drag-and-drop functionality and Style setting allows you to effortlessly customize and enforce your email designs to align with brand's identity. Once you've established designs that resonates with your audience, Beefree enables you to save your templates and content blocks for future use. In short, Beefree simplifies the creation on-brand emails and saves valuable time and effort, allowing you to focus on delivering consistent and more engaging messages to your subscribers. Plus, Beefree’s agnostic nature makes it easy to easily export your emails to your sending platform of choice.

Create a Beefree account now – it’s free

Overview: Driving Email Engagement with Effective Strategies

Driving email engagement is an ongoing challenge, but it’s manageable when you know how to measure your performance and reach your audience. 

• Strive for a strong sender reputation - Monitor your bounces and spam complaints. Look out for risks like email list quality and email blacklists that can hurt your sender score. Also, authenticate your emails to comply with Google & Yahoo’s requirements to keep your emails out of the spam folder and maximize your visibility.
  
  
• Validate your email list - Clean up your database at least once per quarter. Using a real-time email validation tool with your email list signup forms will also help you keep invalid emails and spam traps off your email list. A clean email list boosts your email deliverability and enables you to reach the inbox.
  
  
• Segment your lists & customize the message - Be thoughtful when approaching your readers. Every customer wants to feel special, and understanding their interests and needs will help you present a meaningful solution. A personalized email meant for an individual will encourage higher open and clickthrough rates.
  
  
• Keep your brand’s content consistent - You shouldn’t send emails in a vacuum. Work closely with your website team, ads managers, and social media experts to ensure your messaging is on point. Remind your readers why they’re subscribed to your list and how your company offers something different. 

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It's time to get real with your email marketing metrics. Forget vanity numbers like open rates (though, who doesn't love a good open?). We're talking metrics that go beyond the "seen" and show the "sold," the "clicked," and the "aha!" moments marking your campaign success.

Email marketing is about laser-targeting your audience and driving results. But with data points, how do you know what truly matters?

Ditch the guesswork with our 8 must-track email metrics. We'll break down the what, why, and how behind each one, empowering you to optimize your campaigns.

Let’s get to it!

What are email marketing metrics?

Email marketing metrics are quantifiable measures that tell you how your email campaigns perform and how recipients interact with your emails. Additionally, by monitoring your email marketing metrics you can evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy. Email marketing metrics have four general classifications:

• Engagement: These rates tell you if your audience is  interacting with your messages. Examples are open rates, click-through rates, and email sharing/forwarding.
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• Conversion: These rates measure the success of your campaigns in guiding recipients toward the desired action. The major metrics that show how your email converts are the conversion rates and revenue per email. 
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• Delivery & Health: These rates give you crucial insights into the technical health of your campaigns, ensuring your emails reach the right inboxes and avoid dreaded spam folders. Examples include bounce rates and spam complaints.
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• Growth: These tell you how your email list is evolving, helping you attract new subscribers and retain existing ones. List growth rate and churn rate are examples of growth metrics.

By regularly racking these key metrics, you can use data to confidently fine-tune your email strategy and ensure it is consistently generating results and helping you achieve your marketing goals.

Why are metrics important in email marketing?

With over $10 billion - with a B - generated through email marketing, learning how to read and understand your email metrics helps you get the most of your efforts and maximize results. Metrics aren't just numbers; they're storytellers, truth-tellers, and action-prompters. 

They help you:

1. Optimize your campaigns: By identifying underperforming aspects, you can make informed adjustments. For instance, A/B testing based on metrics allows you to experiment with elements like subject lines, visuals, or call-to-action buttons. This process helps you optimize your campaigns for maximum impact. It ensures you continually improve your strategy.
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2. Craft captivating content: Understanding what content resonates allows you to tailor future emails to cater to their preferences. For example, analyzing open rates helps you gauge the effectiveness of your subject lines. Likewise, click-through rates highlight the content that attracts the most interest. This insight enables you to craft more compelling and relevant content, increasing engagement.
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3. Predict trends and stay ahead of the curve: Regularly tracking metrics provides a historical view of your email performance. Patterns and trends in metrics can indicate changing audience preferences or industry shifts. By staying attuned to these trends, you can anticipate changes in your audience's behavior and adjust your email marketing strategy accordingly. This approach keeps you ahead of the curve and ensures your campaigns remain relevant.
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4. Prove the ROI of your email marketing efforts: Metrics provide tangible evidence of your success, justifying your investment and securing buy-in from stakeholders. They provide quantifiable data on key performance indicators, demonstrating the impact of your efforts. When presenting these metrics to stakeholders, you're not just sharing numbers. You're showcasing the tangible results of your campaigns. This, in turn, helps in securing continued support from key decision-makers.

In short, email marketing metrics transform guesswork into actionable insights. For the next stop, we'll dig into the top 8 email marketing metrics you need to track in 2024.

8 email marketing metrics that actually matter 

Email marketing metrics are like the vital signs of your email campaigns. They help you understand how well your emails are performing and how engaged your audience is. 

Let's break down a few key metrics:

1. Click-through rate

The click-through metric tells how many folks clicked on the links you dropped in your email. It is a direct indicator of engagement, showcasing the effectiveness of your content and the resonance of your call-to-action. It's like the applause after a killer performance - you want lots of it!

Why click-through rates matter

1. Audience engagement: CTR shows the level of interest your email generates. A higher CTR indicates that your audience finds your content compelling and is motivated to take further action.
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2. Content Relevance: Check the links that get the most clicks. You can tell the specific content that resonates with your audience by analyzing the links that receive the most clicks. This knowledge is invaluable for tailoring future emails to match their preferences.
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3. Call-to-Action (CTA) Check: A solid CTR means your CTA is compelling, making people tap their screens. If your CTA is clear, compelling, and strategically placed, it should drive a higher click-through rate.

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How to calculate CTR

Divide the unique clicks by the number of delivered emails, then multiply by 100.

Let’s say you sent out your email to 1,000 subscribers, and after, you find out that 150 people clicked on your links.

Your Click-Through Rate is 15%. It means 15% of your audience decided to click on your links.

A Click-Through Rate (CTR) of 15% is generally considered quite good. It indicates that many of your audience found your email content compelling enough to take action by clicking on the links. 

A typical CTR can vary by industry and the nature of the email, but a rate of 15% suggests that your email engaged a substantial portion of your audience.

Tips to increase click-through rate

• Compelling Content: Craft engaging and relevant content that entices readers to explore further.
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• Clear CTAs: Ensure your calls-to-action are clear, prominent, and aligned with the overall goal of your email campaign.
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• A/B Testing: Experiment with elements like CTA placement, wording, or design. That will help you identify what resonates best with your audience.

2. Unsubscribe rate

Unsubscribe Rate metric that reveals the percentage of recipients who choose to opt out of your email list. It's a measure of disengagement and signals when subscribers stop receiving your emails.

Why unsubscribe rates matter

• Audience feedback: Unsubscribe Rate provides direct feedback from your audience. When someone unsubscribes, it's a clear signal that something about your emails might not resonate with them.
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• Content evaluation: A sudden spike in unsubscribes after a specific email indicates it's time to evaluate the content or frequency of your emails. It helps you identify potential issues and make adjustments.
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• List health: Monitoring the unsubscribe rate helps maintain a healthy email list. High unsubscribe rates might be a sign that your list needs cleaning. It may also mean you're overloading subscribers with too many emails.
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How to calculate unsubscribe rate

To calculate the unsubscribe rate per email campaign, divide the number of unsubscribes by the number of active subscribers, then multiply by 100.

Let's say you sent out 1,000 emails, and during that time, 20 subscribers decided to bid farewell and clicked that unsubscribe link.

So, your unsubscribe rate is 2%. It means 2% of those who received your email decided to part ways.

This rate is acceptable because a low unsubscribe rate is generally considered positive. Keep monitoring this metric to ensure it stays healthy, and adjust your email strategy if needed.

Tips to reduce unsubscribe rate

• Feedback loop: Some unsubscribe forms ask why people are leaving. Use this feedback to tweak your content strategy. It's like learning what songs people want to skip.
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• Frequency poll: If you see a significant increase in unsubscribes, assess the frequency of your emails. Finding the right balance ensures you stay in touch without overwhelming your audience.
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• Content variety: Try to keep your content fresh and varied to maintain subscriber interest. A diverse range of content reduces the likelihood of audience fatigue.

Unsubscribe Rate is a metric that helps you stay attuned to your audience's preferences. While losing subscribers is inevitable, using this data wisely allows you to refine your approach and keep your email list healthy.

3. Conversion rate

Conversion Rate is the metric that tells you how many recipients clicked on your email links and took the desired action afterward. It depicts the moment when engagement translates into success.

Why conversion rates matter

1. Actionable engagement: Unlike clicks, which show interest, the conversion rate zooms in on the real deal—actions. It could be making a purchase, filling out a form, or any goal you set for your email.
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2. Effectiveness gauge: A high Conversion Rate means your email grabbed attention and convinced people to follow through. It's a solid indicator that your email is effective in driving results.
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3. Campaign impact: Conversion Rate ties directly to your campaign objectives. Whether it's boosting sales or nurturing leads, this metric shows how well your emails contribute to these outcomes.

How to calculate with an example

Divide the number of conversions by the number of emails delivered, then multiply by 100.

Let's say you sent out an email campaign, and out of the 200 clicks, 10 people made a purchase.

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So, your conversion rate is 5%. 5% of the folks who clicked on your links became happy customers.

In the example provided, the Spam Complaint Rate is 0.5%. Generally, a Spam Complaint Rate of 0.1% or lower is considered acceptable in the industry. In this case, 0.5% is on the higher side.

A higher spam complaint rate can impact your sender reputation and deliverability. It's essential to investigate the reasons behind the complaints.

Tips to improve conversion rate

1. Define your goals: Clearly outline the actions you want your audience to take. Whether making a purchase or signing up for an event, a defined goal makes tracking conversions more meaningful.
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2. Optimize landing pages: Often, the conversion journey doesn't end in the email; it continues on a landing page. Ensure your landing pages are aligned with your email content to facilitate a seamless transition.
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3. CTA clarity: Make your call-to-action (CTA) crystal clear. Ambiguity can be a conversion killer. Guide your audience on what steps to take next.

