2. Do you know how to make the most of your Mailing Lists?
Most of the organizations though with a lot experience and investing huge
amounts, lack expertise in utilizing their Mailing Lists.
Follow the basic etiquettes and make a difference!
Know your audience’s needs: Never start campaigns without knowing your
target audience and their needs. Based on these needs, categorize your
audience and send relevant Emails. Once you make a bad reputation, it is
very tough to turn it to positive.
Action plan: Never start your email campaign with an incomplete action
plan. Action plan guides you through your journey of your email campaign.
You need not stagger for your next deed.
Effective Mail: Don’t just send emails, send effective emails. Make an
impact on the reader. When you are sending an Email, remember that you
are sending it to make business. Take all the measures to make it
impressive right from your subject line to your from address.
Ask for favor: Ask the audience to do you a favor instead the other way
round. Do not project yourself doing something for them. Ask them to do
you a favor. Grow and let grow.
Build confidence: Providing some statistics about your brand makes the
audience feel confident.
3. Do not dump: Do no overload the recipient with too many emails and on
the contrary, don’t leave them and let them forget you. The frequency with
which you send Emails is a very important aspect. Do not kill recipient’s
time with irrelevant stuff. Sending recipes to a marketing executive would
be a blunder.
Provide opt-in option: When you send an Email, give a chance to
customers to opt-in. If the recipient opts for “Send me a copy of your
document”, add them to your list and send a copy. In this document if the
recipient opts for “Update me with your documents”, only then send them
monthly newsletters, etc.
Keep in touch: Always try to maintain long lasting relationship with your
customers or prospects. The recipient may not be interested in your
product now, but later when they get interested, don’t let it go to your
competitors. Send mails once in a month to maintain the relationship get
going. Keep the recipients engaged and if they respond, they remain for
longer. Do more than sell. Not all emails should be focused on generating
immediate results.
Freebies: “Free” is always catchy. Give away offers they can’t possibly say
‘no’. Ask the recipients to sign up for free newsletter or EBooks, etc. If you
want to be more generous, give them a link to download without sign up
form.
Be creative: Maintain peculiarity with your offers. Check your competitors;
see what freebies they are offering. Try out giving away something that
makes the recipient rely on you.
Test Test Test: Never send a mail without testing. Test the links in your
messages. Never send your recipients links that don’t open or pops an
error or induces virus into their system.
Value your customers: Reply to requests in not more than one day. Show
them that your respect for them. Don’t make them wait for long.
Value your brand: Everything you send should have your brand name and
logo. You can make your brand popular by doing so.
Include call to action: Giving information of your brand would not just
serve your purpose. Provide them a call to action in your message. Take
4. them through the whole procedures of signing up, availing freebies, buying
your products, etc. Do not let digress them from your main business.
Perfect landing page: Make your landing page relevant to your email
campaign. Never make the recipient feel that they had landed in an alien
page. Never use unnecessary content in your pages.
Sign up: Do not miss a single chance. Avail Sign Up form in your newsletter
pages. Your customer might feel like signing up when he/she reads your
newsletter. Giving them a provision to do so is one way you can impress
them. Once the reader signs up, send a follow up email.
TextHTML: Send both text and HTML version messages. Give them an
option.
Avoid attachments: Never send any attachments. Either people ignore
what is in it or they think its spam.
Unsubscribe: Always provide unsubscribe link in your email. Do not make
them think that they do not have a way to escape from you. This usually
happens if you annoy the recipient.
Competitors: Keep an eye on your competitors. Check their websites,
blogs, etc. know what they are doing else you cannot compete them.
Socialize: Utilize social media to the fullest. Use Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, etc. to promote your brand. Try to socialize yourself create
accounts and get in touch with people; this helps you to increase your
number of clients.
Feedback: Always ask for a feedback. Utilize social media to the fullest.
Provide feedback forms and take the feedbacks into account. You cannot
satisfy the needs of all the customers but make the genuine changes you
can.
