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Email Marketing Best Practices
by Brandon Milford
Permission-based Email Marketing is one of the most powerful ways to
build your business. As a business owner you realize the importance of
staying in front of your customers and prospects. By deploying a timely
e-newsletter to touch base with your customers and prospects, you stay
fresh in their minds, build credibility, and keep the communication channel
open by eliciting product and/or service enquiries from your recipients.
This will lead to repeat purchases and higher conversions. Below are
a few pointers in ensuring that your permission-based email marketing
campaign is a true asset to your company.
Building Your Lists
There are a number of ways to build your opt-in list of subscribers.
Below I have compiled a list to help you get started.
• If your business has a physical location, ask visitors to fill out a
card giving you permission to contact them via email with product/service
updates.
•
Include a sign up form on your website. Most permission-based email marketing
software programs will include a tool allowing you to create a sign up
form. This allows you to easily capture the email addresses (and any
additional information) from your website’s visitors.
•
Always advertise your newsletter. For instance, include a short line
on the back of your business card that reads “Receive Additional
Tips and Industry News Each Month In Your Inbox. Sign up for our Newsletter
at www.yourwebaddress.com “. This will lead people to your website
and into becoming a subscriber to your newsletter.
• The greatest way to build your list is by concentrating on the quality
of your newsletter. By releasing an informative newsletter that people
find valuable they will share this information and the source, further
growing your list of subscribers.
Providing information about your e-newsletter
It is important to inform your potential subscribers on how often they
can expect to receive emails from your company and what type of information
they can expect from these emails.
Quality Over Quantity
By writing quality content your recipients will look forward to receiving
your e-newsletters and will look to them for knowledge in your industry.
This will build further credibility for your company and encourage the
recipients to forward the message to a friend. Sending your e-newsletters
too frequently will annoy your subscribers and can lessen your credibility.
From a design aspect, be sure that the newsletter is reader-friendly.
Do not use Flash, brightly colored text, extra large font, or all caps.
For an HTML based newsletter, create a header that coincides with your
company’s colors and/or message. Next, create a simple 1 or 2 pixel
border along with a matching footer. As far as content, break down your
message into nuggets of information. Remember, very few subscribers are
going to read your newsletter if it is the length of a novel. Break down
your message into short paragraphs and use bulleted items to condense
and stress important points.
Keeping your message out of the SPAM folder
The following items are critical in preventing your message from being
blocked by SPAM filters:
• Try to use font sizes that are smaller than +2 or +3.
• Bolded, red font will also add to the likelihood that your message could
be considered SPAM.
• Use a Permission-based email marketing software that allows the sending
of multi-part MIME messages. Simply put, this will allow you to send
out both an HTML and text-only version of your e-newsletter. The software
will detect whether the email client can accept HTML based messages,
if not, the email client will accept the text-only version.
•
Avoid using all caps; especially for words such as “FREE”
• Do not type out any currency denominations in the millions. Example:
$10,000,000.
•
Avoid using text such as “click below”, “click here”, “free
money” etc…
• Obviously, always be sure to include a Subject with your message as well.
However, avoid using an exclamation mark or all caps in the subject.
Frequency of Sending
As a rule of thumb, always place yourself in your subscriber’s
shoes. Don’t inundate them with so many newsletters that your message
becomes “watered down” and loses all credibility. Again,
always place quality over quantity.
I hope these tips help you in your permission-based email marketing efforts.
There is no more powerful way to convey your message as a company and
build credibility than with permission-based email marketing.
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About The Author
Brandon Milford is the Director of Marketing for Broadwick Corporation,
makers of IntelliContact, an industry-leading permission based email
marketing software. http://www.intellicontact.com. You can also read
his blog at: http://www.brandonmilford.com
If you are are looking for a solution to your email marketing and list management software needs we recommend IntelliContact. You can learn more about IntelliContact here.
