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Ten Tips
For Successful Email Marketing
John Meyer, Wellworks
1. Let your clients
know your email newsletter is from you. Your company name (your brand)
should be in the subject line. You have very loyal customers with very busy
inboxes. Make sure they see it is from you.
2. The subject should
be short and sweet. No more than 50 characters. A picture is worth 1,000
words, but not a subject line.
3. Use an email name
that your clients will recognize. Is it xyz123@aol or FitForever@aol or
better yet Jan@FitForever.
4. Above the fold. You
may have heard that term for newspapers. The top stories are above the fold
in the newspaper. Don’t have your newsletter be too long. And take advantage
of table of contents so your readers can see a snap shot of what is in your
newsletter. They can scroll down to the articles of information that
interests them.
5. What are you doing
to get new clients into your business? Direct mail? Online ads? Newspaper
ads? If you are on a limited budget why not use your most valuable asset:
your customers. In your newsletter ask your clients to forward your email
newsletter to friends and family that may be interested in what your
business offers. And ask them to sign up for your email newsletter. You can
also start a bring in a friend campaign and the email newsletter is a great
way to promote it.
6. A footnote to # 5.
Email marketing is the most cost effective direct marketing tool so why not
put it at the top of your marketing list whether you have a limited or
unlimited budget. Don’t take my word for it…
"More than 63% of
companies found email marketing the most cost effective method for customer
retention." - Direct Marketing Association
“54% of small
businesses surveyed rated email as the top online promotion to drive site
visitors and customers to their sites and store fronts.” – DMA Interactive
7. Color is key. What
is black and white and read all over? A newspaper. That’s a great little
riddle when we were kids. It is also good advice for your email newsletter.
Black font on white background works well. How many of you have been blinded
by the “creative” emails that are black background with red or yellow fonts?
Need I say more?
8. Never, ever send
file attachments. It is a sure fire way for your message to end up in
someone’s SPAM folder. This is because unfortunately many of the computer
viruses that are started come from attached files. Turn the attached file
into a web page instead and add a link to it in your newsletter.
9. Watch out for
exclamation marks! Don’t overuse explanation marks in any written medium,
especially in email. The “!” symbol is used as a SPAM filter in many email
programs and ISPs (Internet Service Providers).
10. Test before you
publish. Always send a test copy of your email newsletter to yourself to
make sure things look right once it lands in your inbox. Think of it as a
virtual spelling, grammar, and newsletter format checker. And if you added
any hyper links make sure they work.
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