4. Spam complaint rate

The Spam Complaint Rate is the guardian at the gate, telling you how many recipients marked your email as spam. The metric ensures your emails stay in the inbox and out of the dreaded spam folder.

Why spam complaint rates matter

• Deliverability Concerns: A high Spam Complaint Rate is a red flag. Email providers take spam complaints seriously, and if your rate is too high, it could impact your email deliverability.
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• Content Evaluation: High spam complaints suggest that something in your email content or frequency irks your audience. It's a signal to evaluate and tweak your approach.
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• Brand Reputation: Consistently landing in the spam folder harms your brand's email reputation. Maintaining a low Spam Complaint Rate is crucial for a positive sender reputation.

How to calculate with an example

Divide the number of spam complaints by the number of delivered emails, then multiply by 100.

If you sent out 1,000 emails and received 5 spam complaints:

So, your Spam Complaint Rate is 0.5%. Keeping it low ensures your emails keep landing in the inbox where they belong.

How to keep it low

• Opt-In Strategies: Ensure your subscribers willingly opt-in to receive your emails. Unwanted emails are more likely to be marked as spam.
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• Clear Unsubscribe Option: Make it easy for subscribers to opt-out. A transparent unsubscribe process reduces the likelihood of spam complaints.
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• Content Relevance: Send content that aligns with subscriber expectations. Misleading or irrelevant content increases the chances of being marked as spam.

5. Bounce rate

Bounce Rate is the email metric that tells you the percentage of emails that couldn't be delivered successfully. Those are emails that fail to reach their intended recipient's inbox.

Why bounce rates matter

• Delivery health check: Bounce Rate is your go-to for checking the health of your email delivery. A high bounce rate could indicate issues with your email list or the quality of your contacts.
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• List cleanliness: Regularly monitoring bounce rates helps keep your email list clean. Removing invalid or inactive email addresses ensures you send to an engaged audience.
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• Sender reputation: High bounce rates can negatively impact your sender reputation. Email providers pay attention to bounce rates when determining the credibility of senders.

How to calculate a bounce rate

Divide the number of bounced emails by the number of sent emails, then multiply by 100.

If you sent out 1,000 emails and 30 of them bounced:

So, your Bounce Rate is 3%. It means 3% of your emails hit a roadblock and couldn't be delivered. 

A Bounce Rate of 3% is generally considered acceptable. It's common to have a small percentage of bounces due to some factors. It could be temporary issues with the recipient's email server or invalid email addresses on your list.

But, if you notice a sudden increase or if it consistently exceeds 5%, investigate and take corrective actions. 

Tips to reduce bounce rate

• Segmentation and targeting: Ensure you send emails to relevant audiences. This reduces the chances of bouncing due to mismatched content.
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• Regular list cleaning: Remove invalid or inactive email addresses from your list. It's like decluttering your guest list for a smoother party.
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• Use double opt-in: Implementing a double opt-in process ensures subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails, reducing the likelihood of bounces.

6. Deliverability rate

The deliverability email marketing metric measures the percentage of emails that successfully reach your recipients' inboxes.  

Why deliverability matters

• Inbox presence: Deliverability rate checks if your emails land in the inbox, not the dreaded spam folder. High deliverability means your messages are reaching your audience effectively.
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• Sender reputation: Email providers consider your deliverability when assessing your sender reputation. Consistently high deliverability contributes positively to your reputation as a sender.
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• Engagement impact: Emails that reach the inbox have a better chance of being opened and engaged. A high deliverability rate sets the stage for successful email campaigns.

How to calculate with an example

Subtract the bounce rate from 100%. 

If you sent out 1,000 emails and 970 of them successfully reached the inbox:

So, your Deliverability Rate is 97%. It means 97% of your emails successfully navigated the inbox maze.

A Deliverability Rate of 97% is excellent. It shows that most of your emails successfully reach the intended inboxes. That is a positive sign for the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

Tips to ensure high deliverability

• Clean email lists: Regularly update your email lists to remove invalid or inactive addresses. This enhances deliverability by focusing on engaged recipients.
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• Authentication protocols: Implement authentication protocols like DKIM and SPF to verify your identity as a sender. This adds credibility and improves deliverability.
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• Engagement strategies: Craft engaging content that encourages opens and clicks. Positive recipient interactions boost your sender reputation.

7. List growth rate

List Growth Rate measures how fast your email subscriber list is expanding. It's is the percentage by which your email list grows over a specific period.

Why list growth matters

1. Audience reach: A growing email list means a broader audience for your messages. It expands the reach of your campaigns and potential engagement.
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2. Fresh perspectives: New subscribers bring fresh perspectives. A diverse audience can provide valuable insights and enhance the overall engagement with your content.
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3. Long-term sustainability: A healthy List Growth Rate contributes to the long-term sustainability of your email marketing efforts. It ensures a continuous influx of potential customers and supporters.

How to calculate list growth rate

Divide the difference between your current and previous list size by your previous list size, then multiply by 100.

If you started the month with 1,000 subscribers and ended with 1,200:

So, your List Growth Rate is 20%. It means your email party gained 20% more attendees during the month. A 20% growth rate is quite good. It generally suggests effective strategies for attracting new subscribers.

How to boost list growth

1. Engaging opt-in forms: Craft engaging and clear opt-in forms on your website, landing pages, and social media. Make subscribing easy and enticing.
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2. Lead magnets: Offer lead magnets like e-books, exclusive content, or discounts to encourage sign-ups. Provide value to your audience from the get-go.
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3. Social media promotion: Leverage your social media channels to promote your email newsletter. Use teasers and highlights to spark interest and drive sign-ups.

8. ROI on emails

Return on Investment (ROI) on emails assesses the profitability of your email marketing campaigns. It's the revenue generated for each dollar spent on your email marketing campaign.

Why ROI matters

1. Business impact: ROI on emails directly ties to your email efforts to business outcomes. It measures how well your campaigns contribute to revenue generation and overall business success.
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2. Resource allocation: Understanding the ROI helps in optimizing resource allocation. It guides decisions on budget, time, and efforts invested in email marketing based on the returns achieved.
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3. Performance benchmark: ROI is a benchmark for the success of individual campaigns. It enables you to identify high-performing strategies and areas that might need improvement.

How to calculate ROI on emails

Subtract the cost of your email marketing campaign from your revenue from the campaign, then divide it by the campaign cost.

For example, if your email campaigns generated $5,000 in revenue, and the cost was $1,000:

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So, your ROI on Emails is 400%. It means for every dollar invested in email campaigns, you generated a return of $4.

An ROI on Emails of 400% is excellent. It shows that your email marketing campaigns generate substantial returns compared to the costs. 

Tips to improve your ROI on emails

1. Segment your audience: Tailor your emails to different segments of your audience based on factors like demographics, behavior, or purchase history. Personalized and targeted content tends to perform better.
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2. Optimize email timing: Experiment with sending emails at different times and days to find the optimal schedule for your audience. Understanding when your subscribers are most active can boost engagement.
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3. Create catchy subject lines: The subject line is the gateway to your email. Create attention-grabbing and compelling subject lines that entice recipients to open and explore the content inside.
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4. Clear calls-to-action (CTAs): Make your CTAs prominent, clear, and enticing. Guide your audience on the actions you want them to take, whether making a purchase, signing up, or downloading.
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5. A/B testing: Experiment with different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, visuals, or CTAs, using A/B testing. This helps identify what resonates best with your audience and allows you to optimize accordingly.
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6. Monitor analytics: Regularly analyze the performance metrics of your campaigns. Identify what's working well and areas for improvement. Data-driven insights help in making informed decisions.
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7. Maintain list hygiene: Regularly clean and update your email list. Removing inactive or invalid subscribers helps maintain a healthy list and ensures your messages reach an engaged audience.

The Power of Design: Elevating email metrics with Beefree

Beyond just the numbers and data crunching, how your emails look and work can make a big difference in getting people interested and clicking through. In the fast-paced world of email marketing, where every click and conversion is a big deal, having emails that are responsive, eye-catching, and well-optimized is key.

That's where Beefree comes in. With its user-friendly interface and intuitive features, Beefree empowers you to create emails that not only meet but exceed the expectations set by the metrics that truly matter. It's not just about meeting expectations; it's about blowing them away. Beefree ensures that your emails are not just visually appealing but also strategically crafted for maximum impact, making a real connection with your audience. The best part? It's free! 

Start designing now!

In our latest blog post, we explored the importance of email newsletters and the value that they can bring to your organization. In short, they serve as a way to ensure consistent and timely communication between businesses and their diverse audience. While many factors influence the outcome of your email newsletters, there are a few tried and true strategies and steps for creating newsletters that we suggest following to ensure their success.Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a small business owner venturing into the email marketing realm, this step-by-step guide, enriched with tips and insights, will illuminate the path from conceptualizing your newsletter to hitting that send button and beyond.

What is the Purpose of a Newsletter?

The purpose of email newsletters is often condensed to brand awareness, promotion, education, and retention, but what's underneath that:

• Brand Loyalty: By providing useful content, tips, or insights, you can add unimaginable value to your audience that, in turn, will make you the go-to brand for your audience in your specific niche.
• Stronger Relationship: Sending consistent, cohesive, and timely communications keeps your audience engaged and helps nurture a relationship between your brand and its followers.
• Traffic: If your content resonates with your audience, they'll want to learn more. This helps drive traffic to your social, website, and any other resources linked in your email newsletter. 

A step-by-step guide to creating an email newsletter

Navigating through the nuanced newsletter creation process, we'll explore a 10-step journey that marries strategic thinking with creative execution. Each step, from defining your newsletter’s purpose to meticulously tracking its performance, serves as a crucial milestone, ensuring your message not only lands but also captivates and engages your audience.

