Your Email Marketing Strategy for 2024

The role of email marketing in the business world continues to expand and evolve. So, keeping the same marketing strategy year in and year out may not be as helpful as it once was in keeping up with the changing tides.

While you won’t be reinventing the wheel when making a new strategy (unless you’re starting from scratch), it’s important to update your approach and follow current trends.

To get you fully informed and ready for action, we’ll cover the following topics:

• Email marketing in industries compared
• How to craft your own email marketing strategy
• Email metrics to use
• How to write the perfect email
• Email marketing best practices
• Email marketing FAQs

To give you an initial understanding of how email marketing performs across different industries, here’s a snapshot comparison of a few basic metrics to give you an idea of what industry standards look like.

Industry	Open Rate	Click Rate	Unsubscribe Rate
Non-profit Organizations	46.49%	3.78%	0.17%
Real Estate	41.6%	2.77%	0.18%
Finance	41.44%	4.9%	0.55%
Healthcare	41.23%	NA	NA
Retail	40.56%	7.7%	0.24%
Information Technology (IT)	33.5%	6.3%	0.43%
Construction	33.9%	14.5%	1.15%
Software and Web App	39.77%	2.9%	0.57%

This table showcases the open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates across eight key industries, showing a good glimpse into how email marketing performance can vary depending on the sector.

Armed with this knowledge, let’s embark on a journey to understand and master the art of email marketing in 2024. 

Email marketing compared

Email marketing often finds itself compared to newer methods like social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, and PPC.

Here, we provide a comparative analysis, backed by industry data, to showcase how email marketing holds up in terms of ROI, engagement rates, and conversion rates.

Marketing Method	Average ROI ($ for every $1 spent)	Average Open/Engagement Rate	Conversion Rate
Email Marketing	36.00-40.00	21.33%	15.22%
Social Media Marketing	2.80	1-3.5%	2-5%
Content Marketing	2.77	1-5%	2.35%
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)	2.00	4-5%	2.35%
SEO	2.75	63-71%	2.5-3%

The data highlights the distinct strengths of email marketing. With an impressive average ROI of around $40 for every dollar spent, email marketing stands out as a highly profitable strategy. 

Its open/engagement rate significantly surpasses that of social media marketing and even content marketing, which shows a stronger direct engagement with audiences.

While SEO shows a higher engagement and conversion rate, email marketing’s balanced performance across all metrics really showcases its reliability and effectiveness as a marketing tool.

It’s evident that while newer marketing methods have their merits, email marketing continues to be a powerful and essential component of a successful marketing mix.

How to craft your own email marketing strategy

Crafting a successful email marketing strategy requires a blend of creativity, analytics, and a keen understanding of your audience.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a small business owner or a marketing professional at a large corporation, developing an effective email marketing plan is a multi-faceted process for parties of all sizes.

Start with clear objectives

Define what you hope to achieve with your email marketing efforts. Clear, measurable goals will guide your strategy and help you measure success. One way to define your objectives is to use SMART goals – goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

Here are some common goals to get you on the right track:

• Increasing sales: Make email campaigns featuring exclusive deals, new product announcements, and special promotions to spark interest and drive purchases.
• Boosting brand presence: Utilize emails to narrate your brand’s story, share its values, and disseminate mission-driven content, enriching the audience’s connection with your brand.
• Fostering loyalty among customers: Employ personalized communications and loyalty rewards to deepen relationships and encourage ongoing engagement with your brand.
• Maximizing site visits: Direct subscribers to your website for the latest blogs, product reveals, or exclusive online offers, increasing web traffic and engagement.
• Cultivating lead generation: Offer enticing resources such as eBooks, webinars, or trial subscriptions to gather contact information from potential leads interested in your offerings.

Need more inspiration? Check out this post on 7 email marketing goals and how to make them a reality.

Understand your audience

Collect insights on your current customers and market to understand their demographics, preferences, and behaviors. This information will inform how you segment your audience, write your email content, and determine the tone and style of your communication.

One way to hone your target audience is to create buyer personas using HubSpot’s persona template – this will help in seeing who your ideal reader is and what they want most.

To track other audience metrics, consider using email marketing tools like Mailchimp that have demographics features.

Build a quality email list

A healthy email list is the foundation of effective email marketing. Focus on growing your list organically through your website, social media, and other customer touchpoints. Encourage sign-ups by offering value, such as informative content, exclusive discounts, or early access to new products.

• Use pop-up forms on your website to capture visitor information and encourage sign-ups.
• Offer lead magnets like free ebooks, discounts, or exclusive content to incentivize visitors to join your email list.
• Implement referral programs where existing subscribers can invite friends in exchange for a reward or discount.
• Utilize tools like:
  • OptinMonster for creating customized pop-up and sign-up forms.
  • BDOW! for capturing leads from your website and growing your list.

