According to Statista, as of January 2022, 92% of people in the United States use email as a form of communication. This is a positive and a negative for businesses because it means that most people are reachable via email, but also most people are receiving more emails than they can handle at one time.

But, don’t worry! With the right tips and guidance, you can send marketing emails that your customers and prospective customers will actually open. At Sawyer, our goal is to help children’s activity providers run their businesses more efficiently. In this article, we’ll provide tips and best practices to help you take your email marketing to the next level.

• Email marketing best practices
• Email marketing subject lines
• Email marketing metrics

Email marketing best practices

Before diving into subject lines, it is important to learn some general email marketing best practices. These guidelines will help set you up for success when you get ready to write and send your marketing emails. 

1. Be professional. Whether you are emailing current or prospective customers, it is important to be professional in the email content and design. Use correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. If you include images, make sure they are properly sized and professionally taken.
2. Send your emails at the right time. Experts recommend you avoid sending marketing emails on Mondays and Fridays and outside of normal business hours (9am to 5pm). Once you start sending emails, you can test different times throughout the day to see which resonate best with your audiences.
3. Keep it short. People are busy and their inboxes are full. A successful marketing email gets the point across with as little filler as possible. Focus on getting your customers to open and interact with your email by keeping them short and skimmable.
4. Highlight value and incentives. If you want someone to open your email, you need to give them a reason. By showcasing value and adding incentives, if possible, you are increasing the likelihood that your email breaks through the noise and gets opened.
5. Include a strong call-to-action (CTA). What is the goal of your email? Do you want customers to book a class, write a review, buy a gift card, or something else? Your CTA should be clear and enticing to increase chances that action is taken.
6. Write engaging subject lines. Your subject line should hook the reader and encourage them to open your email to learn more. Try highlighting incentives, asking questions, and focusing on urgency. Keep reading for more email marketing subject line tips.

Email marketing subject lines

The subject line of your email is make or break. It determines whether or not someone will open, and hopefully interact with, your email. That means your subject line is the gateway to your email even being read! Use these email marketing subject line tips to write strong subject lines that will increase your open rates.

• Create a sense of urgency. Urgency is useful when you are sending marketing emails, but it can also be helpful when you want to make sure your email gets opened. Here are examples of both types of urgent subject lines:some text
  • Only 1 spot left in Thursday’s art class! Book now!‍
  • Last chance: Add on late pickup for camp
  • Camp is filling up! Don’t get stuck on the waitlist
• Ask questions. Can you appeal to your customers’ curiosity? Sometimes, getting someone to open your email is as simple as asking a question. Try one of these examples:some text
  • How can your child benefit from STEM camp?
  • Is your child bored over winter break?
  • Looking for activities that are fun for the whole family?
• Highlight value and incentives. If you can offer an incentive, like a discount or free trial, use the subject line to let people know. You will certainly see an increase in open rates when you lead with value. For example:some text
  • This week only: Take 15% off drop-in classes
  • Try our art class for free!
  • Buy a class pack and save $30
• Personalize if you can. If you have an email list with customer names, you can use merge tags in Mailchimp and other email marketing platforms to add the customer’s name to the subject line. People are more likely to open emails that feel personal.
• Keep it professional. Try to avoid being overly silly and overusing emojis in your email subject lines. One emoji is fine, but keep it in check. Every time you communicate with customers, you are giving them a look at how you work and how you will interact with their children. Be professional first and fun second.

Email marketing metrics

Now that you know the basic best practices for email marketing and writing subject lines, how can you actually tell what is working and what is not? These email marketing metrics are pretty standard and can help you see where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

• Open rate. This is the percentage of recipients who open your email. Open rates are useful to track, but they can sometimes be inaccurate because mobile email platforms have a tendency to inflate this number.
• Click through rate (CTR). Most people look at CTR as the most important email marketing metric. This is the percentage of recipients who actually clicked on one or more links in the email. You want your CTR to be as high as possible because it means your emails are resonating with your audience.
• Conversion rates The conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who clicked and then took the action that you desired. The goal of your emails should be conversions, so keeping track of your conversion rates and working hard to increase them should be a top priority.
• Bounce rate. This is the percentage of total emails sent that could not be delivered. There are 2 different types of bounces: hard and soft. A hard bounce means the email address is invalid or closed. These people should be removed from your email list because you will never be able to reach them. A soft bounce means there is a temporary problem with the email address. Most platforms will turn soft bounces into hard bounces after a few tries.
• Unsubscribe rate. The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of total email recipients who unsubscribed after receiving your email. You want this number to be as low as possible. It generally will stay pretty steady (and hopefully low), but if you notice a jump after a particular email, it is good to take a look at that email’s content to see if there was a noticeable reason.

We hope that this guide has provided you with guidance and support so you can write strong email marketing emails with subject lines that people actually want to open. For email marketing and sales email tips, including how to communicate with families who already have booked your activities, see our full guide. If you are looking for additional guidance on managing and running your business, the team at Sawyer is here to help. Use our resources for support as well.

With our suite of tools, like custom forms to record allergies and t-shirt sizes, flexible payment options like gift cards and installment plans, and seamless scheduling and registration on any device, Sawyer saves business owners 28 hours per month. If you are ready to spend less time on admin and more time doing more of what you love, see how Sawyer can help with a free trial or demo.