Step 1. Define Your Newsletter Goal

Embarking on the newsletter creation journey without a clearly defined goal can make defining your email's content, design, and overall strategy a challenge. Whereas a clearly defined goal helps harmoniously align each element towards a singular purpose.Let’s delve into a few examples of newsletter goals to spark your inspiration:

• Engage and Inform: Keep your audience abreast of the latest industry news, trends, and insights.
• Drive Sales: Promote new products, offers, or discounts to boost sales.
• Increase Participation: Encourage participation in events, webinars, or surveys.
• Build Community: Foster a sense of community among subscribers by sharing user-generated content or stories.

In addition, your goal should also take into consideration the following:

• Who is your audience? Identifying your audience's demographics, preferences, and behaviors will help tailor the goal to an action you know your readers will take. For example, you wouldn't promote events in New York if most of your audience is based in Australia. 
• What's the primary value of this email? Every newsletter delivers something of value - be it knowledge, discounts, or entertainment.
• What are our business goals? Internally, what is your organization trying to achieve, and what is your current focus? 

Step 2. Build a Newsletter Subscriber List

Building a robust, engaged subscriber list is paramount to ensuring your newsletter’s voyage is fruitful and impactful. A subscriber list isn’t merely a collection of email addresses; it’s a community of individuals, each with their unique interests, preferences, and needs, all uniting under the banner of your brand.Here are a few tips to guide you in building your subscriber list:

• Craft Compelling Sign-Up Forms: Ensure your newsletter sign-up forms are visible, accessible, and enticing across your digital platforms.
• Leverage Multiple Channels: Utilize your website, social media, and other digital channels to promote your newsletter sign-up.
• Offer Incentives: Entice potential subscribers with exclusive content, discounts, or insights available only to newsletter crew members.
• Ensure Ease of Subscription: Make the subscription process as seamless and straightforward as possible to encourage sign-ups.

Step 3. Segment Contacts and Create Lists

As your subscriber count grows, understanding and organizing them becomes pivotal to ensuring that your newsletters resonate and engage with your unique audiences. Segmenting your contacts allows you to tailor content to their specific interests, allowing for highly personalized experiences. This action helps build a deeper connection between your brand and its audience. Here are some tips for audience segmentation:

• Understand Subscriber Preferences: On your sign-up form, ask questions beyond the simple "name and email address" to understand their interests. For example, something as simple as a job title can provide much insight. 
• Monitor and Adapt: Continually assess the effectiveness of your segments, and their actions will help you make necessary changes to optimize your email newsletter's design, content, and overall strategy.

Step 4. Select an Email Newsletter Tool

Finding the right tool for you and your team can be a formidable quest. Yet, it’s a pivotal step in ensuring your newsletter engages and delights your audience.When embarking on the selection of an email newsletter tool, consider the following key features:

• User-Friendliness: Find a tool that allows anyone on your team to seamlessly craft, edit, and visualize your newsletter without too big of a learning curve. Complex tools can often result in a loss of productivity. 
• Deliverability: Your email newsletter tool should ensure your emails are rendered beautifully regardless of email client or device to ensure your newsletters reach the inbox, not the dreaded spam folder.
• Template Variety: Mostly, every email tool offers templates to help you kick-start your email newsletters. Before committing, ensure those templates align with your brand, audience, and needs. Extra points if the platform allows you to create, save, and reuse your own

PRO Tip: Find a tool that allows collaboration to happen within the platform to minimize juggling between multiple tools and further increase your team's productivity.Now, an email newsletter tool is not to be confused with an email-sending platform or an email marketing platform. While these may overlap, an email newsletter tool is often an additional tool added to help optimize your email design process. Because of this, it is important that the email newsletter tool you choose should seamlessly integrate with your existing sending platforms like HubSpot, Mailchimp, or Gmail.A great example of this is Beefree.

Beefree: Email creation without limits.

Beefree is an intuitive email builder whose agnostic nature allows easy export to your sending platforms of choice. Its collaborative features allow for decentralized teams to work together on email newsletters and campaigns effortlessly. With a catalog of 1,600+ email templates, we pride ourselves in having something for everyone, and our drag-and-drop editor makes the learning curve a breeze.

Step 5. Start From Scratch or Use a Template

You have two choices when it comes to creating a newsletter: to personalize an existing template or to craft your own from the blank canvas of possibility. Both paths, while divergent, lead to the creation of a newsletter that is uniquely yours. Let’s explore these two options, ensuring your newsletter is not only a reflection of your brand but also a beacon that resonates with your subscribers.

Option 1: Personalize an Existing Newsletter Template

This path allows you to embark on your newsletter journey with a sturdy vessel crafted by experts and ready to be infused with your unique brand essence. This option comeswith its own range of benefits:

• Efficiency: Save time and resources by starting with a pre-designed structure.
• Consistency: Ensure your newsletters maintain a consistent, professional appearance.
• Inspiration: Draw inspiration from expertly crafted designs.
• Flexibility: Adapt and modify the template to align with your brand and message.

As mentioned, Beefree’s newsletter template library offers thousands of free options, ready to be molded, adapted, and transformed into a newsletter that speaks your brand’s language and connects with your audience.

Option 2: Start with a Blank Newsletter Template

The "start from scratch" approach allows you to build your newsletter from the ground up, ensuring every element, from layout to content, is meticulously curated and distinctly yours. This path unveils its own unique advantages:

• Unbridled Creativity: Experience the freedom to explore your creativity without being bound by pre-designed constraints.
• Unique Design: Develop a newsletter that is distinctly yours, ensuring it stands out in the crowded inbox.
• Full Control: Maintain comprehensive control over every component, ensuring each aspect aligns perfectly with your brand.
• Tailored Experience: Design a user experience that is meticulously tailored to your audience’s preferences and journey.

Step 6. Must have elements to have in your email newsletters

Let's get to work designing your newsletter with Beefree, where designing your newsletter becomes a seamless blend of creativity and functionality. While the ensuing steps are crafted with Beefree’s email editor in mind, these are all elements that any email newsletter must have to ensure your newsletter design is visually compelling and effectively communicates your message, regardless of the tool you choose. Let’s dive into the meticulous art of newsletter design.

Carefully Crafted Layout

Whether you're starting from scratch or using a template, the content sections needed will be determined by the purpose and goal of your newsletter. Ask yourself: "What is the information that my readers need to know to be enticed to complete the desired action?"The layout of your emails should be placed in a manner that is easily digestible and helps guide and engage the reader through the newsletter. This can be done by maintaining a balance between text and visual elements.Tips for adding content:

• Maintain Consistency: Ensure your content aligns with your overall message and brand voice.
• Be Concise: Craft your message to be clear and to the point, respecting your reader’s time and attention.

With Beefree, drag and drop your content blocks, such as text, images, and buttons, into your email. If you're starting with a template, our first suggestion is to first assess the email and see if any sections don't align with you. Like we did for our template below:

Regardless, a well-crafted layout is has a balance of text and visual elements, ensuring your content is both engaging and easily digestible.

Visual Elements

Long gone are the days of text-only emails. Images, videos, and GIFs are visual anchors in your newsletter, capturing attention and enhancing your narrative. They also help provide balance in your emails to help guide and break up text-heavy sections.Tips for including images:

• Quality Matters: Ensure your images are optimized for emails viewed on desktop and mobile. 
• Alignment: Your images should be visual representations of your brand and the message that you are trying to convey in the email. Otherwise, they might distract the reader from your message rather than engage. 

If you're starting with a template on Beefree, you can easily change the images by clicking on the image and clicking "change image" on the sidebar. If you're starting from scratch, you can navigate to the “Content” tab and simply drag the “Image” content block into your template. You can upload your own images and store them using our File Manager to retrieve them for future use.Beefree also offers a stock image and GIF library to incorporate visual elements into your newsletters easily.

Brand Elements

Infusing your newsletter with your brand elements ensures that your emails are recognized immediately by your readers. Brand elements include your logo, brand colors, pre-defined fonts, icons, etc.Tips for adding brand elements:

• Consistency is Key: Ensure all elements, from colors to fonts, are consistent with your brand guidelines.
• Visibility: Ensure your logo is placed prominently, ensuring immediate brand recognition.

Within Beefree, you can easily set your style guidelines to ensure everyone on your team can design on-brand messaging. You can also save content blocks that are frequently used to save time when building your emails.All of these are better known as "email design systems," which are built to help you save time, resources, and cohesiveness in all of your communication efforts.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmxbuk4PRA&t=56s

Prominent CTA Buttons

CTA buttons should be influenced by the goal you want the reader to take. They should be placed throughout the newsletter to ensure the reader can take action at any time.Tips for creating CTA buttons:

• Stand Out: Ensure your CTA is visually prominent. This means not hiding them in between elements, adding ample spacing around the CTA, and ensuring the color of the button doesn't blend in with its background. Although it should stand out, it should still remain harmoniously integrated into your overall design.
• Concise Text: Use clear and concise copy that clearly communicates the action you want the reader to take. Do not leave any room for interpretation.

In Beefree, you can create pre-defined CTA buttons that align with your most frequently sent emails. Adding new buttons is as easy as dragging the “Button” content block into your email.

Step 7. Make Sure Your Newsletter is Legally Compliant

Navigating through the realm of email marketing also involves ensuring that your newsletter adheres to the various legal standards and regulations that govern digital communication. Ensuring legal compliance is not merely a step but a fundamental pillar that upholds the integrity and legality of your email marketing endeavors. From adhering to data protection regulations to ensuring transparent communication, legal compliance safeguards your brand, reputation, and the trust that your subscribers place in you.Here are some general suggestions to ensure your emails are compliant:

• Adhere to Regulations: Ensure your newsletter complies with regulations such as GDPR or CAN-SPAM, safeguarding both subscriber data and communication.
• Transparent Opt-In: Ensure that your subscription process is clear, transparent, and provides adequate information regarding the nature of your newsletters.
• Easy Opt-Out: Provide a clear and straightforward process for subscribers to opt out of your newsletters anytime.
• Protect Data: Ensure that subscriber data is stored, processed, and protected in adherence to relevant data protection regulations.

In addition, email footer requirements are upheld by email-sending platforms. In Beefree, under "Rows," you will see various footer options that adhere to HubSpot and Mailchimp guidelines ready for use. If you use a different ESP, be sure to build your footer with their unique requirements in mind.