There are a lot of ways to get more people interested in what you have to say – check out these 10 proven ways to grow your email list to learn more!

Warm your inbox

Before launching your new strategy, especially with a new email account or after a significant change in your email volume, warming up your inbox is essential. This process gradually builds a positive sending reputation with ISPs by slowly increasing the number of emails sent over time.

Start with a low volume of highly engaged recipients and monitor engagement metrics closely. This proactive step ensures your emails reach your audience’s inboxes, avoiding the spam folder and improving overall deliverability.

Or, save yourself the trouble and implement an email warming service such as Warmup Inbox. Warmup Inbox does all the heavy lifting and makes your email address reliable and trustworthy under the watchful eyes of email service providers.

Are you interested in the benefits of warming up your inbox? Start your 7 day free trial!

Write or create engaging content

Every piece of content should serve a purpose for your audience, whether it’s solving a problem, providing insights, or offering exclusive deals that are too good to ignore.

Ask yourself, “why would this matter to my subscribers?”, before hitting send.

• Keep your brand voice: Consistency is key. Your emails are an extension of your brand, so their tone, language, and style should reflect your overall brand identity. This helps to build a stronger, more recognizable brand presence in your audience’s mind.
• Tap into interests and needs: Understanding your audience is critical. Making your content meet these interests (collected from your audience data) boosts engagement and strengthens the subscriber relationship.
• Educate and update: Keep your readers informed about industry trends, product updates, or company news. However, make sure this information is relevant to their needs and interests. Incorporating educational content, like how-to guides or tips, can position your brand as a helpful resource.
• Offer exclusive benefits: Everyone loves feeling special. Exclusive offers, early access to products or sales, and subscriber-only content can make your emails a must-open. These incentives encourage loyalty and can significantly boost open rates.
• Encourage interaction: Invite your subscribers to connect with your content through calls-to-action, asking for feedback, or prompting discussions on social media platforms. Interaction establishes a two-way relationship, making your subscribers feel heard and valued.

Design for impact and clarity

Use a clear, visually appealing layout that reflects your brand identity.  Experiment with different content formats to keep your emails fresh and engaging.

This could include videos, infographics, interactive polls, or personalized recommendations. Diverse content formats can cater to different preferences within your audience.

Additionally, make it a priority to be mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. Around 60% of emails are opened on mobile devices, so ignoring mobile optimization is a big mistake!

Test and optimize

Employ A/B testing to experiment with different aspects of your email campaigns, such as subject lines, content, and send times. Analyze results to refine your strategy continually.

A/B testing can be done in a few ways, but the end result is the same – the best possible version that gets the most engagement. Here’s a short how-to on A/B testing:

Choose what to test: Choose one element to test in your emails to keep results clear and focused. Some common elements to test include:

• Subject lines: Try different wordings or tones to see which gets higher open rates. You can use a subject line tester to see what works well.
• Call-to-action: Experiment with different text or button designs to see which drives more clicks.
• Email design: Test layout variations to determine what makes content easier to engage with (like, text-heavy vs. image-heavy).
• Send times: Test different days of the week or times of day to find when your audience is most responsive.

Set a goal: Before you run the test, define what success looks like. For example, are you looking for higher open rates or more clicks? Setting a clear objective will help measure the success of each version.

Create two variations: For A/B testing, you need to create two versions of the email with only one variable changed, just like in the classic scientific method. Version A is your control, and Version B is your variation.

Split your audience: Randomly divide your email list into two equal groups. One group receives Version A, and the other receives Version B. This ensures that any differences in results are due to the change you made.

Analyze results: After running the test, analyze which version performed better based on the goal you set. If you tested subject lines, check which had the higher open rate. If you tested CTAs, see which email drove more clicks.

Implement the winning version: Once you know which version performed better, use that version in future campaigns and refine your email strategy based on the insights gained.

Measure and adjust

Monitor key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates to understand the performance of your campaigns and identify areas for improvement.

Read on to the next section to learn more about the metrics that are most helpful when gauging the success of your campaigns.

Stay compliant

There are a lot of rules governing the flow of emails, and not adhering to policies could land you in hot water with high spam reports, spam traps, or even trouble with the law.

Here are some tips on staying compliant:

• Implement DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. They are crucial for verifying your emails’ authenticity, helping to prevent phishing and spoofing, and improving deliverability.
• Respect opt-out requests promptly by providing clear, easy-to-use unsubscribe mechanisms in all emails. This not only adheres to regulations, but also respects subscriber preferences and lowers the risk of getting flagged as spam.
• Stay updated on email marketing laws and regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR. Regulations can evolve, and being informed helps you adjust your practices to remain compliant.

