Useful Email Marketing Tips

Ensuring that your emails are relevant to all your subscribers can be a difficult task, but you can make your job easier by segmenting your list from the beginning.

Return On Subscriber recently highlighted a clever way of accomplishing this. It’s definitely worth clicking through to see it.

Amy Hamilton at Smith-Harmon came up with a list of reasons why giving away something for free can provide a boost to your email marketing campaign that will help you make more money in the long run:

1. Great for Customer Loyalty
I wouldn’t consider unsubscribing knowing I might have another gift coming in the future. I’ll also hesitate to leave an email unread per chance I may be missing another great deal.

2. Helps to Grow Your Subscriber List
Immediately after getting my gift and seeing it wasn’t a scam, I was enticed to encourage others to sign up so they can get their free gift (which I did, of course – who wouldn’t want a free movie?!)

3. Provides Cross Promotion Opportunities
Along the way to getting my free gift, there is the opportunity to cross promote other products and/or get me accustomed to browsing the website.

4. Get People Hooked
Give me a sample of your product, I may just find that I can’t live without it!

She also has examples of three emails that used this strategy.

Sending a welcome message to new subscribers is a good way to introduce yourself, let readers know what to expect from you, and build trust.

Email campaigns are always more successful if there’s a strong relationship between sender and subscriber. A well-written welcome message is an effective way to make a great first impression.

Tom O’Leary at The Messaging Times has written a sample welcome message here that hits on all the key points.

The Retail Email Blog has a good example of how practical considerations can sometimes be overlooked in email design.

In a recent Bed, Bath, & Beyond email, they included a link to back-to-school checklist for subscribers to print out. However, they decided to you use reverse type (white text on a black background) in their design.  Because of the large amount of ink it will take to print the list, many readers may decide to skip it. This obviously lessens the impact of the email.

The SimplyCast Blog has an interesting article explaining how to decide whether to use a dedicated IP address to send your email or a shared IP address.

Dedicated IP Addresses

“A dedicated IP address is one that is used only by you or your company to send the emails from.”

• Since the IP address doesn’t change, the history and reputation of the IP belongs to the customer using it.
• It’s very easy for you to track what is sent.
• It provides scalability for people who are sending large amounts of email.

Shared IP Addresses

“A shared IP address is when you are sharing the same IP with other companies or senders.”

• The IP address reputation is created by all your IP neighbours who are sending from that same IP.
• If someone on your shared IP starts spamming people, the IP may be blacklisted.
• Price is one of the biggest benefits to using a shared or pooled IP. Beyond the normal sending charges, there is often no additional cost associated with a shared IP.

SimplyCast comes to the conclusion that, if you can afford it, using a dedicated IP is the best choice.

Dennis at Deliverability.com put together a quick list of unsubscribe forms that are not CAN-SPAM 2008 compliant:

1. Clicking a link in an email that leads to a form that asks the recipient to verify their address, then emails instructions on how to ‘change’ or ‘update’ your subscription.
2. Asking for a login or password before proceeding to remove the user.
3. Advertising for your products or services on the unsubscribe form.
4. Using any kind of multiple step or multiple page process to complete the unsubscription.

Obviously, you’re going to want to avoid these types of unsubscribe forms. If you’re currently using a form like one of these, change it as soon as possible so that you can achieve compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act.

It almost goes without saying, but you should make sure that you are complying with anti-spam laws.

Under the CAN-SPAM Act, you have 10 business days to remove someone from your list after they have decided to unsubscribe. Ideally, you should unsubscribe them immediately.

Even if that’s not possible, you should never wait longer than 10 days. Anti-spam laws are serious business and you don’t want to end up on the wrong side of them.

Despite the industry’s best efforts, the reality is that not all emails make it to your subscribers’ inboxes. According to a study conducted by ReturnPath, 20% of marketing emails fail to be delivered.

However, as ReturnPath’s Stephanie Miller points out, there’s no reason why you can’t do better than average:

“The good news is that averages can be beat.  Respect your subscribers, curb your frequency, target and customize, keep your list clean, authenticate, process bounces correctly and maintain a solid infrastructure.  You will lower complaints and improve your inbox reach.  When you reach the inbox, you can earn a response and revenue.”

If your email is highlighting a specific product, one of the worst things you can do is just link to the home page. Provide a direct link to the product page instead.

It’s amazing how often companies settle for a home page link when providing a link to the product itself would definitely generate a boost in sales.

Source

Using paid search (Google Adwords, etc) to build your list is an underrated strategy for attracting subscribers. If you have the budget to use this tactic, it’s likely to be worth your money.

Using paid search to build your email list has a couple perks:

• It allows you to fine-tune your SEO strategy. You can find out which keywords and phrases attract the most subscribers.
• You can send people to specific landing pages, which allows you to segment them by demographics or interests.

You can read more on this topic here.