While email marketing is a popular and cost effective form of marketing in the world today there are a few key factors to keep in mind:
1. If you are marketing on a personal level, especially if you are auto-inserting first names into your mail piece, it is vital to ensure the data is correct. Nothing goes over worse than sending someone mail with someone else’s name on it.
2. Keep it short and sweet. With so much email content doing the rounds on a daily basis a short, direct message has a much higher read rate than a lengthy message that requires more time to absorb. Select either 3-5 highlight articles with a short snap for each or 1-2 main topics that appeal to your readers.
3. Less issues avoids the switch-off issue. If you send your database a mail piece each day or even each week it won’t take long before they switch off and either ignore, delete or unsubscribe. It is far more powerful to promote once a fortnight, month or even bi-monthly so that your readers are eager to see what you have to say. It is a novelty to spot your mail and absorb what’s inside.
4. Exclusivity. Add something to your enewsletter that your readers can’t get anywhere else. This not only inspires others to join in but it makes your subscribers feel special increasing their connection with what you have to offer.
5. Make sure it looks good. It might go without saying but the better your email marketing looks the higher the chance people will read it. With a mix of browser platforms and devices making sure your enews works in all of them is rather important. If they can’t see it, or it displays incorrectly your credibility reduces. A mix of images and text is also vital – all images will mean your audience has to download to get any detail on the email topic(s). Add in a mixture of images and text and you can tease them into the right click to view images far easier.