Clean and update your email list

Over time, email lists can become cluttered with invalid addresses, and subscribers may change their preferences or opt out, impacting deliverability and engagement rates.

Regularly cleansing your list of these inactive or uninterested subscribers ensures you’re focusing your efforts on engaged individuals who actually want your emails, ultimately improving the performance of your email campaigns.

Here are some strategies for keeping your email list pristine:

• Regularly remove unsubscribes and hard bounces: This not only keeps your list clean but also helps in adhering to anti-spam laws by respecting user preferences and improving email deliverability.
• Validate email addresses: Use email validation tools to check the validity of the email addresses on your list. This step reduces bounce rates by removing invalid emails that could harm your sender reputation.
• Segment your list: This allows you to identify and re-engage or remove subscribers who are not engaging with your emails. Tailoring content to different segments can also improve engagement and conversion rates.
• Re-engage inactive subscribers: Before removing inactives, try a re-engagement campaign to win them back. If there’s no response, it’s safer to remove them from your list.

For these purposes, tools like EmailListVerify are here to save the day. EmailListVerify helps in efficiently managing your list’s health by offering services like real-time email verification, detecting invalid addresses, and identifying hard bounce emails before they impact your campaigns.

A good email campaign starts with a clean email list. Try EmailListVerify today and verify 100 emails for free!

Email metrics to watch

In email marketing, tracking the right metrics is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns and making data-driven decisions. Here are some key metrics to consider:

Open rate

The open rate measures the percentage of recipients who open your email. It helps gauge the initial appeal of your email, primarily the effectiveness of your subject line and sender name. The way to calculate your open rate is through a simple formula:

Open Rate = (Number of Emails Opened / (Number of Emails Sent – Bounced Emails)) × 100

Let’s try with a real example:

1. Total Emails Sent: 1,000
2. Bounced Emails: 50
3. Emails Opened: 300

Now, subtract the bounced emails from the total emails sent:

1,000 – 50 = 950 emails successfully delivered.

Next, divide the number of opened emails by the number of delivered emails:

300 / 950 = 0.3158

Finally, multiply by 100 to get the percentage:

0.3158 × 100 = 31.58%

There you have it! Your own open rate, it’s as easy as that.

Click-through rate (CTR)

CTR indicates the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in your email. It’s essential for understanding how engaging your email content is and how well your call-to-actions are performing. There’s another simple formula for finding CTR:

CTR = (Number of Clicks / Number of Emails Delivered) × 100

Let’s say you sent 1,000 emails in a campaign, 50 of them bounced, and 120 people clicked on a link within the email.

1. Emails Sent: 1,000
2. Bounced Emails: 50
3. Emails Delivered: 950
4. Clicks: 120

Once you have these numbers, you can do the math.

1. Subtract bounced emails from the total emails sent:
   1,000 – 50 = 950 emails delivered.
2. Divide the number of clicks by the number of emails delivered:
   120 / 950 = 0.1263
3. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage:
   0.1263 × 100 = 12.63%

Conversion rate

This metric tracks the percentage of email recipients who completed a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a webinar. It directly correlates to the effectiveness of your email in driving tangible results.

Conversion Rate = (Number of Conversions / Number of Emails Delivered) × 100

1. Number of Conversions: Total number of recipients who completed a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a resource.
2. Number of Emails Delivered: Total number of emails that were successfully delivered (total emails sent minus any bounced emails).
3. Conversion Rate: Divide the number of conversions by the number of emails delivered, then multiply by 100 to get the percentage.

In this example let’s pretend you sent 1,000 emails in a campaign, 50 of them bounced, and 45 recipients made a purchase after opening your email.

1. Emails Sent: 1,000
2. Bounced Emails: 50
3. Emails Delivered: 950
4. Conversions: 45

Having this information, it’s time for math:

1. Subtract bounced emails from the total emails sent:
   1,000 – 50 = 950 emails delivered.
2. Divide the number of conversions by the number of emails delivered:
   45 / 950 = 0.0474
3. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage:
   0.0474 × 100 = 4.74%

Bounce rate

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of your emails that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox. A high bounce rate may indicate problems with your email list quality, or deliverability issues.

Bounce Rate = (Bounced Emails / Number of Emails Sent) × 100

Here’s how you calculate the bounce rate:

1. Emails Sent: 1,000
2. Bounced Emails: 75

Then, just plug these numbers into the formula:

1. Divide the number of bounced emails by the total emails sent:
   75 / 1,000 = 0.075
2. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage:
   0.075 × 100 = 7.5%

Unsubscribe rate

The unsubscribe rate tracks how many recipients opted out of your mailing list after receiving an email. It can provide insights into the relevance and frequency of your communications.

