Three Email Marketing Tips

These three email marketing tips assume your email program is based on customers and prospects that have requested your email newsletter. People that have opted in to your newsletter form a very valuable set of customers and prospects and should form the basis of your monthly (or weekly) email marketing program. Never send an unsolicited email to anyone. In my opinion, renting email lists is just a waste of money and I don't recommend it.

There’s a reason why this email marketing tip is in the #1 position - it’s the most important. It’s the key to using email as an effective list and traffic builder.

Sure, you can use your email newsletter to try and sell products and services to your customers, but if that is the entire focus, you will quickly turn off potential customers (not to mention current customers.) When someone registers to receive your ezine, they have put trust in the fact that they will be getting valuable information in return. Make sure you don’t violate that trust!

You may have heard the phrase “Content is King.” When you start to build a regular email communication through the use of a periodic newsletter, nothing is more important than content. I’m not saying you shouldn't promote your products or services, but the primary purpose of your ezine is to develop trust and loyalty among your readership. If you use your ezine as one big commercial, you'll find your "unsubscribe" button becomes very popular.

So, what kind of content is compelling?

• "How to" articles
• Important industry news
• Interviews with experts in the field
• Articles on current trends and hot topics
• Market and poll results
• Book and product recommendations
• Question and answer topics

At the end of providing informative content, it's ok to market your products and services but don't do it every single month. I know that goes against traditional marketing but trust me that you will build a more successful business by sending out useful content and providing links back to your website for additional information. You will stand out from the rest of the pack because you are focused on helping your readers solve their problems as opposed to just trying to sell products. Think about it, how many business emails do you receive where the sender is not trying to push a product or service?

This idea of providing relevant and useful content first and foremost is called PREselling. You simply MUST PREsell before you even think of promoting your products. Presold visitors are the difference between success and failure in the online world! Emails are one of the most abused forms of marketing. Don’t add to the problem. This email marketing tip will help you become part of the solution by PREselling great content to your recipients. Build their confidence and trust.

Overdeliver great content and you will be rewarded with repeat visits to your website, growing confidence & loyalty and most important, increased sales. It’s the only way to profit from an email program!

When you send out an email, the recipient’s Internet service provider will typically run the contents through a special program designed to catch and filter spam. If your email scores high enough, it gets tagged as spam may get filtered to the junk folder or not delivered at all. This email marketing tip will show you how to minimize this issue.

The solution is simple. Run your email text through a software analyzer that looks for specific spam markers. It’s possible that the email delivery service you’re using already has a feature which will allow you to test your email contents for spam.

However, even if your email delivery service offers this, I recommend you use the free spam checker tool at the following URL.

This free tool is brought to you by Site Build It! You’ll have to scroll down a bit and get past the advertising in order to see the form where you will need to paste in your email contents. Once you have done that, you simply hit the “Submit” button. Within seconds, you will get a spam score and suggestions on what to change. This is a great little program and the best part is that it’s free.

By the way, here's another email marketing tip. On the above free spam checker site, you will find lots of information about Site Build It!, the company that hosts this service. I'm a big fan of Site Build It! In fact, I built this entire site using just Site Build It! Check them out at the above link – you’ll be glad you did. They have an entire suite of tools related to developing your own comprehensive email/ezine program.

I have a spam filter I set up using Windows Live Mail. It works pretty good but things do slip through. Because of that fact, I go in each day and scan the emails to make sure I don’t miss something important. When I scan these emails, I find myself typically scanning the subject lines.

The point is, if you don’t have compelling subject lines, your recipients may never even open your emails – even though they have opted in.

You may find marketing books or websites out there that give you a lot of email marketing tips on sure-fire subject lines. Don't believe it - it's pure nonsense. No one can tell you what subject lines will appeal to your particular subset of customers and prospects in your particular market.

So how do you ensure your subject lines are compelling? Easy – test, test, and when you’re finished with that, test some more.

Here are the steps to set up your subject line testing program for this email marketing tip.

Step 1: Split your mail list into 2 equal but random sub lists. If your email list is in no particular order, the easiest way to do this is just to use every other name for one list (list A) and all the other names for the second list (list B.)

Step 2: Now come up with two competing subject lines and label them "Subject Line A" and "Subject Line B." Labeling them is just the way you will keep track of things internally - you won't actually place these labels in the actual subject line. Make sure the subject lines have relevancy to your email content.

Step 3: Send the email with subject line A to list A and the email with subject line B to list B. Ideally, you want them to be sent at the same time. If your email service doesn't allow you to do this, then send list A and then immediately send list B. It won't matter as long as they go out at approximately the same time.

Step 4: Wait a few days and then compare the open rates for list A and list B to see if there was a clear winner.

Step 5: Analyze your data. Did subject line A yield a 65% open rate but subject line B yield only a 20% open rate? If so, you now have some important information at your fingertips. Did the test yield approximately the same open rate? If so, was it a high or low open rate? By continually testing, analyzing, and asking questions, you will quickly zero in on subject lines that yield higher open rates.

I promise you will see results if you follow the above email marketing tips. Remember, the more people that open your email, the more people that get exposed to the branding of your message, content, and periodic offers. It doesn’t matter how great your email content is if people aren’t opening your emails!

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