When you send email messages, your ‘From’ address must clearly identify your organisation’s name. And your subject line must convey your core email message.
“You only get one chance to make a positive first impression,” says Louis Chatoff, deliverability manager for the StreamSend email marketing service,. “Being tricky in order to get your message opened will only result in the recipient’s hitting the spam button.”
Make your message targeted and send it only to people who will be interested in reading it. “Use demographic information to push relevant content to segmented groups,” recommends Chatoff.
“Professional-looking content is also key to recipient action. Nothing pushes people away like a message that resembles a public access commercial. Make sure that your brand is clearly visible and identifiable. Brand awareness should be among the goals of every email marketer.
“Also remember that your content is being sent via email. It is not a web page. And because there is no standard email client, keep your HTML code simple so that it can be properly rendered.”
But don’t get too hung up on the design of your email, warn copywriting and marketing experts Nick Usborne and Ann Handley, who believe the single biggest truth of email marketing is that content is what really counts.
“Pay the most attention to what really matters: the words in your message and the words on any web pages the email links your customers or readers to.”
Adding a few short sentences to the very top of the message – right under your banner – will let your recipient know why they are receiving your message, says Chatoff. “Ask them to add your ‘From’ address to their address book, and let them know where the functional unsubscribe link is so if they no longer want your messages they use the unsubscribe link and not the Spam button.
Before you do a mass mailing, test your message by sending it out to a small group of people within your organisation, she says. Then send it to a small group of external recipients. Use A/B split testing on different subjects and content.
Finally, analyse the results once your email has been sent.
“Analysing your delivery reports will allow you to make adjustments for your next send,” says Chatoff. “Take a look at hard bounces – messages that are only attempted once due to the bounce code. Most hard bounces will include unknown recipients and domains. Make sure these addresses are not sent to again.
“Also look through your hard bounces for ISP blocks. If you are being blocked, you will need to look closely at the bounce codes in order to take the appropriate action.” Check your open rates too. “A falling open rate is a good sign that you might be over-mailing, sending to an audience that does not want your message, or sending to an ISP that is delivering your message to the bulk folder or filtering your message before it even gets to the mail server,” explains Chatoff.
Strategies like that can explode your small business quickly, that’s why I’d suggest you go right now to http://www.freemarketingbook.org and request a copy of Jonathan Jay’s new book “Marketing Secrets of a Multi-Millionaire Entrepreneur”
Copyright SuccessTrack 2009