Unsubscribe Rate = (Number of Unsubscribes / Number of Emails Delivered) × 100

For our campaign, let’s say you sent 1,000 emails, 50 of them bounced, and 20 people unsubscribed after receiving the email.

Here’s how you calculate the unsubscribe rate:

1. Emails Sent: 1,000
2. Bounced Emails: 50
3. Emails Delivered: 950
4. Unsubscribes: 20

Then, calculate:

1. Subtract bounced emails from the total emails sent:
   1,000 – 50 = 950 emails delivered.
2. Divide the number of unsubscribes by the number of emails delivered:
   20 / 950 = 0.0211
3. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage:
   0.0211 × 100 = 2.11%

TIP: Learn more in-depth info like how to calculate these rates and most more on our post 8+ email marketing metrics you need to track

How to write the perfect email

Writing the perfect email involves a combination of compelling content, an engaging layout, and a clear call to action. Here are some tips and examples to guide you on your journey.

Keep in mind that your mileage may vary with these, especially the templates. For more information and email examples, check out this post on sales email templates.

Start with a strong subject line

Your subject line should be captivating enough to encourage recipients to open the email, and ideally between 41 and 70 characters. Keep it concise, clear, and relevant to the content of your email.

For example, “Unlock Exclusive Savings Just for You” or “Your Guide to a Perfect Summer Wardrobe!”. These entice the reader to open with special deals and exclusive content.

Personalize your greeting

Did you know that personalized emails generally have a 20% higher open rate? Use the recipient’s name to add a personal touch. Personalization can significantly increase engagement rates.

Keep it short and valuable

Your email should be to the point and easy to read. Use short paragraphs and bullet points to break up text and make it more digestible.

As stated before, your content should be something that your audience would actually be interested in reading. It’s up to you to determine what that may be!

Use a clear call to action

What do you want your readers to do with your content? A call to action prompts more engagement and, ultimately, furthers your email campaign goals.

Your CTA should be prominently placed and clearly tell the recipient what you want them to do next. Whether it’s “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Subscribe Today,” make sure it stands out.

Email template example

Subject: [Name], Discover Our New Collection – Exclusively for You!

Greeting: Hi [Name],

Body: We’re excited to introduce our latest summer collection! Packed with vibrant colors and comfortable designs, it’s perfect for your sunny adventures.

CTA: Explore the Collection Now

Closing: Enjoy shopping, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Signature: Best regards, [Your company]

Final thoughts

As we conclude this info-packed guide on email marketing strategies for 2024, it’s clear that email marketing is here to stay, and it’s important to invest time and energy into a fully-fledged strategy.

As you embark on or continue your email marketing journey, remember the importance of understanding your audience, delivering value through your content, and maintaining a commitment to continuous improvement.

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, the principles outlined in this guide can help you harness the power of email marketing to achieve your business objectives in 2024 and beyond.

Frequently asked questions

As you refine your email marketing strategy for 2024, there are several common questions that may arise. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions that can help you navigate the complexities of email marketing:

How long should an email be?

The ideal length of an email can vary, but the goal is always clarity and brevity. A good rule of thumb is to keep your email around 100 to 200 words.

However, the content should dictate the length: sometimes a more detailed message is necessary, and it’s always important to include all necessary information and calls to action.

How often should I follow up and when?

A common practice is to send a follow-up email within a week after the initial contact, then space out subsequent emails based on engagement.

As for timing, mid-week days, particularly Tuesday to Thursday, during mid-morning or early afternoon, are generally effective. However, this can vary based on your audience, so testing and analyzing engagement data is key.

Buying an email list: pros and cons

While buying an email list might seem like a quick way to expand your reach, it often leads to poor engagement and can harm your sender reputation.

• Pros: Immediate access to a large number of contacts; potential quick expansion of reach.

• Cons: Low engagement as recipients did not opt-in; higher risk of spam complaints; potential violation of GDPR and other regulations; damage to sender reputation and deliverability.

Building an organic list, though slower, makes for a more engaged and interested audience, leading to better campaign performance and ROI.

How do I avoid spam folders?

To avoid landing in spam folders, be sure that your emails are relevant, valuable, and engaging to your audience.

Key practices include:

• Gaining explicit permission to email contacts.
• Regularly cleaning your email list to remove inactive subscribers.
• Personalizing content to increase relevance.
• Avoiding the use of spam trigger words in your subject lines and content.
• Using a reputable email service provider that adheres to best practices.
• Ensuring that your emails are properly formatted and include a clear unsubscribe option.

Don’t forget to clean up your email list. We’re offering 100 FREE email verification credits!