Learn best practices to back your efforts.Email is still the primary marketing channel for most businesses, as it’s proving to be the most effective — with an average ROI of 3,800%. Even with the rise of newer channels, email is still going strong. According to the Salesforce State of Marketing Report; email use has grown by 11% in 2020. But not all emails yield results.
To become a Pardot email marketing pro, and ensure impressive results, follow our list of email marketing practices we have devised for you below.
Email Marketing Best Practice with Pardot
Crafting effective and reusable emails
Not every email you sent will serve the same goal, but that doesn’t mean that the best practice shouldn’t apply. We’ve listed our tips that will help you build better emails in Pardot, regardless of your objective.
- Make emails mobile-responsive – Responsive templates use CSS to resize your emails when viewed on mobile devices. Pardot includes several responsive layouts that you can use, however, make sure to check the email responsiveness by clicking Open in Popup and then manually resizing the window to get the email view.
- Take note of the subject line, relevancy and the call to action – The most attractive subject lines are short and to the point. Also, make sure that the subject line fairly represents the contents of the email body; otherwise, your readers might get confused. If you’re practising using misleading subject lines, it’s is only a matter of time when your prospect or customer will unsubscribe. And lastly, a clear call-to-action within the email is unavoidable. A good CTA will instantly convey the value of clicking on it, it will catch the eye of the reader, and ideally, it will indicate urgency.
- Build email templates – Creating reusable templates in Pardot is a time-saving practice that will benefit every organisation. With an email template, you can create text and HTML email designs and reuse them for engagement programs, autoresponders, one-to-one emails, or list emails. Pardot will guide you through creating the templates, and after you design it, you can use it as a base to personalise the email for each recipient.
Testing the emails
Pardot A/B tests can effectively compare two versions of an email against different segments. The platform will then store the engagement data so you can quickly determine the best way forward.
As a best practice, change only one element at a time, as making many changes can create difficulty when pinpointing the factors that moved the needle.
You can test numerous elements within the email, here are some ideas to start:
- The wording of your email copy and its length
- The subject line and the name of the sender (A generic sender vs a specific sender)
- Images (position and design)
- Place and form of the links and the CTA’s
Reporting on email management
In Pardot, the List Email Report breaks down the most significant data about your sent emails. The reports will include the number of emails sent, unique clicks, unique click rate, total clicks, and overall click rate.
Make sure to create a practice that digs deeper into the email KPI’s. Reporting on particular elements of the email can help set performance benchmarks for future email marketing efforts.
Final Thoughts
Email marketing is more than just automating email send-outs. Even if you build a successful campaign once, it doesn’t guarantee that the next time you run a similar campaign, it will drive the same results. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to email marketing, and it’s your job to optimise them for optimal results.
If you are struggling to create a clear email marketing practice with Pardot, or are looking to expand your efforts, get in touch with our team here at Cloud Orca. We have many more nuggets of wisdom up our sleeves.
