Email Marketing Tip #1: DESIGN EMAILS THAT LIVE ON
Email offers and campaigns have the potential to outlive traditional printed offers in mailers and magazines, because they may simply be stored away in inboxes to be utilized at a later date. This built-in versatility, in a sense, extends the shelf-life of your emails and should be kept in mind when designing your campaigns. What your recipient may not need or want right now, they may certainly refer back to and look for later in their inbox, so strategizing campaigns that may be acted upon at a later date is the ultimate way to ensure a return. Furthermore, Google will now make email part of a user’s search experience, which will make email marketing even more effective.
Email Marketing Tip # 2: SET A CLEAR STANDARD OF WHAT TO EXPECT
From the very first moment you begin a relationship with your subscribership, it is very important to set forth a clear standard of what to expect. This means that you will need to convey a true sense of what type of content you will be sending and how often. Setting clear standards also involves establishing a sense of consistency in campaign look and tone to identify with your overall brand. When your subscribers are familiar with your identity and who they are receiving email communications from, the more likely they are to actually open your email promotions and the less likely they are to get trigger happy and report you as SPAM.
Email Marketing Tip #3: KEEP IMAGE HEAVY EMAILS AT BAY
While images are a visual stimulant reinforcing the dynamism of email messages, too many images, too dominant of an image, or really large graphics in any given campaign are often troublesome in the email community, thought to be masking true spammy content under the guise of appealing graphics. Image heavy emails are one of the first triggers for being flagged as a SPAMMY messages. Steer clear of spam filters by staying away from designing emails that are a single large image and make sure not to put any important promotional content inside or on top of the image, as it will likely cause your email to never be seen or delivered.
Email Marketing Tip #4: PERSONALIZE, PERSONALIZE, PERSONALIZE
Personalize everything, from your campaign content and newsletter discussions, to your addressee names, to your overall company email identity.
- CONTENT: Consistent styles in content and general flow among topics of newsletter discussions add clout to your brand identity by offering essentials on your company culture. You become more believable as a company when you offer routine content that is specific to your general audience’s expectations of what you have to afford to them.
- ADDRESSEE NAMES: It is generally very useful to refer to your subscribers by name in an email, because it helps makes them feel that you are speaking more directly at them and sending them something personal that they really want and need.
- IDENTITY: You can and should personalize your company voice with color schemes to match your brand identity, fonts that speak to your online persona and figure a tone to compliment your trade name.
Email Marketing Tip # 5: MAKE IT SIMPLE & CATCHY
We said it best in a past blog entry. These days, businesses alike are ascribing to the “less is more” quotient, where the message to be conveyed is highlighted by transparency in brevity. It is the harsh truth that most of your subscribers don’t have the time or the patience in their jam packed day to read a lengthy email. So, effective emails have evolved into those messages that hinge on short sentences and paragraphs, with directional trigger words and simple messages. So that if your recipient is merely quickly scanning through your email, thay can understand your promo in just a few seconds and know how to respond.
Email Marketing Tip #6: TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Like anything else, timing really is everything. Becoming adept at knowing what to send when is the best strategy for optimizing your success in email marketing. When you send relevant email messages, factoring in the time of day or upcoming holidays specific to the month, you will not only be showing your subscribers that you are current and in the know with all that is going on around them, but capitalizing on converting a sale when the fruit is most ripe, so to say. Moreover, you can read our past blog to learn how you can create and schedule multi-part autorepsonders, with appropriate email teaching guides and informational tutorials respective on their stage of the game.
Email Marketing Tip #7: ASK FOR FEEDBACK
Successful email marketing hinges on relationships and asking your customers for their genuine feedback shows that you care about improving those relationships to better serve their needs. Feedback also keeps your contacts actively engaged.
Email Marketing Tip #8: MAINTAIN A FRESH EMAIL LIST
You always want to be mindful to use a fresh email list so that you don’t rack up bounces and complaints that can tarnish your reputation. As people move, switch jobs and get new addresses, old email addresses being obsolete. In turn, stale email lists need occasional once-overs to keep everything fresh and avoid troublesome list decay. Be mindful not to purge those email contacts that haven’t interacted with you in a while, but still wish to hear from you. To avoid this instance of eliminating great potential customers, you may wish to devise a re-engagement campaign. Click here for a step by step guide on how to structure a re-engagement campaign.
Email Marketing Tip #9: PREVIEW AND TEST
Always make it a stopping point before hitting the SEND button to first preview your campaign or newsletter in a browser and even send a test to yourself to see how your email looks once it is delivered. It is wise to set up test email addresses using the major email providers like Yahoo, Google and Hotmail, in order to catch any individual problematic nuances in your email given each of those ESP’s. By previewing and testing, you can catch and correct any mistakes and have an opportunity to redress the inclusion of any included images that may be causing you to hit spam traps BEFORE your entire email list of contacts sees it.
Email Marketing Tip #10: ALWAYS GET PERMISSION TO SEND
Effective and proper email marketing hinges on permission-based sending and obtaining permission to send is a requirement of both the CAN-SPAM Act and the Anti-Spam policies of all reputable Internet Service Providers. This means that before you send any emails to anyone on your list, you have to make certain that each and every individual contact specifically gave you permission to email them, whether you obtained this permission on a web signup form or in person at a point of sale or at any point of contact. Without permission to send, you will most certainly be tagged as a “SPAMMER” and face serious consequences. For more information, visit The Bureau of Business Protection Business and The Coalition Against Unsolicited Email.