Step 8. Preview and Test Emails

In the final stages of our newsletter creation journey, previewing and testing stand as crucial waypoints, ensuring that your crafted message is not only visually appealing but also functionally flawless across various email landscapes. This step involves scrutinizing your newsletter through the lenses of different devices and email clients, ensuring that each subscriber, regardless of their digital window, experiences your message in its full splendor.

Beefree "preview mode"Here are a few tips to ensure your previews and tests lead to a standing ovation in every inbox:

• Multi-Device Testing: Ensure your newsletter shines across all devices, from desktops to smartphones.
• Different Email Clients: Verify that your design and functionality remain intact across various email clients, such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.
• Link Functionality: Ensure all your links, from CTAs to social icons, are functioning and leading to the correct destinations.
• Spelling and Grammar: A final check on the language, ensuring that your message is not only clear but also error-free.

Step 9. Track Performance and Create Iterations

This final step involves diving into the analytics, exploring how our subscribers interacted with our newsletter, and uncovering triumphs and areas ripe for enhancement.This step is crucial for ensuring that each newsletter is a stepping stone towards deeper engagement and connection with our audience.Here are some navigational tips when it comes to tracking performance:

• Analyze Engagement: Dive into metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and engagement with specific content.
• Subscriber Feedback: Pay attention to any direct feedback or responses from your subscribers.
• Iterate and Enhance: Use the insights gained to refine and enhance subsequent newsletters, ensuring continual improvement.
• A/B Testing: Consider employing A/B testing in future sends, exploring what content, design, and strategies resonate most.

Start Creating Your Own Newsletters Today

The path to creating your own successful newsletter lies ahead! We hope that with the knowledge, insights, and tools shared, you feel equipped and ready to start forging connections, telling stories, and engaging your audiences in a way that is unique to you!If you need somewhere to get started and inspired, browse through our extensive catalog of free templates. We guarantee you'll find something that fits your needs ;)Happy designing!

When it comes to making your customers feel special, nothing says "We're glad you're here" like a personalized birthday email. Not only that, but they are great sources for driving up engagement and strengthening brand loyalty.After all, who doesn't love a freebie or a discount to spoil themselves with?Whether you're currently sending birthday emails or want to start, below you'll find some of our best strategies for crafting and optimizing birthday messages that delight your recipients.

What is a Birthday Email?

Birthday emails are powerful automated email campaigns brands use to provide a more personalized customer experience. While on the surface, they might seem like a simple gesture to brighten your customer's day. These emails are strategically crafted and inserted into every big e-commerce brand’s email marketing efforts.

What is the Purpose of a Birthday Email?

Birthday emails have multi-purposes. While they are created to help celebrate a subscriber's special day, they also drive up email engagement and brand loyalty. Here’s how:

• Deepen Subscriber Connection: A personalized birthday wish can strengthen the bond between a brand and its subscribers. A simple message can make your subscribers feel important, keeping you at the top of their minds the next time they purchase. 
• Drive Sales: Exclusive birthday discounts or offers can incentivize subscribers to purchase. 
• Boost Engagement: Birthday emails often see higher open and click-through rates than regular promotional emails.

Do Birthday Emails Work?

Absolutely! When it comes to engagement metrics, birthday emails are the party animals of the email marketing world. In fact, according to Experian, birthday emails generate “179% more clicks, 481% more transactions, and 342% more revenue per email.”Our educated hypothesis is that everyone loves a little extra attention on their birthday, and when brands deliver that in the form of tailored offers and heartfelt messages, subscribers are more likely to engage (and buy)!

10 Happy Birthday Email Examples (and  their strategies)

Birthday emails are a unique blend of celebration and strategy; finding the right balance is important. We've scoured the email universe and handpicked 12 of the best birthday emails. Each example showcases a different approach, from heartwarming messages to irresistible offers.As we unwrap each one, you'll discover what makes them stand out and drive results. By the end of this list, you'll be brimming with ideas and ready to craft birthday emails that resonate and convert.

Make your offer stand out 

This birthday email example from Chipotle showcases a brilliant marketing strategy. The "Gift of Guac" is not only quirky and engaging but also entices the receiver with a tempting offer on one of Chipotle's delicacies. Not only that, but the offer is applicable anytime during their birthday month, which promotes return visits.In addition, the call-to-action button attracts the reader's eye and offers clear instructions for the next steps.

Keep it Simple and Stay on Brand 

When it comes to birthday emails, Outdoor Voices nails it by embracing the beauty of simplicity.A common mistake with birthday emails is that it is really easy to go overboard. Outdoor Voices does a great job of embracing the “less is more” approach to design and copywriting, which aligns with their overall brand identity.Another differentiating factor, when compared to Chipotle’s approach above, is that the offer is not the star of the email. Instead, the customer is. This strategy is great for strengthening connections with readers as they often feel less “sales-y. ”Regardless, they do a great job of ensuring the offer is still noticed by adding an on-brand CTA that stands out.

Nike's birthday email also beautifully embodies its athletic and dynamic brand essence. Featuring an athlete surrounded by playful hand-drawn elements, the email captures attention and reinforces Nike's iconic image. The straightforward offer of a 10% discount on a $100 purchase, combined with the exclusive feel of 'Member Access,' effectively incentivizes the recipient to shop.

Use a Humorous Approach

The following birthday email from Markiplier incorporates humor to create a memorable and light-hearted message. The message feels personable as it makes a joke about aging that a friend would make, yet emphasizes genuine appreciation.The offer for a discount on Markiplier store items adds an incentive to the comedic touch. If there's a lesson here, it's this: a good laugh can reel 'em in, but pairing it with a genuine offer? That's the cherry on top!

Exclusivity For The Win

If you're an avid Sephora shopper, you'll know their birthday mini sets are (unfortunately) not curated for the individual; however, this email makes you feel like it is.While using your reader's name is a great example of personalization, in this case, it isn't the star of the show.Sephora's unique layout, design, and use of high-quality images exude the feeling of "these were hand-picked just for you." The use of supersized imageslaid out was intentional to make these "minis" feel larger (and, in turn, more exclusive) than they are, which likely makes "Mary" feel special.They also subtly hint with a subtitle that "Mary" is receiving this exclusive offer because they are part of their "beauty insider" program, further promoting the feeling of exclusivity and encouraging customer loyalty.

Time Is Of The Essence? or Not? 

The following two emails offer a different approach to birthday offer expiration dates.PixelBoosts offers a 30% discount to be redeemed within three days. Crafted for those looking to renew their subscriptions, this birthday email does a good job of blending the personal touch of a birthday email with a gentle nudge toward "stick around with us!"

On the other hand, the email below extends the festivities and gives the reader the entirety of their month to redeem their discount. The phrase "pick your own present" offers a sense of autonomy and personalization.

There are pros and cons for both strategies.While offering limited-time offers such as PixelBoost can be a great way to encourage urgency and conversion, finding the right time to send this email is important. According to Campaign Monitor, 55% of birthday emails are sent on the recipient's birth date. For limited offers such as 3 days, the challenge comes with not knowing whether the recipient will open the email in time as they might be taking some much-needed R&R.For birthday emails with a much longer deadline, while they offer recipients ample time to open and purchase, you risk them forgetting about your offer. In this case, reminder emails will be essential, turning birthday emails into birthday campaigns.As always, we recommend testing and monitoring what works best for you and your organization.

Personalized Product Recommendations

According to Epsilon, "80% of consumers say they're more willing to purchase when provided with a personalized experience." While, a birthday email alone is a strong example of this, Rachel Jackson's birthday email takes it one (or ten) steps further. 

While we usually see product recommendations being personalized with the power of dynamic content and consumer behavior, Rachael Jackson takes a unique, maybe simpler, but still impactful approach using the recipient's birthstones. 

The use of high-quality images and meaningful descriptions engages the recipient to learn more about their birthstone, which only further helps promote the feeling that "this was made for me." 

Use Interactive Elements 

When done right, videos, gifs, and polls are great ways to catch your readers' attention and guide them toward the desired action.While the email below is simple, the animated birthday cake and candle GIF catches the reader's eye and embodies the essence of celebration, warmth, and festivity. Again, while simple, the GIF enhancesthe user experience, making the offer more enticing and the email more interactive.

Loyalty Points Boost

Simons' birthday email effectively leverages a loyalty program by offering double points on the largest purchase made during the birthday month. The CTA "treat yourself" is strategically used to encourage a larger-than-usual purchase, possibly enticing the reader to buy something they might have been eyeing for a while. The double points incentivize the consumer as they are more willing to buy, knowing they will receive something in return.

Simon isn't just sending out birthday wishes but making it a win-win for everyone.

Best Practices for Engaging Birthday Email Campaigns

The best birthday emails are more than just a celebratory message; they're an opportunity to deepen your connection with your subscribers. To make sure that your birthday wishes stand out in a crowded inbox, it's important to follow some tried-and-true best practices.From creating an automatic birthday campaign to the art of the perfect call-to-action, here are our top secrets to crafting unforgettable birthday emails.

Automation is Your Birthday Campaign BFF

No one is to be left behind. Setting up an automated birthday campaign ensures subscribers feel acknowledged on their special day. It's not just about convenience; it's about consistency.Automation permits timely and personalized gestures that say, "We remember, and we care."

Send More Than One Birthday Email 

One email is great, but why stop there? Celebrating a subscriber's birthday isn't just about the day itself; it's about the anticipation and the afterglow.Start with a warm pre-birthday greeting, followed by the main birthday wish, and perhaps a gentle reminder or a thank-you note a day or two later. It's a prolonged celebration that keeps the connection alive and makes your brand memorable.

Ensure a Smooth Redemption Process 

If you're gifting your subscribers a birthday treat (and we highly recommend you do!), make the redemption process a breeze. The last thing you want is for them to jump through hoops on their special day. Whether it's a discount code, a freebie, or exclusive access, ensure they can claim it effortlessly.Part of this is ensuring a clear and compelling CTA. Whether you're nudging them to shop a birthday sale, read a special message, or claim a gift, your CTA should stand out.

