Having been involved with email marketing for the last 7 years I have found these various tips helpful to boost the results of your email marketing efforts.
1. Get their attention in 0.3 of a second!
It has been said you have 3/10ths of a second to get their attention from the subject line. Keep your subject lines up to 45 characters or less, mention your brand and reference something in the actual body of the email. It should read like a headline in the Times. {Ouch}
2. Personalize the “from”
Use your personal company email address as the “from” address when sending campaigns. No one wants to read an email from [email protected]. Don’t you just hate those [email protected] emails?
3. Test, test and test again
Test everything you can think of until you achieve the results you are looking for, then keep testing to measure what works. Test different subject lines, test different days of the week and times of the day. Test the length of content, the imagery, the links, etc. If local names are important use them. “Michiana CRM Premier Consultants” was a hit for us!
4. Spam is not my favorite!
Run a test email through a spam check tool before you send to your campaign list. Spam checks will see flags in your email that may tip off filters. You don’t want to get black listed. Our friends at Swiftpage have a free one: www.swiftpage.com/spamcheck
5. Prepare yourself for a landing
Don’t forget to use email as a means to drive your contacts to a landing page. You’ll know more about what they are interested in with insight into which links they clicked in the email.
6. Call for “action” like a Bruce Willis movie
Make your call to action (“Learn More”, “Buy Now”, “Free Trial”) prominent and above the fold. Your contacts should be able to open their email and know exactly what to do to take action. Keep it simple, direct and easy to act!
7. Be one of the cool kids
Ask to get added to your contacts “Safe Sender” address book. When they sign up to receive email from you, remind them during the sign up process to add your sending address to their personal whitelist.
8. Tighten up that wasteline
Create campaigns for the inbox by limiting the width of HTML templates to 600 pixels at a maximum and design your main information to be the first thing your contact reads.
9. Building blocks are fun
Build your list and capture names and email addresses by giving away something of value for free. Include a great white paper or articles and have people give you their contact information before they receive it.
10. Slow and steady wins the race
Be persistent and consistent with your email marketing campaigns. Send on a scheduled basis and your contacts will learn to look forward to your messages.
11. Create a series of related articles
When there is more to tell, create a series of linked articles in the emails. This will keep those involved in your topic and help to build expertise around the interesting topic.
12. Include a testimonial or success story
The words from a true client testimonial or the story of them getting their own results from your product or service builds credibility and helps to make you real.
13. ACT on your responses
Review the opens, clicks, bounces and forward to friend metrics from your email campaigns. Review the provided call list and provide follow up quickly. Sage ACT! and SalesLogix both have integrated emarketing so you can attract and then act on the responses.
