5 Email Marketing Best Practices for MSPs

Have a purpose: Before you compose any email, ask yourself: What is its purpose? It may sound simple, but if you can’t answer that question yourself, the recipient won’t be able to, either. Identify the email’s overall mission and establish clear goals that will be used to define its success. Your emails may be measured by open rate, click-through rate or replies. Make sure you read the email to yourself, aloud if it helps, and ask yourself again if the message you are reading serves the purpose of the email. According to Hubspot, the first email you send has a 77% chance of engagement. After the first email, engagement drops down to 25%. Don’t spoil your best chance to connect with your audience by not having a clear purpose.

Don’t overlook the subject line: This is your first chance to make an impression and get the reader’s attention in a sea of inbox clutter. According to Convince & Convert, 33% of recipients decide whether to open an email based on its subject line. Spend time thinking about what attracts your attention when you receive emails. Without a good subject line, it won’t matter how good the email content is because no one will bother opening it. Personalization can be very effective when it comes to the subject line of an email. According to Yes Lifecycle Marketing, personalization in subject lines increases open rates by 50%, so we suggest taking advantage of your email platform’s tools to make the subject line more relevant to the recipient.

Define your audience: Email marketing can serve a variety of functions, so it’s important that you handle each send differently and don’t rely on a single approach for all. Shandi Hogg, director of marketing at Ancero, said her method varies from campaign to campaign. Ancero is an MSP operating out of New Jersey. In addition to managed IT services, the MSP provides clients with cloud-based communication solutions, private cloud storage and various other services. Hogg splits clients into different email campaigns, depending on which services they receive from Ancero. This makes it simpler for Hogg to send out notifications or updates to them because they are always relevant to the recipient. Continued on the next page…

Use an effective call to action: Just as personalization can be your best friend, giving recipients something to do in the email, especially if they get something in return, can drive strong engagement. A call to action (CTA) can keep the reader’s attention by the end of the email by promising more valuable information. A CTA is an instruction that provokes an immediate response such as reading a blog or e-book, or filling out a form. By using a CTA, you can drive a prospect or client to additional content from your business, which has been known to make leads warmer and more convertible. You can also track who is following through on your CTAs and adjust how you conduct future communications with those leads accordingly.

Be patient and continue to innovate: As with any marketing effort, it takes time for an email strategy to succeed. You must commit yourself to making email marketing a consistent and long-term effort. Make sure you plot your progress by keeping a log of every email you send, the date, time, subject line, topic, open rate and click-through rate. Note how many people “unsubscribe” to an email–another clear indicator of its success (or lack thereof). You should be learning from your findings and making necessary changes to your delivery schedule or email content to optimize its performance.