Special occasions: Send emails on special occasions like Christmas, Father’s
day, Mother’s day, Valentine’s Day etc. Give away some free gifts, etc. as a
special offer.
No holiday marketing: Never do marketing on holidays. It is not profitable
to do so.
5. Main aspects of your email:
A. Subject line: Kindle the recipient to open your mail. Be very careful and
choosy with your subject line.
1. Never leave the subject line empty thinking that your recipient would
open it out of suspense.
2. A descriptive subject line always helps the recipient as to why the reader
should open your mail
3. Keep it simple and short
4. Do not write too big or too short subject lines; cut it short 50 characters
or less
5. Never use the words, “Free”, “Reminder”, “Sale”, “Click Here”, “Act
Now”, “Order Now”, “Guaranteed”, “Opportunity”, “Subscribe”, “Percent
Off” and “Help” which lead to spam.
6. Including current date can increase your credibility.
7. Do not use for CAPS for all characters. If you write everything in CAPS it
seems as if you are shouting.
8. Emphasize benefits of opening your mail
9. Emphasize the words
10. Do not use Flashy or Cheesy phrases like “Winner of”, etc.
11. It would be refreshing to use humorous phrases or concepts
12. Do not write attacking subject lines. For example: xxx.com is the worst
website.
13. Check your next subject line with this 4 “U” list:
i) Useful: Is the message of any value to the reader?
ii) Ultra-specific: Does the reader know what you are promising?
iii) Unique: Is the message promising and remarkable?
iv) Urgent: does the reader feel the need to read it now?
14. Don’t use exclamation points at the end of the subject line. You can use
question mark if doing so makes sense.
15. Do not depend on spell checks. If a word is mis-spelt, it might lead your
email into the trash.
6. B. Message: Once the reader opens your mail he expects it to be informative
and relative to the subject line. Here are few tips that would make the
reader interested in your Email.
1. Make sure your email always has a greeting
2. For an Email campaign, prefer using the place name instead of using first
or last name. It is advisable not to personalize Emails for an Email
campaign.
3. The look and feel of the email is very important
4. If you are writing to them for the first time, give them a short
introduction.
5. Stagnant content leads wouldn’t make the reader interesting and leads
your Email to be in the trash.
6. Use proper structure and layout.
7. Maintain format of Introduction, Body and Conclusion
8. Design your preview pane not more than 600 pixels
9. Talk about one topic in one message
10. Be clear, concise and precise
11. No one spares more than two to three minutes for your email. So utilize
it. Do not state irrelevant sentences
12. Do not write long sentences leading the reader to confusion Leave spaces
between paragraphs
13. Capitalize only when necessary
14. Do not depend on spell checks
15. Use simple language. Avoid high frequency words
16. Do not use too many images. Assume images will not displayed.
17. Keep your language gender neutral
18. You are not just done telling them what you have. Make your call to
action clickable
19. Keep your email friendly and interactive.
20. You can be informal but not sloppy.
21. It is advisable to avoid abbreviations and emoticons
22. Be careful with your formatting. Maintain uniformity. Do not use harsh or
loud colors, red in specific. Avoid using bold style.
7. 23. Be careful with the fonts you are using. Make sure that the color which
you are using is easy to read on the background.
24. Prefer active voice to passive.
25. Be careful with ironic sentences
26. Add a disclaimer.
C. End Line: The “From” line is as important as the subject line.
1. Include gratitude messages like ‘Thank you’, ‘Best regards’, ‘sincerely’,
etc.
2. If you do not know how to end your message, just write ‘Thanks’
3. Let your reader know who you are. Do not create vague impressions
4. Be specific and precise with your from line else your email would be in
the trash bin
5. Be selective with your color and font (Black, Sans-serif fonts like Arial or
Tahoma are preferable)
6. Provide a link to your website and make it clickable
Tip:
Hire a writer to write email pitches instead of writing unappealing emails.
Simple deeds make a lot of difference!!!
