Effective email communication is essential for engaging customers and achieving business goals. This article covers best practices for writing and sending outbound emails, emphasising the use of the Lumary Engagement Console for personalisation, design, testing, and security.
General guidelines for writing emails
- Keep subject lines concise and relevant, and use action-oriented language to encourage recipients to open the email. Avoid using all caps or excessive punctuation, which can trigger spam filters
- Focus on delivering one main message or call to action per email. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, and clear headings to make the content easy to read and understand.
- Maintain a friendly yet professional tone. Avoid using jargon or overly complex language. Tailor the tone to match your brand's voice while ensuring it resonates with your audience.
- Include a clear and conspicuous unsubscribe link in every email and honour opt-out requests promptly, adhering to legal requirements where applicable, such as the five working days timeframe in Australia. Ensure that your email header information, including the "From" and "Reply-To" addresses, is accurate and not misleading.
Personalisation with merge fields
Using merge fields in emails allows for dynamic personalisation, making messages feel more relevant and engaging to each recipient. Merge fields automatically insert specific data from your database into your email templates, such as names, order numbers, or other details.
Hello {{FirstName}},
This is a reminder for your appointment on {{AppointmentDate}} at {{AppointmentTime}}.
For more details, see Working with merge fields and Designing emails with Outbound Email node
Using the email builder
In the Lumary Engagement Console, there are two primary methods for designing emails within the Outbound Email Node: building from scratch using an email builder with a drag-and-drop interface or utilising custom HTML code. While custom HTML offers flexibility, it may cause visual discrepancies across different email clients. For instance, background images in custom HTML may not render correctly in Outlook, which defaults to a white background unless otherwise configured. To ensure visual consistency, we recommend using the Lumary Engagement Console's email builder.
For more details, see Outbound Email Node and Designing emails with Outbound Email node
Optimising email campaigns with A/B Testing
A/B testing is a powerful method for optimising your email campaigns by comparing different versions to see which performs better. In the Lumary Engagement Console, you can use the Criteria Filter to implement A/B testing.
The example below demonstrates the use of a Criteria Filter in an A/B testing scenario, initiated by a form submission. The Criteria Filter divides customers into two groups based on predefined criteria. Customers who meet the criteria for Group A receive Email A. Conversely, those who do not meet the criteria for Group A and fall into Group B receive Email B.
This setup allows for a direct comparison between different marketing approaches. By analysing the results from both groups, you can determine which email version is more effective in achieving your goals, such as higher open rates or conversion rates.
For a detailed guide, see Criteria Filter and Criteria Split
Ensuring email delivery coverage
Email delivery events/activity provides critical insights into the performance of your email communications. Key events include clicks, opens, deliveries, and bounces (with soft bounces indicating temporary issues and hard bounces indicating permanent ones).
In the Lumary Engagement Console, you can view individual email activities when viewing Experience details. You can also set up Activity Sync to sync these events to another system of your choice.
In the Lumary Engagement Console, the "Outcomes" tab in the Outbound Email Node allows you to configure the workflow path based on these events. The "Sent" path is followed if no failure is detected within the default 10-minute wait time or if a link within the email is clicked. The "Rejected" path is followed if a failure occurs within the wait time and can be toggled on in the node settings.
Merge fields in the subsequent nodes help track and personalise email delivery outcomes. The Outcome field indicates whether the email was successfully delivered (success) or failed (failure), and the Outcome Reason field provides specific details (e.g., opened, failed: [reason], rejected).
By configuring these outcomes and using merge fields, you ensure comprehensive email delivery coverage, effectively managing both successful deliveries and failures.
For more details, see Outbound Email Node.
Email security
Ensuring email security with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is essential for preventing spoofing and phishing attacks. SPF verifies that incoming mail comes from authorised hosts, DKIM uses cryptographic signatures to ensure email integrity, and DMARC instructs mail servers on handling emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks.
Using a custom domain allows you to configure these records, enhancing your email credibility and deliverability. With the Lumary Engagement Console, SPF is pre-configured, DKIM involves adding CNAME records to your DNS, and DMARC requires setting up a TXT record for additional security and reporting.
For more information, see Setting up Custom Domains for secure email delivery using the Lumary Engagement Console