Virtual Assistant

25 Tips to Using Email Marketing Successfully

By Agnes Ikotun

(Part 1)

This article is for you, if you have a good size contact list and you’ve wondered how to create business opportunities. Or even if you are just thinking about starting email marketing as part of your business marketing action plan. Are you in between? Then, this article is for you are well.

Email is a wonderful business tool that, if used properly, will enhance your sales and marketing efforts significantly. Try these methods to get the most out of email communications:

1. Use permission lists only.
2. If you buy a list, make sure it is qualified – that is, those email addresses are valid and they belong to people who have opted in to receive emails on products and/or services like yours.
3. Ideally, build your own list.
4. Include an opt-in page on your web site, so people can sign up to receive email communications from you.
5. As an incentive, offer customers something free in exchange for signing up – a one time discount code, or a free ebook.
6. Make it easy to opt out or update an email address.
7. Only ask for the information you need – too many questions puts people off.
8. Adopt a formal policy about how the data will be used, and make sure each subscriber has to read those terms before opting in.
9. Honor those terms, no matter what.
10. Put a cap on the number of emails you send each subscriber – once a week is likely to be welcomed, but three times a week may cause people to opt out.
11. Set up your system to flag addresses after so many failed delivery attempts; this will make it easier to keep your email list clean and up to date.
12. Avoid attachments; many people won’t open them.
13. Go for something that will work in the body of an email.
14. Offer plain text as well as HTML to accommodate different loading speeds.
15. Set up a reply email, so your subscribers can reach you when they want to respond to the email.
16. Consider using a newsletter format for your email communications.
17. Subscribe to a few email newsletters, so you can see how others are using the medium.
18. Make notes on what type of newsletter formats seem to grab your attention.
19. Ask others for their opinion of which newsletters they like, and why.
20. Don’t send email communications when there is nothing new to say. Repetition will only cost you subscribers.
21. Make the content of the email interesting.
22. Avoid the appearance of being spam, by not using all capital letters in the title for the email, or announcing “Free” in the title line.
23. Do always make sure the subscriber’s name appears in the “To” field. It’s more personal.
24. Look into using email programs that automatically include the subscriber’s name in the body of the email.
25. Keep it short and sweet. Rambling emails, even if they are newsletters, are likely to be closed and deleted without being read.

P.S.: Contact us if you have been thinking about using email as one of your marketing tools but don’t know where to start. We work with many of the popular email marketing clients including:        1 Shopping Cart, Aweber, Constant Contact, iContact, Campaigner, and more. Check out some of the email/newsletter templates that we’ve designed for some of our clients. Keep an eye out for Part 2, 25 More Tips to Using Email Marketing Successfully.

Published by Agnes Ikotun in 1 Shopping Cart, Aweber, Constant Contact, Email Marketing, Email Marketing Tips, Email Template Design, Infusion Soft, Internet Marketing, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Wahmcart