Email marketing is a powerful tool in today’s tech oriented, internet-based world. It can be used to interact with a customer base to increase profits, as well as gain new customers. As powerful as the tool is, it can be easily misused. There is a very thin line between email marketing and spam. Luckily, the following article will help you use email marketing without spamming unnecessarily.
Include lots of useful information in all your messages. Don’t just fill them up with information about your products. Include things that will truly help your customers. Give your subscribers special articles, things they may not find on your website. Another idea is to have special offers that are only available via email. Send out greetings on holidays, not just when you want sales from them!
When developing your email, consider how large the preview pane is in most email reading software. If your email is well beyond the size of this preview pane, it is wise to edit it immediately. Many people read their emails solely in this preview pane. Information that is outside of the scope of the pain may never be seen at all by your reader.
Avoid using exclamation marks as crutches in your emails. If you want to express a sense of urgency or importance, use the structure of your sentence and the words you choose to to make that impact. Overusing this form of punctuation can turn potential customers off and make your message seem insincere.
Collecting and analyzing statistics is as important to the success of an email marketing campaign as it is to a business website. Invest in software that allows you to track the effectiveness of every email, from what percentage of your emails are actually opened to how many result in unsubscriptions.
Try customizing your messages for your email recipients. Try including their name in the email so that it feels more warm and personal. This can help build better relationships with your customers, and they may be more inclined to read what you have to say in these personalized email messages.
When you are going through the process of opting in, you should make it a point to get the names of your customers. If you have a name for each customer, you can send a personalized newsletter with the customer’s name. This gives your email communications a better appearance and will set them apart from all the other bulk emails they receive.
Don’t add email addresses to your list unless the owners of those addresses have explicitly signed up to receive your messages. If you pad your list using subscribers who haven’t specifically requested to receive your emails, you run the risk of alienating the email address owners, as well as your potential customers. You should also know that your email provider can ban you for violating their policy about spam.
To maximize the effectiveness of your emails, send them out on Tuesday or Wednesday. Research shows that people are actually more inclined to respond positively to various forms of communication on these days, including email. Not only are they more likely to read your email, but they’re also more apt to click on buttons or links, which means that you’re more likely to see an increase in sales. Send your emails at mid-afternoon for optimal results.
Do not send out rough drafts of your content. Write out what you want to say, and then cut the word count in half and rewrite to fit within your new limit. This generates messages that get to the point. Readers want to spend no more than three paragraphs of time reading your message, and maybe not even that.
Do not worry about anti-spam filtering when you compose your marketing emails. You need not avoid any particular phrases or use exotic spelling and punctuation in words like “free.” As long as you are not sending out unsolicited emails, you have already cleared the spam filter hurdle. Write for people instead of machines.
When designing your opt-in form, do not pre-check boxes by default. Leaving boxes unchecked ensures that customers are actively engaged in the opt-in process, which makes them more likely to sign up only for the content they truly want to receive. This saves your customers from the hassle of unchecking boxes that don’t interest them, and it boosts your trustworthiness.
Make your emails concise. No one wants to read through a number of paragraphs when several would have sufficed. People don’t have much time these days, and you could become persona non grata in their email boxes if you don’t appreciate the time crunch that most people have to deal with these days.
Keep mobile users in mind when choosing the size of your message. You might be composing your emails on a monitor that has four or even five times the available pixels that a smartphone user has. Send your messages small or scalable so that everyone can read them easily and quickly.
Use Alt tags for images in email. If a certain image doesn’t load properly, the tag will take its place. Make sure the text in the tag is relevant to the object and does a good job describing the content of the image. Apply these to your links, as well.
As stated before, in a world dominated by the internet, email marketing is a powerful tool. Though it can be used for good purposes, such as interacting with potential and current customers, it can be misused as well, taking on the form of spam. When you use email marketing, keep this article in mind and your messages won’t end up in your recipient’s spam folder.
