Email Marketing Tips Blog

Anna Billstrom over at Adventures in Email Marketing has an interesting article on the “5 Common Newbie Mistakes”, based on the first email messages she received when joining the lists of many small businesses.

Rather than point out the mistakes (I find people remember mistakes rather than the proper way to do it!), I’ll list the five things you should remember to do!

• Label your top header graphic. I’ve gone over this a number of times due to many email clients not automatically showing images.
• Remind your reader who you are. If you don’t want to have your reader hit spam, take a moment to remind them where they signed up, who you are, and what this is all about.

“You signed up for 101 Quilting Tips at http://quiltingtips.com on 5/2/08. This is part of a series of 101 tips for new and experienced quilters.”

• Use a professional email marketing company like GetResponse. Ms. Billstrom says “nothing screams amateur hour more than trying to send it from Outlook/Yahoo/Gmail”.
• Personalize your emails. That doesn’t mean inserting FIRSTNAME, but occasionally changing what you send to them. If you normally send a newsletter, send a personalized email or a link to a contest. If you know their sign-up date, send them an anniversary card with a discount code.
• Build interactivity. People get tired of one way communicaation. Provide opportunities for them to comment on your email marketing in blogs, social networking sites,, forums, or a Feedback section of your newsletter.

In a recent post, I mentioned interactivity as a critical element for keeping your readers engaged long-term.

Along comes Alibris (the book people) with a great example of interactivity.  I would suggest you sign up for their newsletter and study it.  Here are some key elements that are contained in their email:

• Product reviews with a rating system;
• A list of five of their top-rated books;
• An incentivized offer for subscribers to write a review for the opportunity to win $100 in books; and
• A profile of one of their staff reviewers, along with a picture and link to a bio. Readers are given the opportunity to provide feedback on the reviewer’s review.

There are many links back to their web site within the newsletter. The layout and interactivity certainly makes the reader feel involved and that their opinion is appreciated.

Take a look at your newsletter and see how many of the above items can be incorporated in your mailings.

I recently talked to a friend of mine who is involved in affiliate marketing and recently started promoting a weight-loss product. One of the ways he was building his list was by calling or instant messaging friends, co-workers and acquaintances asked if they would help him be accountable to his workout schedule by receiving an update email from him. He told them that he felt he would stick to his plan if he knew he had to email them a few times a week with an update on his workouts and weight loss.

Many agreed. They are now getting updates, as well as consistent, low-key ads for his products. His emails are very personal and newsy and remind me a lot of blog posts.

You can do the same. People love to look over the shoulders of others. Pick an interesting topic related to your niche and offer visitors the opportunity to be in on your frequent updates. Keep them involved in your successes, failures, and what you have learned along the way.

Just keep in mind that any promotion should be very low key. Do not pepper your email with links; you want this to look like a personal (by-invitation-only) email exchange.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

If you’ve ever done something really stupid related to email marketing, you are not alone! The Retail Email Blog recently announced its latest inductees of email marketing gaffes and slip-ups by some of the largest, recognizable online retailers in the world.

While you can find some hilarious details on their web site, her are the “award categories”:

• Subject Line Mistakes
• Deployment Slips
• Image and Coding Mistakes
• Grammar and Spelling Errors

The best advice, so you don’t repeat these mistakes, is to make a checklist and review it before pressing the “Send” button. Also, have a separate set of eyes look over your message, as it’s easy to miss errors if you’ve been hard at work on a newsletter or email series. (For instance, I wouldn’t dare post blog articles before Steve “Eagle Eye” Hewitt proofed them! You should do the same!)

If you have a higher percentage of unsubscribes than you want (isn’t that everyone?), here’s an idea I’d like to pass along.

First, think about why your readers may wish to unsubscribe:

• They are no longer interested in the subject matter;
• Your email messages are sent too often;
• Not enough content and too many ads.

Rather than losing these subscribers altogether, why not remodel your Unsubscribe Page into an opt-in page?

Here are some examples:

• Give them a choice of different delivery schedules. One newsletter I receive is sent daily. It finally became too much, so I decided to cancel. Upon doing so, however, I was given the option to choose a different delivery schedule and selected 3X a week. You don’t lose a subscriber.
  
• Tell them what else you have available. If I’ve purchased that gardening book, I may no longer want your email marketing series about one that I had been considering. What if your unsubscribe page listed the other series you had available, including herb gardening, which IS of interest to me? You don’t lose a subscriber.
  
• Ask me why I’m un-subscribing and offer me a solution. Maybe I can keep up with your content, without so many ads, by reading your blog. Or maybe I can switch my subscription to your bi-weekly newsletter instead of your 8–part email series. You don’t lose a subscriber.

You might think of offering some of your information via podcasts and videos. You can still use email marketing to contact your reader, but send them to a website. Instead of a written ad, your site can contain a banner or other advertising.

It takes time and money to capture a subscriber…do whatever you can to keep them!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

An eye-opening article at Direct Mag quotes from a study which found that 29% of Internet users have bought goods through a spam email.

The research study, conducted by online security company Marshal, found the most commonly purchased items were sexual enhancement pills and other adult material, software, jewelry and clothing.

Unfortunately, it looks like the percentage of people buying from spammers is increasing. In 2004, Forrester Research did a similar study, finding that 20% of those they surveyed reported purchased from spammers.

Marshall attributed the rise to the spammers’ ability to reduce their costs by using botnets, or networks consisting of thousands of infected personal computers, which are remotely controlled by criminals. Thanks to this, spammers have reduced or eliminated their need for their own servers because they can take control of other people’s computers.

Eighty percent of the world’s spam is accounted for by only five botnets.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse