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Posted by dani cass on August 20th, 2010

If you’re anything like me, whenever you buy a new product, in your enthusiasm for the shiny new item you’ve just bought you’ll sign up for their newsletter with the promise of receiving every update, special offer and new promotion in the future.

Today alone, I have received over 100 emails about products and competitions and without reading them they have all been deleted!

So what can you do to make sure your email marketing campaigns don’t meet the same fate? Here are a few tips to help ensure your emails don’t end up being deleted without at least being read first.

Include an unsubscribe option Peoples tastes, needs and requirements change, so even though they may have signed up to receive your updates 6 months ago, they may no longer wish to receive them.

By law, you need to make sure that all marketing emails include an unsubscribe button, and that when a recipient requests to be removed from your list it is actioned within 10 days.

Spell check and proof read your email There is nothing more annoying than receiving poorly written, generic spam! It immediately creates an unprofessional image.

Proof read your email, spell check it and ask at least one other person to read through it as well.

Include a call to action So you have written an amazing email full of relevant information which has really caught the attention of the recipient, what do they need to do to find out more? Don’t forget to tell them, it may sound simple but just like attaching that file to an email it often gets overlooked causing the recipient work to actually get what they need!

If you have a landing page make sure you provide the link at various stages throughout the email, if you want them to call you make sure the telephone number is clearly visible, but most importantly make sure this information is included at the bottom of the email as this is where they will be when they have read the information and want to know more!

Test your email before you send it Before you send the email to anybody else, send a test to yourself, this will allow you to see how your email will appear to your recipients.

View the email in your chosen program, email programs may display the email differently to how it appears whilst you are creating it so this will give you the opportunity to go back and amend anything that doesn’t display correctly. You can also use this test email to check that any links in the email are working, and forwarding to the correct destination as well as asking somebody else to proof read it.

Have a snappy but relevant subject line People are more likely to open an email with a snappy yet simple subject line. Make sure your subject line is honest and hints about the content of the email, don’t attempt to mislead the recipient into opening the email as this will more than likely annoy them and cause them to unsubscribe!

Keep your emails relevant Make sure that any emails you send are relevant to the recipient, ‘if they AREN’T relevant – they ARE Spam!’

Avoid spam triggers Anti-Spam software looks for various words and phrases that are commonly used in Spam emails, if you want to avoid having your email marketing classed as Spam it is always wise to avoid trigger words.

A simple way to do this is to use an email marketing system that allows you to Spam check your email and identify problem words or phrases. Innocent words such as ‘specialise’ can cause your email to be classed as Spam as it contains the word ‘cialis’, this may not even occur to most people but a Spam checker will highlight these problem words.

Avoid attachments The easiest way for unscrupulous people to infect your computer with a virus is to send an email promising further information if you open an attachment. The majority of people are now wise to this and don’t open emails from unknown senders if they contain an attachment.

If you want to offer further information in your campaign, include a link to a landing page on your website.

Make sure your identity is clear to the recipient Masking your identity, or attempting to make recipients believe you are someone else is a no no! Make sure that your display name is either that of yourself or your company and that your email body includes your contact details.

People are less likely to open or respond to an email if they cannot identify the sender.

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Internet Marketing Specialists Midlands