5 Tips for Email Marketing

by Lyndi Lawson

Email Marketing gets a bad rap, because of its perceived association with spam, which, like an STD, will infiltrate your inbox as soon as you let your guard down (the moral of the story of course being “don’t ever let your guard down”).

If spam is like an STD, Email Marketing, if correctly implemented, is like that reassuring doctor’s call telling you that a simple course of antibiotics will fix you up as good as new. Unlike the above example though, the line between spam and Email Marketing can be a fine one, and for obvious reasons (see above example) it is crucial to keep your company’s toes (and any other body parts) on the right side of it. There are a number of ways to do this and these are but a few:

1). Keep it short and sweet

Let’s be honest - who has time to read reams (and I obviously mean reams in the strictly metaphorical sense) of text these days. Although admittedly to my detriment, I even skim text messages to save myself a moment or two. Despite the fact that this often ends badly for me and for the people trying to communicate with me (ask my old boyfriend from high school), it is nonetheless the way of the world. Learn to live with it, and find a work around it.

Punchy one-liners, short blurbs with the option to ‘read more’ and skimmer tools like bolding will make it easier for you to convey your content. Succinct copy is a must! Even I, with my propensity to waffle, can’t stand to read a sentence with 500 adjectives that repeats the same theory in seven different ways just to make sure that everyone understands it.  

2). Valuable content is a winner…

Busy people do not respond well to content that offers them little to nothing in terms of value. The world is an information hungry place, and feeding the hungry is a pretty good way to get people to listen to you.

The key is in building a trust relationship with your audience and everyone knows that trust takes time and nurturing. Imparting informative content and sharing your company’s expertise with those people on ‘THE LIST’ will mean that when you do launch a new product, or have news that you want to share, you will have a ready and receptive audience who trusts that what you have to say will be valuable.

However, this relationship is not one that should be taken for granted. Trust is more easily destroyed than it is forged (just ask any parent in America how they feel about Miley Cyrus – aka Hannah Montana – after the semi nude Vanity Fair debacle). So the key here is to maintain the standards of your content: never ever offer your readers free nude photographs of Jenna Bush, even if you have some. Not only will you no longer have anyone on ‘THE LIST’ but George will bomb your house and blame the Taliban. 

This one seems to be a recurring theme, probably because it is one remedy for humankind’s lack of time. Surprisingly, the shortage of this precious commodity is forgotten in the face of a funny video clip, a forwarded joke or any subject line claiming its content includes the “FUNNIEST PHOTOGRAPHS EVER!!!”  

Not even the most pompous of business executives can resist a chuckle or two to start the day. There is a lesson to be learned here. Consider for a moment, your inbox: the guilt-inspiring bold text of those unread emails from your boss demanding January’s report; smug circular-ish ‘replied to’ arrows dotted about the screen; the occasional red star or exclamation mark that screams URGENT (you have not registered as a tax-payer and SARS is coming for you in the middle of the night to transport you to your ritual stake-burning ceremony.) And then there is always the folder entitled “Jokes and Forwards” - that stack of emails that has been passed from friend to friend, across cities and countries and continents. Those are usually the ones featuring the smug, circular-ish ‘replied-to’ arrows.

I’m not sure whether you have noticed but that echoing sound you can hear is opportunity knocking. Don’t get me wrong. No one is expecting regular injections of hilarity; but if something is light and entertaining, it will have a better click through rate and is more likely to be passed on, helping you build ‘THE LIST’. Something that is pretty important unless you fancy yourself as a dirty spammer. Also, there are long term benefits to be derived from your Email Marketing efforts having some entertainment value, even if it’s just a bad pun, or some general silliness. People will be more likely to read future emails; ensuring that you have an audience that is increasingly receptive to the messages you are passing around. In the marketing world, this is good.

4). It’s all in the subject line

All that ‘not judging a book by its cover’ crap is just that – crap. It goes against basic psychology – even evolution perhaps. Unfortunately, appearances are everything, particularly when there is little else to go on. It’s why we like celebrities and it’s why we read (or don’t read) non-essential emails. When, on Monday mornings with heavy hearts, we open our inboxes, what we see first is subject lines. FYI: the words ‘free’, ‘discount’ and ‘cheap’ are out. Banish them from your vocabulary, along with any other terms that make your email sound like a weak sales pitch. The subject line needs to be catchy and spark the reader’s interest. It can contain your brand name (provided your reputation is one worth splashing about) and it should be relevant to the content of your email. 

5). No spam. Not ever. Seriously

Buying a list of email addresses and indiscriminately mailing the poor suckers who feature on it, is a no-no, no matter how desperate you might be. In addition to the fact that your recipients probably don’t want to buy a new and improved type of natural Viagra for women and thus will not click through to your website, your company will also tarnish its reputation forever. While this is unlikely to matter to companies or individuals selling soft porn, replica jewellery or herbal Viagra, it should matter to companies marketing reputable products and with a carefully positioned brand-name that they wish to uphold.

There are many ways to grow and develop your Email Marketing list. ‘Opt-in’ is crucial. This means that the recipients need to have chosen to receive information from your company. Providing them with an ‘opt out’ alternative is also best practice. The key of course is to provide them with enough value to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

2008/05/28 | permalink | comments (2) | trackbacks (0)

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