Design Unforgettable Birthday Emails with Beefree

Whether it's a heartfelt message, a special discount, or an exclusive offer, it is proven that birthday emails strengthen brand-consumer relationships. And with only 31% of retail email marketers sending birthday greetings, there's a huge opportunity for you to stand out.As shown above, playing with color, layouts, images, and interactive elements is the name of the game. And while it might seem challenging and time-consuming at first, it doesn't have to be.With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and a catalog of over 1,600 templates, Beefree makes designing birthday emails a piece of cake ;).Not sure where to start? Try this free birthday email template.

Navigating the world of email marketing can be a maze, especially when you're trying to pinpoint the perfect moment to send out that meticulously crafted newsletter. It can be even more complicated when there are multitudes of studies on the World Wide Web that offer different insights into what the "perfect time" is.Yes, we wish it were as simple as stating, "Friday at 10 AM," but the truth is various factors influence when the "right time" is for you and your audience. And while we cannot tell you directly "This is THE time," what we can do is share some of the nuances that will help you get one step closer to making data-driven decisions.

Why is newsletter timing important?

Ever heard the saying, "Timing is everything"? Well, in the world of email marketing, that couldn't be more true.Finding the right time to engage with your audience is crucial to determine the effectiveness of your communication. For example, sending newsletters at a time when your audience is more likely to be in their inbox (i.e., 9 am -5 pm for business professionals) can help increase open, click-through, and conversion rates.As a first step, we suggest looking at your existing data and trying to identify patterns in your audience's behaviors.

When is the Best Time of Day to Send a Newsletter

Every audience is different. Your subscribers might have unique habits, quirks, and preferences that set them apart from others, so try to identify those first. Based on your findings, here are some times that may work for you and your audience:

Morning (6 am - 11 am):

• 6 am - 8 am: According to Sleep Advisor 30% of millennials check their emails within 15 minutes of waking up. They are likely still in bed on their mobile phones. 
• 8 am - 11 am: Email open rates rise as the workday kicks off. Campaign Monitor's data suggests that over half of all opens happen between 9 am – 5 pm, with peak open times just before and after lunch.

Afternoon (12 pm - 5 pm):

• 12 pm - 2 pm: Lunch breaks offer a window where subscribers might take a quick glance at their emails. Because lunchtime is usually a time to decompress, the length of your emails should be kept short and to the point. 
• 2 pm - 5 pm: The afternoon sees a mix of mobile and desktop opens. While some might be looking for a distraction, others might be too engrossed in work.

Evening (6 pm - 10 pm):

• 6 pm - 8 pm: While this might not be a great time to send B2B emails as professionals are winding down from work, this time is great for lifestyle, entertainment, or e-commerce newsletters.
• 8 pm - 10 pm: This is when identifying your audience's unique quirks will come in handy. If, for instance, you're targeting bartenders, then for many, this is actually the start of their work day! But, if your audience is an NYU professor, we suggest waiting until the morning. 

While your sending time will vary, one thing remains the same - emails must be optimized for mobile and desktop screens. By ensuring they're optimized for both viewing experiences, you're meeting your audience right where they are, no matter the time of day.

Best Day of the Week to Send a Newsletter

The day of the week you choose to send out your newsletter can significantly impact its open and click-through rates. Various studies have shared their own findings based on their unique audiences. Here's the consensus:

• Mondays: Monday emails can be hit or miss. While the open rates are comparable to the other days of the week, the click-through rates are not. Our guess is that this might be because most people are clearing out their inboxes from the weekend and might be overlooking or ignoring the actual email content. 
• Tuesdays to Thursdays: These days are often considered the prime days for sending newsletters. Midweek emails have higher open rates as people are more active and engaged with their inboxes.
• Fridays: As the week winds down, so does the effectiveness of email campaigns. However, if your content is more relaxed or weekend-focused, Friday might suit you.
• Weekends (Saturday & Sunday): Open rates tend to drop during the weekends as people are less likely to check their emails. 

The studies show us that, likely, everyone will be sending out emails on Tuesday. Part of your strategy could also be sending emails when there's minimal competition! If you're bold and want to stand out, maybe test out a weekend send and see how that works!

Factors That Influence the Best Time to Send Email Newsletters

Location & Time Zone

Time zones can be tricky, and what's prime time in one region might be the middle of the night in another.A fascinating tidbit from Mailchimp suggests that newsletters sent at 10 am in the recipient's local time zone often hit the sweet spot. But here's the twist: cultural nuances and typical workday rhythms can shake things up. For instance, a country with a siesta culture might not appreciate midday emails as much as one without. The key? Know your audience, understand their routines, and tailor your timing to match.

B2B vs. B2C

The industry you're in can also play a pivotal role in determining the best send times. B2B (Business to Business) emails, for instance, often see higher open rates during the workweek, especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as reported by Campaign Monitor.On the other hand, B2C (Business to Consumer) emails might perform better during weekends when consumers have more leisure time to check their personal emails.

Seasons and Holidays

As the holiday jingles start playing, e-commerce brands often witness their email engagement soar, with subscribers eagerly hunting for those Black Friday deals or festive offers; however, industries like real estate or B2B services might find that their emails experience a lull during these busy times.If seasonality may be a hindering factor in your marketing efforts, start thinking early on about how to adjust your time and day during the seasons. After all, if you typically send emails on Thursday, when November rolls around, you should avoid sending them on Thanksgiving.On the other hand, you can leverage the seasons to help guide your email marketing strategy.According to Omnisend's research, holiday campaigns have a 45% higher open rate than non-holiday campaigns.

Tips for Determining the Best Time to Send Your Email Newsletter

If you've made it this far, you're familiar with all the nuances influencing "the perfect time" for sending your newsletter. While it can seem like there is a lot of conflicting information out there, we want to help avoid the overwhelm! As mentioned earlier, let your data guide you and spend some time monitoring results, over time you'll find the optimal time for you. Here's what to focus on:

• Audience Segmentation: Segmenting your audience based on behavior, location, or preferences can help tailor your send times based on time zone, seasonality, and peak attention time. 
• Monitoring Newsletter Performance: Keep a close eye on your email metrics. Tracking open rates, click-through rates, and engagement over time can provide insights into when your audience is most active.
• A/B Testing: Don't be afraid to experiment! Send the same email at different times or days and monitor which performs better. Over time, this can help you pinpoint the most effective send times.
• Subscriber Feedback: Sometimes, the best approach is the direct one. Consider running a quick survey asking your subscribers when they prefer to receive emails. Their feedback can be invaluable.
• Analyze Past Campaigns: Look back at your previous campaigns. Identify which ones had the highest engagement and see if there's a pattern in the send times.

Boost Newsletter Engagement With Eye-Catching Design

Sending an email at the perfect time is all about optimizing engagement, but finding the right time is only half the battle. The other half? Ensuring it's presented in a visually appealing manner. An engaging design captures attention, enhances readability, and encourages clicks. Beefree makes ensuring all three a breeze.With over 1,600 email and page templates and a drag-and-drop editor, Beefree makes it super easy to create emails that resonate with your audience and quickly export using your favorite sending platform.The best part? It's free. Sign up now and happy designing!

In the world of new and shiny digital marketing tricks, email marketing is still the most reliable, effective, and consistent communication tool. With over half of the world's population using email, a strong email marketing strategy is more than just a nice-to-have—it's an essential part of a successful marketing practice.

What is an email marketing strategy?

To get started with an email marketing program, you’ll need an email marketing strategy: a comprehensive plan that aligns your business goals with the content and timing of your email campaigns. This strategy should consider what you know about your audience, how you can deliver value, and when to integrate data-driven decisions to optimize and improve your emails.

The best email strategies are strategically designed and tested over time. With an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, the financial benefits of email are also substantial, making it worth the time and effort to get your message just right. 

Email Marketing Strategies to Use in Your Next Campaign

Are you ready to get started? Here are eight tried-and-true email marketing tips to enhance your email marketing campaigns and ensure their successful outcomes.

Strategy #1: Set the Stage with Clear Goals and Objectives

Defining your goals and objectives is the first step toward a successful email marketing campaign strategy. After all, without goals and objectives, how would you know what’s successful? Whether you're looking to drive traffic to your website or enhance customer retention, having clear goals allows you to create a focused and effective campaign.

Consider this email marketing tip: Use a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) framework when setting your goals. This framework helps to check that your goals are clear, actionable, and tied to your business objectives.

Strategy #2: Gain Relevancy with Segmentation

Email segmentation is an invaluable strategy that involves dividing your email list into smaller, more targeted groups. You'll likely engage your audience better with more personalized and relevant information when you send more tailored messages to each segment.

If you’re just starting with segmentation, consider starting with something like demographic information such as gender, age, or location. As you gather more data and begin to learn more about your audience, refine your segments to reflect behavioral traits. This can include elements such as past purchases and website interactions.

Strategy #3: Craft Compelling Subject Lines

Subject lines are your first chance to grab the reader's attention, so they play an integral role in whether your email gets opened or ignored. This makes subject lines critical to the success of your email strategy!

As a best email marketing practice, we recommend subject lines that create curiosity and convey value. A/B testing is a way to continually improve your subject lines and help you determine what resonates with your audience. One test we love: Try using an emoji ♥️.

Strategy #4: Get More Opens and Revenue with Personalization

Personalization is more than simply addressing recipients by their names; it’s also about delivering content that resonates with their interests, needs, and habits. A personalized email is more likely to engage a reader and prompt them to take action. In fact, 90% of marketers believe this strategy helps them generate more revenue.

Personalization is an email marketing technique that uses dynamic content to personalize emails based on the recipient's data. This can range from product recommendations to content related to their past interactions with your brand.

Strategy #5: Structure Your Emails for Success

The structure of your email plays a key role in its effectiveness because a well-structured email is easy to navigate, helping engage your audience and drive them to take the desired action.

To structure emails for an effective email marketing strategy, be sure to include a compelling headline, a clear and concise message, and a strong call-to-action, and ensure it's mobile-friendly. 

Read this blog to learn more about structuring your emails for success on mobile devices.

Strategy #6: Stun Readers with Impactful Email Design

Visual appeal can significantly impact an audience's perception of your brand and their engagement with your email. A clean, attractive design grabs attention and can improve readability and comprehension, which means a solid design is essential to getting your message across.

