1) Send emails to lists that want to hear from you.

If you have email lists with low rates of engagement activity, stop sending to them. Every time you send to a list with low open and engagement rates, it hurts your domain position and your opportunities of connecting with other potential customers.

Monaghan said it best in his talk: “You are what you eat, and so is your marketing.” When you receive tons of emails from brands you don’t engage with, constantly deleting them or marking them as “read” is most likely tiresome. Empathize with your subscribers and treat their inbox the way you would want your inbox treated.

2) Have a goal for each email before you press “send.”

If you don’t have a goal in mind for the emails you’re sending, the recipients won’t know what the goal is, either. Once you define a goal for your email sends, you can define success and build a list to make that arise.

Goals for your emails could include a contact filling out a longer form for a gated content offer to provide your team with more information about their organization, or redeeming a promo code for a purchase on your website.

Give recipients options in your messages, such as calls-to-action and links in-text, so they have multiple avenues to achieve your goal. Everyone’s behavior is different, so make your emails flexible.

3) Personalize and test your emails.

Email personalization really works. For example, back in 2014, we found that emails with the recipients’ first names in the subject lines had higher clickthrough ratesthan emails that didn’t.

When it comes to personalizing your emails, stick with the basics. Personalize according to recipient names and company names, but to avert being creepy, leave it at that, urges Monaghan.

Nothing is less intimate than receiving a “Dear Customer” or “Dear First Name” email, so test every email to make sure you’re sending to recipient names.

4) Send emails from a personalized account.

Don’t send emails from a “noreply” email account. Personalization works on your end, too. Boost your engagement by personalizing the “from” email address to drive replies from subscribers to a real person instead of “noreply@company.com.”

5) Experiment with sending emails on different days of the week.

Stop sending emails on Tuesdays. Seriously, stop.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are the most famous days to send email, but they’re oversaturated with messages that might be overwhelming your subscribers. If you want your emails to be opened, try sending them on Mondays and Fridays. Emails with calls-to-action execute well on Saturdays, so don’t be afraid to send emails on the weekend, either.

In any case, try experimenting with your approach to lessen your subscribers’ email load Tuesday through Thursday.when most business emails are sent.

6) Engage with contacts who’ve submitted forms, not contacts whose information you’ve imported.

When someone fills out a form and provides his or her email address, that person’s engagement rate is typically higher than cold contacts you’ve imported from a list. That’s because these recipients want to hear from you and chose to engage with your content — they’ve told you this by filling out a form. This is evidence that the inbound marketing methodology is working for email marketers.

And by the way, don’t purchase email lists– you’re only hurting your credibility and annoying people who haven’t asked to hear from you.

7) Suppress your unengaged subscribers to avoid sending graymail.

You may be sending spam without knowing it, and that’s because the definition of spam has changed. Graymail refers to bulk email messages that aren’t technically spam because the recipients gave you their information, but the fact of the matter is, they get your emails and don’t touch them. Engagement rates plummet if recipients don’t open your first email, so if they continue ignoring you, the expectations of them ever opening your messages is going way, way down.

Stop sending graymail, and listen to what people are telling you by notopening your emails. Start suppressing your unengaged subscribers. That way, your open rates will increase, and inbox providers will see that you’re responding to subscriber behavior.

8) If people are unsubscribing, don’t worry too much (yet).

You can’t please everyone, and unsubscribes will happen. Luckily, your subscribers didn’t mark you as spam — they simply told you, in the nicest way possible, that they’re not interested in hearing from you anymore.

Don’t be too worried yet, but if more people keep unsubscribing, try to identify the potential cause. Consider suppressing or sending fewer emails to subscribers who aren’t engaging as much.

9) If people stop opening your emails, figure out what’s going wrong fast.

If your email open rate is falling, it means you’re missing the expectations of your recipients and that you should prepare for worse outcomes. It’s a leading indicator that spam complaints and unsubscribes are coming, and you should immediately suppress your unengaged subscribers to show email providers that you’re responding to feedback. Test different emails to see if you can improve your open rates.

10) If people mark you as spam, immediately stop sending email and identify the source of the complaints.

If you’re being marked as spam, your domain reputation is at risk, and you could become blacklisted by email providers. Whether the spam complaints are caused by a new source, bad forms, or you missing expectations of your list, slow or completely stop sending emails until you figure it out.

If you aren’t getting unsubscribe or spam complaints, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the clear — the messages could be going straight to recipients’ junk folders.

11) If you want to learn more about email marketing, take the free email marketing certification course.

Learn more about email marketing with Monaghan right now by taking HubSpot Academy’s Email Marketing Certification Course. In only 3.5 hours, you’ll learn about lifecycle marketing, email list segmentation, design, deliverability, and more skills to help you cultivate a strong strategy for 2018 and beyond.

12) Be thoughtful about your subject line.

Don’t write clickbait email subject lines. When people click on your email and then immediately bounce away when they realize your subject line wasn’t genuine, your clickthrough rates will suffer.

For best results, customize and personalize email subject lines and Experiment with emojis Pro tip: Read subject lines out loud before sending. Would you open that email if you received it?

13) Remember: Email is getting harder, but it’s still working.

Every year, engagement rates start to slip, and it gets harder to reach people’s inboxes. This doesn’t mean that email marketing is losing its efficacy, it’s just getting more competitive. The divide is growing between email marketers who know what they’re doing and those who don’t, so make sure to put in the effort to test different strategies and keep your subscribers engaged.

