Best Practices for Effective Email Marketing  

Even in the age of influencers, email is still one of the most effective tools for engaging your target audience and boosting sales. According to HubSpot’s 2025 The State of Marketing Report, email is the channel with the highest return on investment (ROI) for business-to-consumer marketing. And a 2024 Global Consumer Trends Index report by Marigold found that 50% of consumers had made a purchase from an email in the past year.

Whether you're sending welcome emails to new clients, highlighting potential gaps in coverage, or nurturing leads with personalized content, the right email marketing strategy can help your agency create meaningful connections that stand the test of time.

But to get the most out of your efforts, you’ll want to keep these best practices for insurance email marketing in mind:

1. Define Your Email Strategy Goals

Every successful email marketing campaign starts with a clear goal. Are you looking to encourage policy renewals, introduce new coverages, or attract fresh leads? Knowing exactly what you want to achieve will shape every aspect of your messaging, from the subject line to the call to action (CTA).

2. Use a Memorable Sender Email Address

Pick a strong sender name that will help people identify your brand. Link it to an email mailbox and have someone on your team check it regularly. This shows your customers you are listening. 

3. Write a Descriptive, but Simple Subject Line

A good subject line is how you get a recipient to engage with your marketing email. Think about what they care about. What pain are you solving? What benefit are you providing?

Another factor to consider is the length. Most email providers won’t display more than 45 characters on a desktop (even fewer on mobile devices). So, you’ll need to keep your subject line short and lead with the most important words. A good rule of thumb is eight words or fewer.

Finally, avoid special characters, all caps, alternating caps and excessive punctuation. These can make your email look like spam. (See 5 Ways to Avoid Spam Filters when Email Marketing.)

4. Include Your Agency’s Branding

Consistent branding promotes consumer loyalty. With billions of emails being sent every day, yours needs to stand out. Add your logo, colors, and social media accounts for instant brand recognition.

5. Target Your Emails

Including your recipients’ names in your email can add value, but it isn’t the only way to personalize your message. To get the most out of your email campaign, segment your list to create a relevant and timely message. For example, you can send a targeted email to homeowners offering a quote on a home and auto bundle.

Taking the time to target your campaigns can significantly boost your ROI. According to the marketing surveillance app Competitors, targeted emails have a 122% higher ROI than generic emails.

6. Keep Your Message Short and Sweet

The attention span of the average adult is around eight seconds. So, what’s the sweet spot for email length? A study by the email marketing platform Constant Contact found that emails with 20 lines of text had the highest click-through rates. 

7. Leverage Generative AI

If you need creative inspiration for email content, ChatGPT and other generative AI tools (like those built into email marketing solutions) are a good place to start. But you’ll need to give the tool clear direction to get the best results. Using a targeted homeowners email as an example, you might ask it to craft an email offering a bundling discount to clients with a homeowners policy but no auto policy. And always remember to check AI outputs to make sure they are correct and appropriate for your audience.

8. Use Relevant Content That Includes Enticing Images

The right imagery can evoke an emotional response from readers. It can also add visual interest and break up blocks of text that might otherwise go unread. But avoid images that look staged or unnatural. Instead, choose candid, relatable photography and informative illustrations.

9. Have a Strong and Clear Call to Action

Whether you want your recipients to call, click, reply, or do something else, a clear CTA is essential. Use action-oriented language, like “share,” “call,” “reply,” “sign up,” or “read more.” Avoid meaningless "click here" CTAs. They don't give the reader any incentive to take action.

Finally, use CTA buttons instead of text. This sets the CTA apart and makes it easier to click. Include your CTA button several times to increase your click-through rate.

10. Make It Easy to Unsubscribe

Try as you might, you will not be able to make every subscriber on your mailing list want to engage with your emails. A percentage of your email list will unsubscribe, likely right after they receive one of your emails. Make this process easy with a clear unsubscribe button in the footer of every email you send. This also helps keep you compliant with the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and other laws.

11. Follow Accessibility Guidelines

Creating accessible emails ensures that recipients who use assistive technologies can read your message. Accessible emails are also more likely to be read, according to Harvard University. 

Keep these email accessibility do’s and don’ts in mind:

12. Review and Edit

Read through your message a few times, looking for errors. Ensure your message is clear and easy to understand, and your readers can complete the action you want them to take.

13. Test, Measure, Repeat

Success in email marketing is measurable. By tracking key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, you gain clear insight into what was successful and what needs improvement.

Track the success of each email to see what’s working, what’s not, and what changes to make as you go forward. Try testing variables like different tones, lengths, or CTAs to identify what resonates best with your target audience. For example, running a subject line A/B test can help you optimize open rates. (A subject line A/B test is when you send two versions of an email, one with a test subject line and one with a control. The email with the higher open rate wins.)

14. Automate Your Campaigns

Automation is revolutionizing the way agencies approach communication. With automation, agents can send targeted emails tailored to specific triggers, like a welcome email when onboarding a client, a reminder about an upcoming policy renewal, or an update about an insurance policy.

Apply your newfound email marketing prowess with Applied Marketing Automation® (AMA). AMA helps you create branded, professional email campaigns. Benefits of using AMA to create your email marketing include:

• A new Drag-and-Drop Email Builder for seamless email building

• Branding profiles to match your agency’s style and voice

• Content Assist, a custom, built-in AI tool that crafts the message for you

• A royalty-free stock image library

• A library of professionally developed P&C and employee benefits content to pull from

Power Your Success with Applied Technology

At Applied, our mission is to enable independent insurance agents to thrive in today’s innovative, results-driven landscape. By applying these best practices, you’ll unlock the potential of email marketing campaigns — not just as a method of communication, but as a transformative tool for achieving excellence.

Watch this on-demand webinar to see how to create professional, effective email campaigns with AMA: The Solution That Automates Client Outreach and Keeps Them Loyal

Read Craft Stunning Emails with Applied Marketing Automation to learn more about AMA’s new Drag-and-Drop Email Builder.