Check out the email design templates available from Beefree. Leverage our tools to find the perfect email design template for your next email campaign. Best of all, Beefree’s templates are compatible with your favorite email providers!

Strategy #7: Try it Again, But Different

The success of your email marketing campaigns hinges on your ability to learn from past results and make the necessary improvements to get better. A/B testing different email elements can help you learn what works best for your audience.

As best email marketing practices, we recommend regularly testing different components of your emails, such as subject lines, content, design, and send times, and using the results to optimize your future campaigns. 

Strategy #8: Monitoring and Analyzing Results

Ensure your email marketing strategies are effective by monitoring and analyzing your results. Understanding your performance metrics allows you to make data-driven decisions to improve your campaigns and achieve better outcomes.

Regularly review these key metrics:

• Open rates: If they’re low, consider testing various subject lines.
• Click-through rates (CTR): If they’re not consistent, consider testing a new call-to-action phrase.
• Conversion rates: If these aren’t meeting your standards, try testing a new offer or different methods of selling.

Email Marketing Strategy Examples to Inspire Your Campaign

Learning from successful campaigns can provide invaluable insights for your own strategy. Here are three examples to consider.

A Personalized Way to Entice More Pizza Sales

Slice’s email showcases the power of personalization and well-structured content in its attempt to drive repeat business. This email keeps the content clear and concise to show the customer Slice appreciates their business and hopes they return.

Go Starry-Eyed for a Starbucks Welcome Email

Starbucks’ triggered email campaign cleverly targets its new users with ways to engage with its brand. Engagement offers at the bottom of the email are a great place to perform A/B testing and learn which options drive the most clicks and grow deeper engagement from new customers.

Spur Action with an Engaging Subject Line

See how Stanley Steemer’s subject line entices email opens by using an emoji in replace of a word? The image helps draw attention to the message. Then, the company makes great use of pre-text to provide information on an offer and services so the reader has even more reason to open the email.

Crafting Your Email Marketing Strategy

Understanding and implementing these best email marketing strategies is one step toward creating impactful email campaigns. Effective email marketing is about understanding your audience, delivering value, and continuously learning and improving.

Having the right tools in your arsenal can significantly enhance your email marketing efforts. With Beefree's wide range of responsive email design templates, you can create engaging, visually appealing emails for any occasion, sure to capture your audience's attention and drive conversions. Get started with Beefree today and take your email marketing campaigns to new heights!

In the bustling digital marketplace, newsletters have emerged as a pivotal communication tool.Newsletters serve as a way to ensure a steady flow of communication between businesses and their diverse audiences. They also serve their purpose as a way to promote products and services while establishing and nurturing relationships with customers.The versatility of newsletters, especially in email marketing, has proven to be indispensable in a marketer’s toolkit.

What is a Newsletter?

A newsletter is an email dispatched to a list of subscribers on a regular cadence. Its purpose is to provide subscribers with a digest of the latest updates, news, and content pertaining to a brand or industry.This format of communication is not just a vessel for information but also a strategy designed to keep the audience engaged, informed, and connected with the brand. According to Statista, 30% of marketers claimed that email marketing offers the highest ROI than any other marketing platform.The efficacy of email newsletters lies in their ability to deliver tailored content directly to individuals. The goal? That your brand remains etched in their minds.

What is the Purpose of a Newsletter?

The purpose of newsletters can be as varied and dynamic as the businesses that utilize them. While the overarching objective is maintaining a consistent and valuable communication channel with subscribers, the specific aims can diverge significantly.

• Brand Awareness: Elevating and maintaining the brand’s presence in the minds of consumers.
• Promotion: Highlighting new products, services, or offers to drive sales and engagement.
• Education: Offering insights, tips, and valuable content related to the industry or product offerings.
• Customer Retention: Nurturing existing customer relationships through exclusive content and offers.

Each organization should align its newsletter strategy with its unique goals. This will help ensure that the content sent to its subscribers is both purposeful and impactful.

What is the Importance of a Newsletter?

The importance of newsletters is multifaceted and offers a slew of advantages that extend beyond mere communication.

• Direct Communication: With over 4 billion email users, newsletters facilitate a direct line of communication between the business and the consumer. 
• Customer Engagement: Through consistent and valuable content, newsletters keep the audience engaged, fostering a stronger relationship between them and the brand. 
• Traffic and Sales: By featuring products, offers, and content, newsletters drive traffic to the website, potentially catalyzing increased sales and customer interaction.
• Audience Insights: Analyzing engagement and interaction with newsletters provides valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviors.

In essence, newsletters are a strategic asset, propelling businesses toward enhanced customer engagement, loyalty, and growth.

What’s in a Newsletter?

While crafting a newsletter, it’s important to understand the integral elements that come together to form an effective and engaging email. Each component within a newsletter plays a crucial role. Each is determined to help convey a message and influence an action, all while captivating and guiding the reader.From the initial greeting to the overall structure and CTA, each element is pivotal in the newsletter's efficacy and impact. Let’s dive into what brings a newsletter to life, ensuring it is not just read but experienced and interacted with by the audience.

Header and Branding Elements

The header, often adorned with the brand’s logo and a compelling title, serves as the initial handshake between the brand and the reader. It is said that brands have 8 seconds to attract consumers' attention, so this section plays an important role in setting the tone and establishing immediate brand recognition. It's not merely a visual element but a banner that heralds the brand’s identity and promise to its audience.Read more: 8 Simple Yet Highly Effective Tips for Your Email Header Design.

Content Sections and Modules

Content sections and modules within a newsletter help the email be digestible and seamlessly navigable. Each element should be curated to ensure the content is relevant to the reader. Employing varied content modules, such as articles, tips, or product highlights, ensures a rich and diverse content experience. The content should be laid out specifically to helpguide the reader through the newsletter and toward the desired action.

Visual Elements 

Visual elements in a newsletter are the silent communicators, conveying messages and emotions through imagery, color, and design. They enhance and complement the textual content and ensure the newsletter is read and experienced.Visuals are also a great way to break down content sections to support the reader to the desired action further. Utilizing high-quality images, consistent branding colors, and visually appealing design elements further embeds the brand into the reader's consciousness.When it comes to visuals and imagery, accessibility plays an essential role. Be sure to read our latest blog on "Improving Your Email Accessibility with Beefree."

Call-to-Action Buttons and Links

When we discuss "leading a reader to a desired action," this is it. The call-to-action (CTA) buttons and links are the catalysts within a newsletter, propelling the reader from engagement to action. Whether it’s to “Shop Now,” “Read More,” or “Subscribe,” the CTA is a directive that deepens their interaction with the brand. CTAs should be visually prominent and accompanied by compelling, action-oriented language. This will help enhance their efficacy, transforming the newsletter from a passive read to an interactive experience.

Newsletter Footer

The footer in a newsletter email plays a crucial role in ensuring compliance with email marketing best practices and legal requirements.For instance, the CAN-SPAM Act (similar to GDPR Compliancein Europe) are rules and regulations for commercial email messages. Both are put in place to protect the privacy of email recipients and impose several requirements on businesses and individuals who send commercial emails.Here are some of the key provisions of these regulations include:

1. Opt-Out Mechanism: Senders must provide a clear and functional way for recipients to opt out of receiving future emails. Once a recipient opts out, the sender must honor their request promptly.
2. Accurate Header Information: The "From," "To," and "Reply-to" fields of email messages must accurately identify the sender and the message's routing information.
3. Physical Address: Senders must include a valid physical postal address in the email. This can be a physical street address or a registered P.O. Box.
4. Commercial Nature Disclosure: The email must clearly indicate that it is a commercial message and provide information about how to opt-out.

In addition, if a company uses a third party to send commercial emails, the sender and the third party can be liable for violations. This is why various sending platforms have a required footer to adhere to when developing emails.Overall, the footer serves as a digital signature, offering subscribers essential information like contact details, an unsubscribe link, and privacy policy links. This not only builds trust and transparency but also helps maintain legal compliance with regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act.Moreover, the footer provides a last chance for engagement, including links to social media profiles, encouraging recipients to connect and interact with the brand beyond the email.

Stellar Example Newsletter

The following example comes from our very own template catalog. Our team of Designers, alongside our Email Marketer and Content Specialist, developed this template to maximize engagement. This template is perfect for organizations looking to send employees reminders and updates, welcome new team members, and celebrate special holidays - in this case, Mother's Day.Link to template: https://beefree.io/template/company-updates-mothers-day

The header

The newsletter begins with a header with a logo and a navigation bar that leads employees to learn more about news and events happening at their organization. The imagery used, as well as the text, provides immediate brand recognition and sets the stage for the content that unfolds.PRO tip: We suggest swapping out the illustration with an image of one of your company events for a more personalized newsletter. 

The layout

The content sections are structured to provide a seamless navigation through varied content types. The ease of readability ensures the message is conveyed and absorbed, providing value and fostering engagement among the readers.PRO tip: As seen in this template, use color to break down content blocks and make a more engaging newsletter. Be sure to use colors that are cohesive to your brand identity and allow the CTA to stand out.

The visuals

Visual elements are strategically interspersed to enhance the content. The images and icons throughout the newsletter are used to provide additional context and add a layer of engagement and interaction within the newsletter itself.

The CTA Because this newsletter template is meant to offer different buckets of digestible information, the CTA's do vary; however, each one isnot just a directive but an invitation, enticing the reader to delve deeper.

The footerAs noted above, the footer in a newsletter is essential for compliance and to encourage engagement. Each Beefree footer is built to ensure both (but always refer back to your sending platform and your country's specific requirements to be sure).

How to Create an Effective Newsletter

Creating a standout newsletter involves smart design and a solid content strategy. It's all about making sure your message doesn't just reach the reader but also connects and sparks engagement. Good design catches the eye, while strong content keeps the reader's attention. Let's dive into key practices that will help elevate your newsletter from a basic message to an engaging, interactive communication tool.

