Just recently, I received an unsolicited email promotion about a motivational course that was obviously mass mailed out. Because this email somehow made it to my inbox, I actually opened up the email to read it.

To tell you the truth, I thought the company behind the email was credible. At least, I didn’t think the company was a scam or anything like that.

But because of the way the company conducted its email promotion, I suspect the campaign probably didn’t give him a good conversion.

So while we are on the topic of email marketing, I thought I list down a few good practices on this area:

 

1. Make it permission-based

Email marketing gives you a lot of advantages other marketing mediums can’t. It’s fast. It’s cheap. And it’s great for direct response promotions.

However for many, it doesn’t work that well.

Why? Because often, companies just sent out tons of emails to unsuspecting prospects who have never given them the permission to do so.

Such campaigns are often a huge waste of time as response rates (e.g. open and click through rate) are usually low. And worst, nowadays, readers can easily mark your incoming email as “spam”.

With one or two spam complaints, your company email address may end up being blacklisted by the major ISPs (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc).

If you are in the US, you may even get into trouble with their CAN-SPAM act.

In one fell swoop, you may end up getting on the wrong side of your prospects, the ISPs and the law’s book. Is this productive for your company? You know the answer.

 

2. Make it personalized

People like one-on-one personalized conversation. You feel a stronger connection. You will feel that the sender is at least making the effort to reach out to you.

How will you feel when you see your email address being lumped together with a mass of others, and reading an email message that feels like a generic template?

I don’t think that’s going to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, right?

And here’s the kicker. You don’t have to email your prospects one by one just to personalize your emails.

There are plenty of good email marketing companies (which adhere to CAN-SPAM regulations) around that give you the platform to send personalized emails on a mass scale on autopilot. Everything is legal and above board. And of course, your recipients are going to respond more to you as you build a relationship with them.

But the thing is I notice that many companies don’t invest in a proper email platform. And you sometime hear them proclaiming email marketing as a big waste of time. It can be – if you are not doing it the right way.
 

3. Make it easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe

If you are in a relationship, and then it no more love in it, what’s the best thing you can do? Probably letting go is the best solution. At least, you give the other party a choice.

Likewise, if a subscriber on your list does not want to receive any more emails from you, make it easy for him to unsubscribe. After all, what’s the point of having an unhappy subscriber who doesn’t want to hear from you?

Don’t make them send you an email to ask you to get them off your list. Have a link they can click on to automatically take them off.

It’s good for you. And good for them. No hassle for all. Everything is done on autopilot. No one gets pissed off. And in future, they may even rejoin your list if they want to.

 

4. Make it targeted

It makes good sense to segment your list and send out targeted messages to targeted audience.

For example, you know you have a segment of your list that consists of young married couples looking for a getaway.

Which email promotion do you think will give you better results? A discounted honeymoon trip to the Bahamas or a computer gadget offer?

The ability to know and give what your subscribers want is key.


All success,
Jag
www.AutomationEdge.org
www.EMoneyMarketing.com