If you’ve ever wondered what you can do differently with your email marketing campaigns to make them stand out from your competition in the inbox, you’re not alone.

Everyone wants a secret potion to make their emails perform at peak.

We don’t have any special dust or a fairy wand to wave over your email campaigns. But we do have some insights scooped from the pages of Adobe’s annual Consumer Email Report.

Using this hard data, we’ve translated exactly what you need to do this year to build a golden email marketing program and make subscribers think your email campaigns are pure magic.

answer the age-old question

“When’s the best time to send?”

It’s what every email marketer wants to know, like it’s the sword in the stone and someone, somewhere will be able to pull out the answer some day.

The thing is… it’s just not going to happen.

If anyone tells you there’s only one day and time to send an email to get the most success, it’s not true.

Your audience, content and sending frequency are different than every other company out there — even ones in your industry — so a send time that works for one brand isn’t necessarily going to work for you.

We’ve always encouraged email marketers to test sending times constantly to find the optimal one for their email marketing campaigns.

Adobe’s report props this up:

• TV time: 41% of people are checking their work email and 60% are checking their personal email while they’re watching TV at night
• Bedtime: 31% are checking their work email and 50% are checking their personal email while they’re in bed
• Bathroom time: 28% are checking their work email and 40% are checking their personal email while relieving themselves.

With 24/7 email access, marketers no longer have set times when emails need to be delivered.

Also keep an eye on your sending frequency.

In 2017, Adobe reported “being emailed too much by a brand” as the top offender for email complaints. This number decreased by 5% in the 2018 stats, but it’s something to monitor closely.

 

take personalization seriously

We all know how important segmentation, targeting and personalization is for email marketing. Failing at it can hurt you so much that subscribers hit your opt-out button.

In fact, 33% of survey takers told Adobe they unsubscribe when brands don’t recommend products that match their interests. Another big uh-oh when it comes to unsubscribing was brands sending expired offers — 22% of survey takers said this happens to them.

Another 17% of respondents said they unsubscribe when brands spell their names wrong. This is a reminder that just because someone gives you their name in a subscription form, doesn’t mean it’s capitalized or spelled correctly. Taking the time to quality check your first names will do wonders for your list health.

When it comes to personalization, people spoke up about what they want to see in 2019. Thirty-seven percent want less promotion, and more information. And 27% want personalized messages based on their interests.

But don’t get too crazy. One in six respondents said they felt some personalized emails were “too creepy”  in 2018.

avoid design mishaps

There’s a lot you can do design-wise with email today.

And while we appreciate talented email marketers taking their craft to the next level, our warning is to watch out for certain design fails.

You see, Adobe says 12% of people are clicking out of, deleting or unsubscribing from emails with poor design experiences for users. Another 17% reacted this way when it took too long for images to load and when there was too much text or the font size was too small.

8% of respondents said they were annoyed when there wasn’t a CTA included in the email. This is a huge red flag. Every email you send should have a bright, bold, clear call-to-action.

Finally, it’s apparent email designers are still struggling with mobile: 16% of survey takers said they were annoyed when their emails weren’t optimized for mobile.

conclusion: you can’t abracadabra your email marketing campaigns

Nothing’s going to happen when you close your eyes and wish your email marketing campaigns will magically put themselves together… and perform well.

You have to learn from your mistakes — and others — and put a little elbow grease into fixing it.

These stats from the Adobe report should help you buff up your email program. Use the above tips to make small changes over time and stand out in the inbox. And if you need help with email marketing strategy, design, deliverability or testing in 2019, just reach out. Our team of experts has done it all and would be happy to help you!