Email marketing best practices
Whether you are using it or not, Email remains the digital marketers #1 choice, its the big block engine that consumes a big share of our digital marketing strategy, using it the wrong way could really harm your entire strategy...
Below is a list of email marketing Do's, if correctly followed you will notice a big change with your subscribers & your subscribers response rate... to the better off course ;)
Permission permission permission...
"Always use confirmed opt-in, stop spamming people with unsolicited emails which usually gets deleted or junked by smart spam filters "
Provide a one click unsubscribe link
"Remember, if the user want to opt out and cant find a way to do it peacfully, the user then will junk you, that means a junk point addition, once you reach your junk points limit, you'll be black listed ( gmail ), provide a one click opt-out link."
Provide a hosted version of the email
"Add a link at the top of the email that says "can't view this email? click here to read it online", you would never know how the user's email client behave ..."
So you think an inline image is enough?
"Think twice, what if it was stripped by the email client? provide a text version only or a good combination of text & images would do just fine!"
A visible call to action...
"you have sent the email for a reason, provide a clear CTA's whether an image or text for example [register NOW] [ do something ]..."
Test Test & Test ...
"Don't assume your readers uses the same email client as yours, there are lots of flavours out with different versions, what works with outlook 2007 might dont work with Thunderbird..."
Track it down ...
"Whats the email campaign's open rate? use clear gifs or web beacons to track the open rate & Always track down how they've reached the article/product/promotion and through which CTA? was it the image? or was it the text? use advanced google analytics to determine the last, for example " source=emailcampaign1&ref=image1 " ... or simply checkout campaignmonitor.com"
Frequency & Recency
Establishing the Right Email Frequency
One more thing ...
"Remember, content is KING!"
Bonus material ...
A quick note on local permission marketing
"Beep Beep" an SMS alert, i pick up the phone to see the message and i go oh shoot, there ya go again, another zain message and without even reading the message i delete it with passion...
Seriously, how often do you get?interrupted?with such ads? ?whether you are checking your email or watching one of MBC's channel or probably receiving an SMS while driving, and how often do you delete that sms/email or switch to a different channel ... ?The important question is WHY?
Because you?haven't?opted-in for it at the first place, that means?interruption?marketing is not working for them nor on us anymore, it became another noise in the background...
Back to zain, i haven't asked for it, please keep it for yourself.
Batelco on the other hand got an opt-in driven sms "contest", but once you are in you can never get out ( you should probably dial 196 and click through the tree until you get a human to sort you out ) so even while you are roaming out of the country, they will spam you with their questions to death... there aren't any instructions on how to opt-out using sms!
Moral of the story #1
" Make sure to have a visible opt-in instructions and a visible opt-out instructions "
Moral of the story #2
" Even though you got an opt-in strategy it doesn't mean that you are not spamming "
Moral of the story #3
" DVRs were created to skip TV ads, not just record to record TV shows * MBC * "
Moral of the story #4
" We are witnessing the death of ?interruption?marketing, we live in a small island, be different switch to permission marketing, start by building your opt-in email lists or try viral perhaps?"
My next topic is going to be on email marketing best practices, hope the local big guys and their agencies are watching this space, it will really sort them out...