12 Email Marketing Best Practices From Admail.net
February 22nd, 2010 by Dan LukensIn our many blog posts we’ve covered a lot of ways to improve your email campaigns. We get so many questions about best practices and how to improve results that we thought that we’d gather up all of our best practices tips and put them in one place. Here is a list of our most important “Best Practices”.
1. Write great subject lines.
This is the first rule of email marketing. Subject lines are the first things your customer sees and the deciding factor in how much attention they give your email. Don’t hurry writing your subject line, come up with several different ideas and chose the one you think would appeal to your customer most. Be honest in your subject and avoid the hard sell and SPAM language.
2. Don’t forget the preview pane!
The preview pane is that handy little window in email clients like Outlook and Thunderbird that shows a preview of the email before it is actually “opened”. It’s so useful in fact, that many people read their emails almost exclusively in this manor. Create your email so that the most important part of your offer or message is visible in this window. Which means, the top section of your email is most important. This would be the case regardless since grabbing your reader’s interest is your primary goal anyway.
3. Avoid SPAM language.
Chances are you’ve gotten SPAM before in your email inbox but have you ever notice how they all seem share the same language? SPAM filters have been designed to pick up on this recurring “language of SPAM” by using Bayesian style filters. These types of filters have been popular for years and use common “SPAM words” to filter messages. Actually it’s a lot more complicate than that and you can read more here, but the general idea is that avoiding certain words and phrases can make your email more deliverable. We’ve compiled a list of some of those words in our Email and Spam Blockers FAQ.
4. Make it look good.
Anyone who sees your email campaign is going to judge it based on how it looks. You might do everything else right but if you have a bad design, you can ruin any potential for success your campaign may have had. Not every email needs to be a work of art but take some time and objectively view your email. Ask yourself, “Does it look like SPAM? Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this company?” Make your campaign look professional and your clients will be more apt to click your links and buy your products.
5. Treat your recipients like real people.
There are many ways to appeal to your audience and no one way is best, but in the world of bulk email, treating your clients with a respectful, personal touch can be the difference between success and a failure. Email can be notoriously cold and impersonal, if you find a way to break that mold and connect with your recipients, you will give them a refreshing surprise that they are sure to respond to.
6. Focus on meaningful content.
Find out what your customers want and give it to them. Too many marketers get so wrapped up in their product that they forget about the consumer. If you provide your recipients with something valuable, your campaign will be a success. Blatant solicitation is a waste of everyone’s time.
7. Establish your brand.
Assuming you are already producing content that your recipients actually want, the next step is to ensure that they don’t overlook your email. Maintaining similar design and messaging will make your email familiar and allow your recipients to pick your email out of a crowd. If they have a high traffic inbox, this can be crucial to the success of your campaign.
8. Include an offer.
Including an offer can be a fantastic way to attract attention but also has the potential to be gimmicky. Don’t bother with this unless you think your customer will get legitimate value from the offer you are providing. Avoid being misleading at all costs. Exclusive offers can be more attractive and have the potential of prompting recipients to forward your email to a friend if they find it to be an exceptional value. Free marketing doesn’t get any better than that!
9. Avoid large images.
Large images can give your email a higher probability of tripping SPAM filters and may also ruin your email design. Along with the fact that many email clients block images by default, you have plenty of good reasons not to include large images in your message. You may want to show off their pictures in full detail but an email is not the place to do it. Include a thumbnail of the image and have it link to the full sized image hosted elsewhere.
10. Ask to be on their list.
There is no better way to ensure that your future emails don’t wind up in a willing recipients SPAM folder than just asking nicely. Ask them to add you to their contacts list and, in most email clients, your messages will be ensured delivery. You can include this request in your first campaign or in all of your campaigns.
11. Know and follow CAN-SPAM regulations.
This one is simple, CAN-SPAM regulations are the law and if you break them you could find yourself with a hefty fine and a nasty mark on your reputation. Avoid these problems by understanding the regulations before starting any email campaign.
12. Study major email providers policy.
Professionals in any field always do their homework. They know more about the topic than anyone else and they use that knowledge to their advantage. If you want to be a pro in the email marketing world you need to know the policy’s of the major email providers. You wouldn’t ship goods somewhere without knowing the docking regulations of the port, so don’t be uninformed of the rules and regulations of companies like Yahoo!, Google, or Microsoft.
