Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification. Permission Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability.
You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Read more on Email Deliverability Tips…
Filed under Autoresponder, Email Marketing by on Feb 2nd, 2010. Comment. 
NOT ALL EMAIL MARKETING PROGRAMS ARE CREATED EQUAL Contrary to what you may think, email marketing remains an effective and COST effective method of staying in touch with people who want to hear from you. Remember, we’re not talking about blasting out millions of emails to people who don’t know you from Adam. That’s considered SPAMMING. Effective email marketing is at the crux of RELATIONSHIP and PERMISSION marketing and is still effective when you email to people who volunteer to learn about what your business has to offer. Read more on Not All Email Marketing Programs Are Created Equal…
Filed under Email Marketing by on Jan 30th, 2010. Comment.
Email marketing is exploding in popularity among both small and large organizations. After all, it’s a cost effective way to achieve marketing goals. Some companies harness the power of email marketing to send out frequent daily updates, while others send out a traditional monthly newsletter. Regardless of the frequency of objective, the research clearly indicates that email is a viable platform for spreading your message and communicating to your customers.
Whether you are a seasoned email marketing veteran or brand new to the email marketing game, these three tips can help you get off to a good start.
One important thing to keep in mind about email marketing is that it is an on-going learning process. What works right now for your target audience may not captivate them in the future. It is important that your email marketing strategy remain adaptable, so you can easily change your approach to ensure you always get the best possible results.
Tip #1: Build a High Quality Mailing List
Your mailing list or contact list is the backbone of your email marketing initiative. A good mailing list can lead to exceptional results and a bad mailing list can make you wonder if anyone is even reading your email. In a day and age where spam concerns are at an all-time high, it is even more important that you have a high quality opt-in (preferably double opt-in) mailing list to ensure that people do not classify your message as spam. These days most ISPs assign the email marketer a reputation score. Even a few bad apples on your mailing list (people that call your message spam) can hurt your reputation.
A good mailing list is comprised of people who have requested to receive information from you and are eager to engage with the material you send. When you use your email marketing to send out a campaign to a high quality list, you will see your open rates soar as people are drawn to your email. This will ultimately lead to higher conversion rates and make email marketing even more effective for your organization.
Tip 2: Select a Good “Email Subject” and a Well Known “From Name”
When your email marketing campaign lands in someone’s inbox, they can often only see the name of the sender and the subject. This makes those two pieces of the email marketing puzzle incredibly important. These two items can be the ‘make it or break it’ factor for whether your campaign is a success or not. An appealing subject line can pique your recipient’s interest so they open your email and read your content. A lackluster subject line can make people skim over your message or delete it without even seeing your fist line of content.
It is also very important that you use a ‘from name’ that your recipients will recognize. If everyone knows your company name, but no one knows your personal name, then you should absolutely use your company name. Research consistently shows that people are far more likely to open an email from a business or organization they recognize as opposed to one they don’t.
Tip #3: Content is King; Make Your Email Worth Reading
These days, people are more pressed for time than ever before. With only 24 hours in each day, asking people to take the time to read your email in its entirety may actually be asking a lot. But, if you are going to expect that from your audience, then you better be prepared to deliver some compelling content. If your email is boring, dry, outdated or just plain useless, then your audience may not give you a second chance. Typically, emails with sub-par content see increased unsubscribe requests, while emails with compelling content experiences increased readership.
When you create your email, it is important that you think like the reader. What do they want to read? What topics are of interest to them? If you can answer those questions, then you can use your Email marketing to create quality content that will keep people coming back for more.
An added benefit of email marketing is that there is no long lead time. This means your content can be very fresh. If a big story breaks in your industry in the morning, there is no reason you can’t include that in your email marketing campaign that afternoon. Timely content is often the most sought-after type of information, because it makes your email seem very cutting edge.
Overall, email marketing can be an incredible tool in your arsenal. When armed with the right Email marketing, a good plan, and a little creativity, you can reach out and communicate with your customers in a meaningful and effective way. As an added result, email campaigns will strengthen the bond between you and your customers.
Filed under Email Marketing by on Jan 30th, 2010. Comment.
Ever since the advent of the web, email marketing has been used as an effective tool for marketing. But there are a number of risks that involve email marketing. People nowadays are vary of email marketing services for the fear of being exposed to spam. Spamming is the biggest danger to amongst Internet marketers who are willing to adopt it as a practice. Email marketing has been jinxed with the fear of email marketing because of some unethical Internet marketers who do not follow the right method of marketing.
Span is not only an unethical means of Internet marketing, but it also deprives users of essential Internet services. Some spammers are also capable of causing great harm to your Internet services, they can send email bombs- large email messages that clog your email server. This can happen if you hire a novice email list provider. High risk email marketing like spamming can also get you into great trouble with the ISP as unsolicited commercial emails are usually shut by systems that can also block your account.
Like spamming there are other high risk factors too, that can cause great harm to your email marketing services. Some of these are as follows: rented email list that could be a spam, home-generated email lists, unsolicited invitations etc.
While the ones mentioned above are high risk factors in email marketing, there is a low risk email marketing technique as well, Opt-in email marketing, where the users willing opt for email marketing campaigns from the website. Here the websites do not need to fear spam techniques as the enter list has willingly entered your email marketing services. In such cases the opt-in email ids do not object to your email ads and the success rate of your scheme is much higher than what it would be in case of other email lists.
As a matter of fact opt-in recipients welcome your emails. Hence, if you are truly planning to adopt opt-in email marketing services then the best way to go about it is to select opt-in email marketing services for a safe an low risk direct marketing service.
Filed under Email Marketing by on Jan 30th, 2010. Comment.
In 1867 the Pony Express made its fastest delivery – 7 days and 17 hours. The route: St. Joseph Missouri to Sacramento California. The average speed: 10 miles per hour.
The message was President Lincoln’s Inaugural Address.
The riders were from 11 to 40 years old and all weighed less than 125 lbs. To make this delivery, horses had to be changed every 10 to 15 miles.
By contrast, the US Postal Service delivery now takes at least a day, longer the farther away from the destination, Federal Express can get it there overnight by 10am the next business day.
Chances are many of you will leave this meeting and go back to your office where you will open an email that was sent from across the nation, maybe even around the globe within a matter of minutes. Only a fax machine can compare to the speed of email.
The simple truth is that of the 94 Million American Adults that use the internet every day, the number one reason for going online is to check their email. According to a DoubleClick survey, 81% of internet users go online daily to check email. That’s too big a number to ignore.
Why is email so popular?
Because it’s easy, fast, cheap, direct and it elicits and immediate response. When you add email to your marketing mix you spend less time, money and resources than with traditional marketing vehicles like direct mail or print advertising.
From a marketing standpoint, email was initially primarily used for gaining new customers – often via spam techniques. It has since shifted to promotional and customer relationship marketing. Consumers expect emails to confirm transactions and shipping, and they are open to the ideas of their email addresses being used to promote ancillary offers.
Customer service is another area of opportunity for email.
According to an October 2004 Doubleclick survey, nearly 8 out of 10 consumers have used email for customer service. A consumer expects a service inquiry response immediately but up to 24 hours is acceptable.
More than that, businesses spend 80% of their marketing budget on gaining new customers but cultivating the current customer base costs less and generates greater revenue. Every email contact with a prospect or customer is a marketing opportunity in that is it a brand building and relationship building tool.
So what is the difference between an effective email marketing campaign and one that is tainted?
The email recipient is the sole decision maker of what constitutes spam. And the recipient pays for the email. Among the top reasons an email is deemed to be spam: Deceptiveness and unknown senders (of course), frequency and irrelevancy (even though permission was granted).
1) You must have some relationship with the recipients. Relationship is a broad term in the eyes of the FCC.
If, for example, you have a list of email addresses belonging to people who are members of the same affiliation or organization as you that can constitute a relationship. If you have a list of email addresses belonging to people who have previously done business with you that constitutes a relationship. If someone has emailed you asking for information about your product or service, that constitutes a relationship.
The ultimate relationship is the opt-in list, people who have specifically requested or “opted” to receive email from you.
When you email these groups, it’s a good idea to make it clear what the affiliation or relationship is to lessen the risk of being considered spam.
Bottom line: relevant, valuable emails sent to people who asked or agreed to get them are the best people to market to via email.
2) Second, you must have an opt-out on each and every email. The best way to handle it is an automated process so you won’t have to deal with finding each address one at a time to remove them from the list. This is one of the reasons why many companies use a broadcast email service to handle email marketing.
Use a Broadcast Service
Another reason to use a broadcast service is that the email sent does not disclose the addresses of the people to which the email was sent. This an important privacy issue.
Many professionals are under the impression that Outlook will hide the addresses to which the email was sent. This is not the case.
Design for the Recipient
When designing an email for marketing the first thing to consider is the recipient, of course. Different email programs will interpret your message differently. For example, there are web based email programs like Horde and SquirrelMail that will not read images so the email is either garbled or filtered out as spam. (sckansas email handout)
Other email programs offer the option of viewing or not viewing images. So your email may show up with several blank spaces.
The solution is to have 2 versions of the email that are sent in tandem. That way the email program of the recipient can determine which version to display. Know What Words to Use (Examples 1 / 2 & Triggers)
Another thing to consider is the subject line. Because of the words that trigger spam filters, the subject line as well as the message needs to be free of these words – in fact the word free is often a trigger. The header cannot be misleading either.
The Message
When structuring the message, again you have to remember to stay away from certain words, phrases or dollar signs. Now this part can get to be challenging. This is why you may see legitimate emails with special characters.
Email messages should be concise, to the point and carry a strong call to action. The idea is to get the recipient to interact with your company so give them plenty of opportunities and incentives to do so.
Remember, email is a brand building opportunity so be sure that you reinforce brand messages, encourage communication and interaction through links to the supporting website and reply to email addresses.
Track the Results
Be sure to track performance of your email marketing program. This is yet another reason to use a broadcast email service. Through third party services you have the ability to see how many people opened the email, how many people clicked the various links in the email etc. This also allows you to better target your emails to a specific audience or give more information that the recipients are genuinely interested in.
Like any advertising, email must be done consistently. And, like many marketing strategies, the program must flex to any new challenges or new opportunities. Don’t be afraid to vary the format, timing and offers to find the email that works best for your company. And definitely integrate email marketing along with any other marketing – loyalty programs, print ads etc. “join our email newsletter and get even more discounts, savings etc.”———————–
This article written by Teajai Kimsey, Interenet Marketing Strategist, Ideas That Work – May 2005. First presented to the Wichita Professional Communicators, May 2005 It may be reproduced and reprinted provided the author’s information including web link is kept intact.
Filed under Email Marketing by on Jan 30th, 2010. Comment.
With the right email marketing software, the days of blindly undertaking marketing initiatives without being able to track or monitor your success and easily learn from your experiences are a thing of the past. Now, email marketing software makes it easy to quantify the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns down to the smallest details. With all this information at the marketer’s fingertips, the big question becomes, “how can it all be used?” This article will address several key ways that the reports from your email marketing software can be used to boost your email marketing results.
Read more on Email Marketing Software Gives You Vital Statistics To Boost Your Business…
Filed under Email Marketing by on Jan 30th, 2010. Comment.
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