The theme of all of these email marketing guidelines? Testing. Every audience and contacts database is different, so make sure you’re testing the implementation of new strategies and tailoring them according to how your subscribers engage. 

When it’s time to host an event, marketers need strategies for promoting the event and encouraging registration. One channel they turn to? Email.

Email marketing can be instrumental in driving subscribers to sign up and attend, which in turn drives the ROI of your event.

According to research done for our Event Marketing 2018: Benchmarks and Trends report, most event organizers believe that email marketing is the most effective marketing channel for promoting events.

But how can you build email marketing strategies that help you reach these goals? While there may be no silver bullet, there are many strategies that have been proven to work as you promote an event.

In this post, you’ll find 9 outstanding email marketing strategies paired with some favorite examples.

1. Be deliberate with your announcement

Your event is a big deal, so make sure prospective attendees know it. Sending out an announcement email is a fundamental way to drive registrations.

The key to this email strategy is packaging your message as breaking news. Help your subscribers feel like they are the first to hear about your awesome event and get the enthusiasm flowing.

For example, C100, host of 48hrs, does an excellent job of announcing their event and the companies that will be at the center of it:

Notice how they offer congratulations, as though this is the first these 21 companies have heard about the selection. It’s a small copywriting decision that creates intrigue and excitement.

2. Include a video

A study by EyeView video found that having a video on a page increased conversions by 80%. In another study by Vidyard, 70% of marketers reported that video is more effective than other content in driving conversions.

Including a “sizzler” video from previous events is a great way to immerse subscribers in your event. This video can showcase speakers and explain what attendees can expect.

Influitive, a customer success software company, tackled this brilliantly for their Advocamp event series with a fun and educational video featuring Head Counselor Buck.

3. Share testimonials

Along the lines of the video approach, show your subscribers that your event is going to be awesome with the assistance of previous attendees.

The ClientSuccess team does a great job of this for their CS100 event series. The event speaks for itself through people like Elizabeth Doherty, its biggest champion.

If you haven’t hosted the event before, you can include testimonials from speakers or future attendees that share their excitement. If you’re hosting a retail store opening or one-off event, you can showcase testimonials that share how much people love your brand or products.

For example, check out how Amy Porterfield, an independent coach for entrepreneurs, uses a testimonial pulled from Facebook to promote a webinar:

4. Showcase your speakers

Dedicating an email to the outstanding speakers at your event is another great way of grabbing subscribers’ attention and getting them to click “RSVP.”

For many events, it’s the speakers who provide the majority of content, so it’s only natural for them to be a big factor as a subscriber decides whether they want to attend.

There are a few ways that you can draw attention to your speaker line-up. You can take some inspiration from Wistia, a video hosting company, and highlight a handful of your top speakers:

Or, if your event is boasting some well-known celebrities, you can feature them front-and-center as Collision, a tech conference, did in the below email:

Another tactic is to list your speakers to showcase how much value is coming to the event. For example, check out this line-up from 48hrs:

5. Give the gift of opportunity

It’s one thing to tell people that they’ll have a lot to take away from an event. It’s another thing to tell people that they have a lot to bring.

Whether you’re hosting a conference, an in-store event, or a webinar, try giving people an opportunity to contribute to the event. Your event is nothing without participants, after all. Make sure your prospective attendees realize how special they are.

For example, Vanguard, an investment company, recently announced a new CEO and CIO. To help their clients feel comfortable with the transition, the team hosted a webinar where participants had the opportunity to ask questions to the board and the new CEO.

In a similar vein, Gainsight wants their email recipients to know that attending their event is much more than attending an event— it’s taking part in a movement.

6. Offer early bird discounts

When it comes to creating compelling calls to action, the early bird discount is an established staple. In fact, 64% of event planners believe early bird discounts to be the best promotional method for an event, according to a report by BizBash and Eventbrite.

Sending your contacts discounts in advance of your event is an effective way of driving registrations. Of course, that discount has to end sometime, and having a clear deadline is key for driving action.

Notice how Unbounce creates a sense of urgency for their Call to Action Conference by mentioning how many tickets are left.

Dreamforce makes things seem even more urgent. Whereas most event planners hope that their events will sell out, with Dreamforce that’s pretty much a guarantee. That’s not something marketers are hiding.

7. Promote registration at another event

One of the best times to drive registrations for an event is while subscribers are in attendance. Capitalize on your attendee’s elation and let them know about special offers for future events.

This works especially well for annual events. Give your attendees an unbelievable offer now that commits them to an event in the future.

CoinDesk executes this brilliantly with their Consensus event series:

8. Send out content that gives subscribers a taste of what they’ll get

Once you’ve sent subscribers your best content about early bird offers, speakers, and testimonials, it’s time to move on to other approaches.

Going back to the fundamentals of inbound marketing, think about how you can provide a fun, engaging, and educational spin to your event promotion emails.

One example that we particularly love are these fun facts from SaaStr, a community for SaaS entrepreneurs. These facts are a fun and creative way to get prospective attendees interested in the event, but they also put the spotlight on the people who will attend.

9. Send a direct message from a company leader or influencer

Another email marketing strategy is the direct message. Have your CEO, your CMO, or Head of Events personally address your contacts.

Among all of the visual-heavy images that can flood someone’s inbox on any given Monday, a person-to-person email might be the approach you need to break through the noise.

Here’s a snippet from an email from Social Media Examiner’s CEO Mike Stelzner promoting Social Media Marketing World, their flagship event:

Alternatively, you could send a message from an influencer. If you’re having a retail store opening, for example, you could show a celebrity wearing the clothing to promote the product