Define and Segment Your Target Audience

Understanding and segmenting your target audience is the cornerstone for effective newsletters. It allows brands to tailor relevant, valuable, and engaging content to the right audience. Begin by defining demographic and psychographic profiles. You can do this by requesting this information directly from your readers or by using the data provided by your email marketing platform.Then, segment your audience based on parameters such as purchase history, engagement level, or geographical location. Tailoring your content to meet groups' specific needs and interests enhances relevance, helping foster a more personalized connection.

Design a Captivating Template

A captivating newsletter should be aesthetically pleasing, reflective of your brand, and conducive to readability and navigation.At Beefree, we're huge advocates of how templates and email design systems can help you and your team save time. When you're creating newsletter templates, ensure that they are responsive and offer a seamless experience across various devices and platforms, as well as on-brand with your organization. If you need assistance getting started, explore Beefree’s newsletter templates and browse our myriad designs.

Create Engaging Subject Lines

The subject line is the gateway to your newsletter, and crafting one that is both compelling and engaging is paramount in ensuring your email is opened and read. An effective subject line should spark curiosity, convey value, and be succinct enough to be easily digestible. Utilize action words, pose questions, or create a sense of urgency to entice the reader to delve into the content that awaits within your newsletter.

Focus on Quality Content

Quality content should provide substance and value to your audience. It should be a blend of informative, entertaining, and actionable content to ensure readers derive tangible value with every interaction. As mentioned earlier, for more general newsletters (like our Email Design Blog Newsletter), combining a mix of articles, tips, and product highlights helps the audience choose the content that is relevant to them. A reminder that the content that you add should still be relevant to your brand and business objectives.

Additional Newsletter Information

Here are some additional tips that can help you elevate your email marketing endeavors and improve your strategy for newsletter creation:

• Consistency in Sending: Establish and adhere to a consistent sending schedule to build anticipation and reliability among your audience.
• Balance Between Visuals and Text: Ensure a harmonious blend of text and visuals to create an engaging yet easily digestible newsletter.
• Personalization: Utilize subscriber data to tailor content and create a more personalized and relevant experience for each reader.
• Mobile Responsiveness: All emails should be design to render correctly on all screen sizes to cater to on-the-go readers and enhance user experience.
• A/B Testing: Employ A/B testing to understand subscriber preferences and optimize content for enhanced engagement and conversion.

How to Measure Newsletter Performance

Understanding and analyzing key metrics sheds light on the current performance and paves the way for optimizing future newsletters. Here are some pivotal metrics to consider:

• Open Rate: Monitor how many subscribers are opening your newsletter to gauge initial interest and the effectiveness of your subject line.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Analyzing the CTR provides insights into how engaging and compelling your content and CTAs are to your readers.
• Conversion Rate: Track the actions taken by the CTAs in your newsletter to understand how effectively it’s driving desired outcomes.
• Bounce Rate: Keep an eye on the bounce rate to ensure your emails are successfully delivered and identify potential issues.
• Unsubscribe Rate: Monitoring unsubscribe rates can provide insights into subscriber satisfaction and content relevance.

These metrics serve as a compass, guiding your newsletter strategy toward enhanced engagement, relevance, and impact. By continuously monitoring and adapting based on these insights, your newsletters will reach, resonate, engage, and convert your intended audience.

Newsletter Information FAQ

Let's dive into the world of newsletters with some handy FAQs! Whether you're curious about the different kinds of newsletters, their key parts, or why they're crucial for content marketing, we've got answers.Below, we explore common questions to help guide you through the ins and outs of creating and using newsletters effectively.

What are the Three Types of Newsletters?

The three primary types of newsletters are informational (focused on sharing news and updates), promotional (highlighting products, services, or offers), and relational (geared towards building and nurturing customer relationships).

What are Three Main Components of a Newsletter?

The three main components of a newsletter are the header (including title and logo), the main content (articles, updates, and promotions), and the footer (contact information, social links, and unsubscribe option).

Why is a Newsletter Important for a Content Marketing Strategy?

Newsletters are vital for content marketing. They provide businesses a cost effective way to consistently engage with their audience, nurture leads, and establish authority in their respective industries.

What is the Basic Structure of a Newsletter?

The basic structure of a newsletter consists of a headline or title, an introductory section, the main content (which can be a mix of articles, updates, and promotions), and a closing or footer section with essential links and contact information.

What are the Advantages of a Newsletter?

Newsletters offer several advantages, such as keeping audiences informed and promoting products or services. When done right, they are also effective tools for building brand loyalty, driving website traffic, and enhancing customer engagement and retention.

Start Creating Engaging and High-Performing Newsletters with Beefree

The key to crafting successful newsletters lies in the ability to create visually appealing, responsive, and user-friendly designs. That's where Beefree, a versatile email builder, comes into play.With Beefree, you can take your newsletter game to the next level. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just getting started, Beefree offers the tools and templates you need to captivate your audience and achieve your goals. The best part? It's free! Sign up today. 

Email marketing is a powerful tool for reaching your audience, but it often comes with its fair share of challenges.

One of the most common dilemmas that marketers face is the need to create visually appealing and accessible emails without the support of a skilled HTML developer.

This challenge has led many marketers to resort to image-only emails, which may look great but often lack when it comes to accessibility. For instance, screen readers can’t read text that is contained within an image, rendering much of your email content inaccessible to those with visual impairments.

Fortunately, there's a solution: Beefree.

In this blog post, we will explore how Beefree can help you improve your email production process and enable you to build beautiful, responsive, and accessible emails. We'll demonstrate how this intuitive drag-and-drop email builder empowers marketers to create emails faster, ensuring they meet accessibility standards and best practices.

Why Marketers Resort to Image-Only Emails

Here are some common reasons why marketers might choose image-only emails:

Visual Appeal: Image-only emails can be visually striking. Marketers may believe that a well-designed, image-heavy email will capture the recipient's attention and leave a memorable impression.

Simplicity: Creating image-only emails can be straightforward. For marketers without HTML coding skills, using an image as the main content is an easier and more efficient option.

Design Control: With images, marketers have more control over the design, layout, and aesthetics of their emails. They can create visually appealing content without relying on complex coding.

The downsides of image-only emails

While sending image-only emails may have certain advantages in terms of design, they can pose several issues and drawbacks, which can negatively impact your email marketing efforts and give some users a poor experience.

Here are some of the key issues associated with sending image-only emails:

Accessibility Concerns: One of the most significant issues with image-only emails is that they can be inaccessible to recipients with visual impairments or those who rely on screen readers. Since the email content is embedded in images, it cannot be read aloud by screen-reading software, effectively excluding a portion of your audience.

Reduced Engagement: Image-only emails may have lower engagement rates compared to emails with a mix of text and images. Because images don’t always render properly or are compatible with screen readers, recipients may be less likely to engage.

Spam Filters and Deliverability: Many spam filters and email clients view image-heavy emails suspiciously. Sending image-only emails may increase the likelihood of your messages ending up in recipients' spam folders or being flagged as potential spam.

Mobile Responsiveness: As mentioned above, image-only emails may not be mobile-responsive. This causes them to display poorly on smartphones and tablets, leading to a poor user experience and decreased engagement.

Slow Loading Times: Emails consisting of large images can take longer to load, especially for users with slower internet connections. Slow-loading emails may lead to frustration and decreased reader patience, which can cause a bad brand reputation.

Lack of Fallback Content: In cases where images fail to load for some recipients (due to email client settings or other factors), image-only emails provide no fallback content, leaving the email effectively blank.

It's advisable to use a balanced approach in your email marketing campaigns to address these issues. Incorporate HTML text, alt text for images, and a good mix of text and visuals to ensure your emails are accessible, engaging, and capable of reaching a broader audience.

Additionally, consider using responsive design techniques to optimize the email's display on various devices and screen sizes.

Introducing Beefree

Beefree is an email marketing game-changer. It's a user-friendly drag-and-drop email builder that empowers marketers to create stunning emails while adhering to best practices and accessibility standards.

Key Features and Benefits of Beefree

• Drag-and-Drop Interface: Beefree's intuitive interface lets you build emails by simply dragging and dropping elements onto your canvas.
• Responsive Design: Ensure your emails look great on any device with Beefree's responsive design capabilities.
• HTML Text: Easily add HTML text to your emails for improved accessibility.
• Bulletproof Buttons: Create CTA buttons that work seamlessly across all email clients, ensuring a consistent user experience.

Now, let's put Beefree to the test by recreating an image-only email with accessibility and best practices in mind.

The Experiment:
Recreating an Image-Only Email with Beefree

Step 1: Selecting a Sample Image-Only Email

To showcase the capabilities of Beefree, we've chosen a sample image-only email as our starting point.

For example, this email on Email Love from Last Crumb features some stunning photography and engaging content; however, the whole thing is made with images. While, the overall look and feel of the email could easily be recreated with HTML using Beefree.

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The Last Crumb’s image-only email at least uses descriptive Alt text, but we think we can significantly improve the email’s accessibility with Beefree.

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Step 2: Recreating It Using Beefree

1. Extract the images from the original email

The first step in this process is to extract those delicious-looking cookie photos from the original email and any other elements that we want to keep as an image. In this particular email, most of the text can be easily recreated with HTML text in Beefree.

2. Adding HTML Text for Improved Accessibility

One of the key improvements we’ll make is to add HTML text to our email. This ensures that the content is accessible to all recipients, including those who rely on screen readers. Once we have added our images, you can easily use the Paragraph content block to add your text. The text font, color, line height, and spacing can all be adjusted to replicate the look of the image-only email.

There are a couple of limitations when using HTML text over images. Firstly, Beefree offers a range of Google and Websafe fonts that will work in most email clients, but there were custom fonts used in this Last Crumb email that we could not exactly replicate. Last Crumb also uses multiple fonts in a single paragraph, which could not be replicated in Beefree – A small price to pay for improved accessibility.

3. Incorporating Bulletproof Buttons

Next, we’ll replace the image-based buttons with bulletproof buttons that render consistently across all email clients. This ensures a better user experience for our subscribers.

Step 3: Comparing the Original and Recreated Emails

As you can see, the recreated email looks great and adheres to accessibility standards and best practices.

