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Email Marketing - Ten Quick Tips for
Success!
What makes a successful email marketing
plan?
Here are 10 quick tips to consider when launching
yours:
- Ask for permission.
Sending to people who want to hear from you is the best
way to remain legally compliant, maintain a solid reputation,
and generate great results. And, with consumers becoming
more finicky about what they read - and servers becoming
more finicky about what they deliver - building a true
permission-based list is more important than ever.
- Get into the address book.
Want to know the secret to reaching the inbox? It’s
the Address Book. Get in there, and you’re more
likely to bypass any filters and show up just the way
you want to. So remind your audience members to add you
to their address book (or white list or safe senders
list) every chance you get.
- Give your emails style and substance.
The visual possibilities of HTML mean it’s easier
than ever to create emails that are attractive and enticing.
Just make sure that in addition to creating emails that
look great, you’re also giving your emails enough
substance to warrant sending them in the first place. Marry
style and substance with the campaigns you send, and your
readers will thank you (and probably buy something while
they’re at it).
- Send with delivery in mind.
Before your emails can be read and responded to, they
have to be seen. That’s why we make sure your emails are
sent in a way that’s designed to ensure high delivery
rates - through personalized delivery, sophisticated delivery
policies, and ISP relationships. And it’s why we
offer you the tools to proof your campaign’s content
prior to send-off and see the complete results (good and
bad) after it’s out.
- Use (really use) the subject line.
Arguably the most important single line of any email,
the subject line is your two second opportunity to catch
someone’s
eye and convince them to stop and look. More than one
great email has been ruined because of a generic, vague
or uninspiring subject. So craft your subject line with
care, test variations whenever you can, and remember
that those are the most important 5 to 10 words in your
campaign.
- Know your audience.
The key to creating appealing content is to really know
the group to whom you’re trying to appeal. Use your
signup screens and database to collect information about
out who they are, where they live, and what they like,
and enlist your recipients’ help to keep that information
fresh and up-to-date.
- Tailor your message.
Forget the old days of batch-and-blast. Today, it’s
about creating smaller, more targeted mailings based on
your recipients’ demographics, interest and more.
The more timely, relevant and personal you can make it,
the better.
- Handle opt-outs immediately
This is
one thing you can’t mess around with. The
Can-Spam legislation grants you 10 days to handle opt-out
requests, but in the world of email 10 days is an eternity. That’s
why our opt-out feature handles requests instantly and
remembers those requests to prevent against accidental
abuse.
- Understand (and use) your results.
Tracking metrics like receipts, bounces, opens, clicks,
forwards and signups is the first step to understanding
what’s happening to your emails. But those numbers
are more than just metrics - they’re your audience
talking to you. Not with real voices, because that’d
be weird, but through their actions (or inaction). Listen
to what they’re saying and then apply it to your
future emails.
- Experiment and adapt.
Like most things, email marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all
proposition. So start with basic plan, apply your philosophy
and style, and adapt as you go.
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