Here are 11 ways you can make sure your email marketing strategy is as effective and efficient as possible.

1. Gather Your Data - and Use It

What type of subject lines best resonate with your users? What time of day or day of the week is best to send emails? How many users are opening your emails? Brands and marketers understand the importance of data, but many still struggle when it comes to looking at the right data and using it properly. This is especially true in email marketing. Luckily, there are plenty of platforms available to help. Klaviyo has features that help email marketers target, personalize, and optimize campaigns based on insights derived from data. Be sure you’re making data-driven decisions in your 2019 email strategies.

2. Focus on Lead Capture

Earning the email addresses of new and potential consumers is critical when it comes to expanding your email list and maximizing your conversion rate. Still, many brands and bloggers struggle to capture email leads without annoying website visitors. Without a lead-capture form, your digital content won’t generate leads - it’s that simple. Incorporate new and innovative ways of gathering email addresses with platforms like JustUno that assist in implementing various lead capture solutions to your website.

3. Utilize Email Workflows

Remember all that data you gathered? Here’s another way you can use it to optimize your email strategy: create smart workflows. Email workflows can take many different forms, but typically follow some kind of conditional logic. “If/then” workflows tailor campaigns based on actions taken or not taken. Goal-specific workflows remove individuals from a campaign once they’ve taken a specific action. Smart workflows are a fantastic way to personalize your email campaigns and optimize targeting.

4. Perfect Your Timing and Cadence

The saying “timing is everything” couldn’t be more true for email marketing. Some brands’ target consumers are more likely to open emails in the morning, others during lunch, and still others at night. Give your emails the best chance to succeed by honing in on the best times and how often to message your users.HubSpot’s “Schedule Based on Time Zone” tool is a handy way to segment lists by each contact’s local time, ensuring your email is sent when engagement is most likely. It’s these small details that make a huge difference in open rates and conversions.

5. Master Your Welcome Series

On average, welcome emails earn above-average open rates. These messages are your first email touchpoint with new or potential consumers, giving them their first idea of what to expect. We all know the importance of first impressions, so your welcome emails need to be spot on. Look at what your competitors are doing, research some best practices and, if necessary, get some outside help. Whatever you do, ensure your welcome emails are an accurate and appealing representation of your brand.

6. Incorporate Interactive Content

Interactive email content has been shown to improve click-through-rates by 73 percent. Anything that encourages engagement that much should definitely not be overlooked. Incorporate content that allows your reader to interact with the email somehow. Easy methods include surveys, social sharing options, videos, and more. With so much inbox clutter, interactive content is a great way to capture users’ attention.

7. Get Personal

In a recent Epsilon poll, 80 percent of consumers stated they are more likely to do business with a brand that offers personalized experiences. Be as granular as possible when tailoring your email content to your various customer segments. Utilize segmentation, dynamic content, and automation to create a successful personalized email strategy.

8. Optimize Your Subject Lines

Your subject line is the first touchpoint users have with your emails. It may seem like a trivial detail, but investing time crafting, testing, and mastering subject lines to find out which ones resonate best with consumers will have a tremendous impact on open rates.Subject lines should be succinct and personal. Familiarize yourself with tips and best practices - for instance, subject lines with exactly 5 words generate a 15.9% increase in open rates over longer ones.

9. Automation Is Your Friend

Automated emails are emails that are sent based on triggers, instead of manually, and allow brands to remain personal and timely. These types of emails play a huge role in building long-term relationships with consumers.

10. Conduct A/B Tests

For many of the above points, the best way to find out what works is by testing. A/B testing, or split testing, one method (or several) versus another is far more effective than trying one option at a time.

11. Respect Personal Privacy

GDPR has turned the marketing world on its head. With other state and federal laws coming into effect in the United States in the near future, it’s more important than ever to ensure your email marketing (and all marketing practices, for that matter) are in total compliance.Stay up-to-date on any and all privacy laws and adjust your strategies now, as some of these laws will be retroactively enforceable.