ACCESSIBILITY AND BEST PRACTICES IN EMAIL DESIGN

Email accessibility is a critical consideration for modern marketers. Beefree makes creating emails that everyone can access and enjoy easier than ever. This is how the Beefree email looks with images turned off—a significant improvement over the image-based email.

Our Tips for getting the most out of Beefree

• Set Clear Objectives: Before you even start designing, clearly understand what you want the email to achieve. Whether it’s a promotional campaign, an announcement, or a newsletter, the content and design should align with your goals.
• Use Templates: Beefree offers over 1000 templates! Start with these and customize them to match your brand rather than building from scratch. This can significantly reduce the time it takes to produce an email.
• Drag-and-Drop Builder: Familiarize yourself with all the features and tools available. The more comfortable you are with the interface, the faster you can create emails. The key things to understand are how rows work, what you can do with content blocks, and how to customize the look and feel of your content. I recommend playing with Beefree’s padding and spacing features to make your emails look right.
• Consistent Branding: Set and use a consistent color palette, font selection, and logo placement for all emails. This not only establishes brand consistency but also streamlines the design process. This can quickly be done in the settings of Beefree.
• Mobile Responsiveness: Always preview and test your email on mobile devices. Your email may not stack correctly or your padding may make some parts of your email look strange. Don’t worry; Beefree enables you to show and hide content on mobile and desktop, so your email looks right across devices.
• Use Custom Blocks: If you use a particular design or content block often (like a particular footer or header), save it as a custom block. This lets you quickly insert it into future emails.
• Integrate with Other Tools: Beefree allows integration with numerous other platforms. Ensure that your email designs can be easily exported and used in your email marketing tool, whether Mailchimp, SendGrid, or others.
• Images: Use high-quality images, and always optimize them for the web to ensure faster load times. Beefree provides tools to resize, crop, and adjust your images.
• Test, Test, Test: Before sending out to your entire list, send test emails to yourself and a small team. Check for broken links, visual consistency, and any other issues that might arise. You can do this directly from Beefree.
• Collaborate: If you’re working with a team, use Beefree’s collaboration features. Get feedback directly in the platform and streamline the review and approval process.

Make Accessibile Emails a priority with Beefree

Beefree has proven to be a great tool for email marketers with limited design and coding experience. It empowers you to create visually appealing, accessible, and best-practice-compliant emails without the need for coding skills. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or starting, Beefree can streamline your email marketing efforts and help you deliver better results to your subscribers.

Ready to supercharge your email marketing with Beefree? Sign up for free today and experience the difference for yourself. Your subscribers will thank you for it.

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Black Friday is a massive shopping event that causes consumers to scramble to find the best sales from their favorite retailers. Black Friday is considered “the” season to achieve maximum holiday savings, with a staggering $9.12 billion coming from online sales alone in 2022. This is a 2.3% increase in sales from 2021. 

With 116.5 million emails sent during Black Friday, it is clear that email marketing plays an essential role in alerting customers of high-value deals and generating excitement for brands and their consumers. However, the mere volume of emails brings us to the biggest hurdle email marketers will experience: getting their emails to stand out in a crowded inbox and getting them open.

While we know you’re tired of hearing it, it is important to say that the success of an open email lies with a subject line. In fact, statistics show that 64% of people will decide whether or not to open an email based on the subject line. Let's get started!

Key Elements for Eye-Catching Black Friday Sale Email Subject Lines

The average open rate on Black Friday is 12%, which is quite a bit lower than the ongoing daily average of 21.5% across all industries. These statistics show why following tried and true subject line best practices is critical to ensure your email is opened on what is deemed the craziest email day of the year.

Some elements to consider when writing catchy Black Friday email subject lines are:

• Brevity: Short and punchy subject lines are easy to digest. To stay “mobile-friendly,” keep them under 10 words (or 30 characters). 
• Urgency: Phrases like "Last chance!" or "Ends tonight!" cause readers to open the email and take immediate action.
• Offers: Highlight the value in your subject line, such as "50% off" or "free shipping."
• Personalization: Subject lines personalized with names, products of interest, or other tailored content can drive opens.

High-Converting Words for Your Black Friday Email Subject Lines

Yes, subject lines must be kept short due to their character limit, but it goes beyond that. With only having 8 seconds to attract your reader, every word counts. Here are some high-converting words to attract and encourage an email opens:

• Best sale of the year 
• Unbelievable deals
• VIP access
• Special offer 
• X # of Savings 
• Today ONLY
• Last chance

Most Effective Types of Black Friday Email Subject Lines

There are many approaches to creating the best Black Friday email that you can take. Each is designed to entice the readers to open for different reasons. Here are five popular types of Black Friday subject lines:

• Teaser 
• Announcement 
• Percentage discount 
• Exclusive access 
• Limited-time offer 

50 Example fo the Best Black Friday Email Subject Lines

Now that we’ve explored what makes up a great Black Friday email subject line, let’s see some examples of theory in practice. We also share some of our favorite Beefree Black Friday templates and pair them with a unique subject line for you to steal ;)

Although some of the templates may appear industry-specific, all of our templates are completely customizable to fit your needs, branding, and maximize sales.

Teasers

Stir curiosity without revealing the punch line using a teaser subject line. A good teaser will hint at a secret, something exciting, or special savings to entice the reader to open the email.

1. Psst… Black Friday is Coming!
2. Your Early Access to Black Friday.
3. Huge Black Friday Savings Ahead!
4. Exclusive Black Friday Offers Are Coming
5. Your Special Offer is Inside!
6. Guess How Much Will You Save
7. Can You Keep a Secret?
8. Be the First to Know How to Save Big
9. Early Bird Catches the Deal!
10. What’s blue and will save you green?

Teaser email in the wild: 

Pair this Black Friday gaming template with the subject line "Deals you've dreamed of & more." A subject line like this pairs well with the header "This Is What You Were Waiting For" and acknowledges that the reader knew a deal was coming up soon but doesn't give too much into what the deals are - just that they go beyond expectations.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Announcements

Unveil new products or sales using an announcement subject line. Announcements generate excitement for something new or to celebrate; loyal customers will want to join the party.

1. Our Biggest Sale of the Year is Here!
2. Deals on Your Favorite Items
3. Black Friday Sales Start Now!
4. Black Friday Early Specials Are Live!
5. Black Friday Starts Today!
6. Black Friday Deals Start at Midnight!
7. Sales Too Good to Resist
8. The Savings You’ve Been Waiting For
9. Black Friday Mega-Sale!
10. Our Lowest Prices Ever!

Announcement email in action:

Can you imagine if Apple launched its latest technology during Black Friday at a discounted price? It's safe to say that the lines would quadruple in size. Use this Black Friday electronic launch email template with the subject line "New products just in time for the holidays" to maximize sales and incentivize consumers to buy now vs. later.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Percentage Discounts

Highlight the deal specifics to entice readers to open your email. On Black Friday especially, the deal is king and what’s at the top of the reader’s mind.

1. 50% Off Everything!
2. Black Friday: Up to 70% Off!
3. Score Big: 50% Off Everything!
4. Save This: 60% Off for Black Friday Only!
5. Deals Galore: Get 50% Off Site-Wide!
6. Ready, Set, Save: Up to 70% Off!
7. Pre-Black Friday Savings Up to 50%
8. Our Biggest Sale Yet: 50% Off
9. Shop More With Deals Up to 80% Off!
10. Black Friday 70% Super Savings!

Black Friday Discounts for everyone: 

Don't only tell your customers what the discount is, but show them what they can get with it! P.S. This is a great way to use personalization and dynamic content. I mean, think about the impact an "abandoned cart" email can have when you offer an extra discount on top.The following email template showcases the discounts and eligible products, allowing consumers to maximize savings and stock up on their favorite items! Pair it with " (name) your favs are 75% off " for a personalized feel.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Exclusive Access

Give your subscribers the feeling of specialness by inviting them to be a VIP! With exclusive access, early savings, and VIP sales, your recipients will want to see what perks they get for being loyal customers.

1. Exclusive VIP Black Friday Pre-Sale
2. Private Access to Black Friday Deals
3. Exclusive Early Bird Deals
4. Members Only: Deals You Won’t Believe
5. Get a Head Start on Black Friday
6. Your VIP Pass is Here: Shop Now
7. Black Friday Savings Just for You
8. Top Secret Black Friday Sales
9. For Your Eyes Only: Black Friday Sales
10. Black Friday Priority Access!

Exclusivity offers for the win:

Further evoke the feeling of "exclusiveness" by sharing Black Friday emails pre-Black Friday. In the email above, the "save the date" subheading shares the sentiment that the reader has been invited and is the "first to know" about the sale before it goes live. This also gives readers peace of mind by allowing them to search for their items ahead of time and not have to rush on the day of. This email template, along with the subject line "You're invited to indulge," will do the trick.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Limited Time Offer

Drive your readers to take immediate action with time-restricted deals they won’t want to miss out on. When you put a clock to your offer, you inspire a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out), and no one wants to be left out of a good deal!

1.  Black Friday Sale Ends at Midnight!
2. Say Bye to Black Friday Deals!
3. Only 12 Hours Left to Score!
4. These Black Friday Deals Won’t Last!
5. Hurry, Black Friday Ends in 3…2…1…
6. Today Only: Black Friday Discounts
7. Final Hours to Save on Black Friday Deals!
8. Last Call on Black Friday!
9. Last Chance to Save!
10. Tick Tock!

Time is ticking: 

Urgency is the name of the game during Black Friday. Everyone knows that BF offers are usually limited to once a year. Providing gentle reminders to your audience that the sale is ending helps them make more informed decisions. In the e-commerce email template below, the brand reminds the consumer that the sale ends at midnight with a bold header that's hard to miss. Use the subject line, "And the countdown begins," to further remind your audience of the deal expiration date.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Increase Black Friday Conversions with Eye-Catching Email Designs

Don't let time be the barrier between you and the opportunity to maximize sales on Black Friday. With Beefree, it's never too late to start planning your campaigns. Browse from our thousands of free templates and transform them into compelling emails that entice action. With these subject line tips and our easy-to-use design tool, you'll be well on your way to driving record-breaking sales this Black Friday.Happy designing!