Marketing trends are changing and evolving all the time. But, whether your business is B2C or B2B, email marketing proves to be one of the top ROIs year-after-year. In fact, when compared to other digital marketing tools, email is projected to grow 3% each year through 2022.

If you’re not utilizing this powerful tool to grow your business, now is the time to start! And, if you are employing email marketing and perhaps not seeing the open rates and click rates you would like, all is not lost. While more than half of B2B marketers say email is their most effective channel for generating revenue, not all email campaigns are created equal.

If you want to create an email that truly makes an impact on your audience, focus on the following 6 important tips when designing campaigns:

Craft a Compelling Subject Line

The subject line is the first thing your audience will see and is often the determining factor as to whether an email gets opened—or even reported as spam. Making a great first impression doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does require some thought since everything from word choice to the number of words can play a factor in the open rate of your email. Whether you are just starting out or are an experienced pro, split test your subject lines and review the analytics to better understand what works with your audience.

Set the Right Tone

Customers do business with people they not only like, but also trust. A personalized tone in an email—from the subject line to the message to the call to action—can improve your relationship with your audience, as well as open rates, click rates, and conversion rates. Keep in mind, however, that trust is something that’s built over time. Use your unique voice to provide relevant information, focus on the customer not the product or services you offer, and don’t try to ask too much from your reader at one time.

Create a Clear Call-to-Action

Email is an influential marketing tool, but it is useless if you don’t have a well-defined goal for each campaign. A clear and simple call-to-action—whether it’s to buy, register, download, follow, learn more, and so on—is a necessary and effective way to encourage readers to click through. Emails with a single CTA have been shown to increase sales exponentially, so it is important to not try to cram too much information in a campaign as well. Use action words and buttons to engage your audience and make your CTA stand out.

Use Captivating Visuals

Images are powerful because they can tell stories and make you feel emotions with just one glance. In fact, high-quality, attractive images have the ability to influence people more than words. Plus, breaking up your email with images increases readability. By harnessing this power in an email, you can make a lasting impression on your audience.

Design for Mobile

With more emails now being opened on mobile than desktop, if you want your campaign to make an impact on your target audience, it must be optimized for mobile devices. You can’t rely on content to impress readers—emails that display poorly are likely to be deleted within 3 seconds. When constructing your email, remember to use larger fonts, accommodate different devices, and keep it simple with the design.

Email Execution

Now that you know more about campaign design and content best practices, it’s time to focus on the execution. Marketing automation software can take some of the heavy lifting off of your shoulders when it comes to implementing your email strategy. Along with saving time, it has been shown to improve targeting of messages, customer service, and quality of leads, as well as increase the number of leads and conversion rates. There are a number of triggers that can be set up to send automated yet personalized messages when creating workflows, from new subscribers to clicking on a link in an email to content downloads.

Automation is not the be-all, end-all, however. It’s not enough to have one, single well-designed email to connect with and retain readers—the frequency of your touches is also important. Send too many, and you risk your list members unsubscribing, or worse, marking your emails as spam. Too few, and your subscribers may forget about your business.

In 2017, businesses that were surveyed across all industries sent anywhere from 3 to 25 emails per month. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, if you’re new to the game, a good place to start is by observing what your industry leaders and competitors are doing. It will also require some trial-and-error and close monitoring of analytics.

Regardless of whether you take advantage of automated workflows, or the optimal frequency you determine for your business, or one thing is for certain—quality, relevant content is a must.

Email marketing is an essential part of business. If you’re not making each campaign impactful, you could be missing out on a 4400% return-on-investment. If you would like assistance in kick-starting an email marketing program or help evaluating your current strategy, contact us.