Email Marketing Campaign
Create an Effective Email Marketing Solution
There are two big issues with creating an effective Email communication.
First, make sure it's not Spam. That may sound simple, but it's becoming harder and harder to confirm to the new Spam rules and standards everyday.
Second, build your Email so that it looks professional, legitimate, and has a clear message.
Email is a communication channel and should be respected as one. Fortunately for us, there are Best Practices for developing Email communication that doesn't show up as Spam, jumps the hurdles of Email deliverability issues, and is a clear communication tool.
Email Address (AKA "Send To" List)
Before we send out an email to large group of people we need to look at our list of names. These names need to be organized and cleaned up. Make sure you take out any duplicate email address'. Then you can split the list into a group who wish to receive a TEXT email and those that requested an HTML email. HTML is overwhelmingly rated as receiving a higher click-through rate (84.6 percent) than is text-based e-mail (3.8 percent). Don't assume that it's okay to send an HTML message to someone who requested TEXT though. It might be that their system can't receive these messages and might even block them entirely.
Email Content
Define the content for your email. It it's an HTML email it should have a similar look and feel to your website or traditional media. You want your email to be instantly recognizable by the person you're sending to. If they don't recognize it they will delete it. Make your content simple and straightforward. Include in the email your company contact information, as well as information for the user to remove themselves from your mailing list.
Whitelist - Blacklist
Most large email providers like; AOL, MSN, Google GMail, use whitelists and blacklists to filter out incoming mail. This filter is put in place before the user ever sees the email. The blacklist is a list of bad senders or SPAMMERS, you do not want to be on that list...as your email will not get through. The Whitelist is a list of good names and the filter lets these emails through. If you aren't on a whitelist or blacklist you're bulk mail will most likely not get through the larger companies. It's in your best interest to be on a whitelist. Each company has it's own requirements to get on the whitelist. Check the company's websites for detailed information.
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Tracking the Email
This is an often overlooked step of sending out emails, finding out who actually got them. An email tracking company can help you setup your emails so that you can find out: if they got the email, when they opened it, if they clicked on any of your links inside the email. This is all important information as you want to know who got the email and who didn't. If you see for example that 100% of the email list did not even receive the email, then you know there is a definite problem.
Tracking is also great for testing small portions of your list. This will give you a success sample rate. You can try out new promotions or offers with small samples, then roll out the successful ones to the entire list.
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