Feb 2010 Top Tips…email marketing

• By Laura in News, Resource,
• tagged email

Effective email marketing can have amazing results for your business. As always, there are some basic rules to follow in order to maximise the success of your email newsletters. Here’s our Top 10…

1. Surprisingly, this is something that’s often overlooked: always display your contact details in a prominent position – including links to your website.
2. Address your email recipients by name. This helps add a feeling of exclusivity and individuality. Consider using first names in the body of the email itself if you can.
3. Keep it concise. Make your email too long and people will be put off reading it. Try using short, sharp paragraphs of text linking back to a longer version of the story on your website.
4. Offer alternative versions of your email. At the very least, offer a text only version as well as HTML. Some people choose not to receive HTML emails, so by offering the text-only version you allow them the chance to read your newsletter.
5. Remember your newsletter can be used as a market research tool: you have access to an ideal market who have opted to receive information about your products and services.
6. Include a powerful headline which arouses the reader’s interest. The subject line of your email newsletter should reflect the content otherwise you may risk ending up on the list of ‘blocked senders’ for misleading the reader.
7. Always include an unsubscribe link. This is usually placed at the very bottom of the page and is required by law.
8. Avoid sending email newsletters on Monday or Friday. Research indicates that people are far less receptive to email communications at the beginning or end of the week. On Monday they tend to be in ‘delete’ mood as they clear the weekend backlog. On Friday they tend to be in ‘wind down’ mode for the weekend.
9. Ensure links open up a new window. If you include links in the body of your email, make sure the target is set to ‘_blank’. If not, clicking on the link will close down your email and open up the linked page instead.
10. Don’t overdo it! Bombarding your readership with frequent emails can be intrusive and will result in deletion or unsubscription. Ask your readers how often they want to hear from you: weekly, fortnightly, or monthly?

If you would like to know more about email marketing and find out how OC Vision can help make your communications a success please get in touch.

OC Vision can help with template design, build, database and campaign management and analytics.