An effective email marketing campaign can help sell your products and services, promote customer loyalty, and boost your brand recognition. Marketers face challenges in getting audiences to open, read and relate to their email campaigns. Here are six tips on how to increase and maintain your subscribers.
By Guy Mucklow, Postcode Anywhere
Pithy subject line
The subject line of the email is probably the single most important email element that drives open rates. It needs to be interesting enough to engage with your audience, encouraging them to read on. For every email you send, you have room for no more than fifty characters in your subject line.
Fifty characters could be all that stands between you and success in your email campaign which is why it is imperative that you give it a considerable amount of thought. Keep it simple, to the point, and always try to specify a benefit that the subscriber can gain from reading your email.
Avoid the spam filters
The majority of email services use rigorous spam protection mechanisms to trap any unsolicited email. To make sure your emails don’t get flagged as spam, avoid using exclamation marks, percentages, and any promotional phrases such as “special offer”, “limited time”, “free” and “buy now”. These are certain to get picked up in spam filters or deleted instantly by the recipient.
Content is king
OK, this tip has now almost reached status of Commandment. And is nearly as old. But one of the main elements that will guarantee a high open rate is relevant, well-written content. Today customers are bombarded with a staggering amount of emails so they need a good reason to read yours.
If your content is not appropriate, concise, and filled with useful content, they will just hit delete. Images and visuals can provide useful supplements to your email, but it’s vital to remember that it is the written copy that is most important. You never want to distract your reader from your key message.
Accurate data
This may seem a bit facetious, but the success of your email marketing campaign is fully dependent on your subscribers seeing and responding to the email you send. Effort spent on writing the material is wasted if the email never actually reaches your subscribers.
Invest in email validation tools that can prevent incorrect addresses permeating your contact lists. The end result is a more accurate database of new contacts that will generate better response rates and increase productivity of your sales and marketing efforts.
Current data
Ensure the data you hold on each recipient is up to date. If you’re using an old contact list, chances are the information you hold has probably decayed. The recipient may have changed their address, job, or in the worst case scenario died.
By keeping your email marketing leads current and accurate you can ensure that your emails reach a receptive audience who will be interested in your products or services.
Timing
Emailing in the wrong part of the week or wrong time of day is a seriously important factor in the overall success of the campaign. Monday can be rather hectic so it is an obvious no-no. Wednesday and Thursday seem to be the best days since people will be starting to wind down for the weekend but still relatively engaged.
The frequency of your emails should also warrant some consideration. Send too many emails and your readers will lose interest. Send too few and people will forget all about you.
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