More than 65% of marketers say that effective email marketing is vital to their business. A large number of emails are sent every hour, so you need to acquire the skill of making your email stand out in a crowded inbox. Effective email marketing relies on consistent and relevant communication with the people in your database. If someone subscribes to your list and doesn’t hear from you for a long time, they’ll forget who you are. The next time you email them, they’ll probably forget that they gave you permission to email them in the first place and click the spam button. Too many of these and you will be labeled a spammer and your email account may be banned.

So, you have your autoresponder set up and your subscription forms up and running on your website. Let’s take a look at how to do email marketing once people have signed up for your list and email marketing best practices to ensure you don’t get deleted or reported as spam when your email reaches a inbox.

1. Send a welcome email.

Effective email marketing starts with sending a warm welcome email when someone signs up for your list. You want to thank the person for signing up. If you promised a free download, make sure they don’t have to jump through hoops to get it by providing the download link right in the first email.

2. Send relevant follow-ups.

Step-by-step email follow-ups are great because they keep your target audience waiting for the next email. For example, if you promise to teach them how to get their relationship back on track in 7 short steps, send them the emails over 7 days in the correct order. Don’t give them all 7 steps in one email. For effective email marketing, use your autoresponder to its full potential.

3. Don’t trick your audience into opening the email.

One of the important factors for email marketing best practices is ensuring that your message lives up to the promise of the subject line. Your email should have a compelling subject line to open it, but don’t trick people into opening your message by promising something you won’t be able to deliver. There can be a fine line between being smart and being deceitful. Make sure you don’t cross it.

4. Allow people to unsubscribe.

If someone wants to unsubscribe from your list, let them. If you make it difficult, they may label you as spam. You won’t have any success with your email marketing if you’re worried about someone unsubscribing from your emails. If a recipient has no interest in even receiving or reading your emails, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll ever become a customer anyway.

5. Create a relationship.

Emails that promote a reply are great because they drive traffic back to your blog and get people to comment on what you just said. Inquisitive email follow-ups are the ones where you ask your reader for an opinion, and people love being asked for their opinion. You can also survey your audience about an upcoming product or service you have.

6. Provide value consistently.

Email marketing best practices are all about providing value. Sprinkle your regular follow-up emails with some special benefit emails. This could be a free report on a relevant topic or access to an exclusive webinar. These are ways you can thank the reader for subscribing and allow you to communicate with them regularly via email. Don’t just constantly send sales messages.

7. Know your audience.

It goes without saying that email marketing best practices mean knowing your audience. If you send email to people who don’t want it, that’s spam. Be sure to broadcast your follow-up emails in a way that your specific customers will respond best to. Some respond better to daily emails. Some may reply once every four days or every two weeks. You will need to measure your audience and see what works best for you and them.