10 factors to help your email marketing become more successful.
There are several main factors which can have a bearing on whether your email marketing campaign is a success or a flop.

Assuming that you can get through your recipients firewall and actually reach the person you wanted to read to your message, then you only have a few nano seconds to convince them to continue reading.

1. The mailing list
You would normally buy a list of contacts you would like to reach, or you create the list yourself or both. Ensure that you create a list of email addresses of everyone who makes contact with you and those who buy from you. These leads are classed as warm and you are more than likely to have your message read by these people as you have already had some contact with them. A new potential customer who you have never had any contact with before is less likely to be responsive to your marketing, but you have to start somewhere.

2. Grab attention
With any email marketing campaign you have only seconds to grab the attention of the reader before they hit the delete button or spam which is worse. This means getting the ‘from’ name right and also the subject line is vitally important. More than 50% of emails are rejected by just reading the subject line alone, so take you time and make sure that at least your message gets a glimpse and is not deleted before the page within the email has even been opened.

3. Keeping hold of attention
You can hold attention by the main headline which reflects the subject line. Having a main headline which is disjointed from the subject line leads to confusion, if the reader is confused then clicking the delete button is their next action. Once you have decided on this, you have to then approach your writing which allows the reader to skim, they are more likely to skim over large amounts of text and only return to read again fully if its of interest to them. Avoid large amounts of text here, this will only allow the reader to be bored quickly and stop reading.

4. Your website landing page
Assuming your email has been enough for the reader to be interested enough to click through to your website then the landing page has a huge impact on the success of this marketing exercise. If you are selling specific product or deal then you need to give that information to the customer when they land on that page. So be consistent, they are clicking through to your website for a reason, they want more specific information on what your are offering, simply linking to your company website will not cut it and will leave them lost.

5. Transmission success
Don’t try and send the emails out yourself. Unless you are personally sending all the emails personally then your Internet provider is likely to black list you for sending too many emails at once. Choose a reputable Email sending company, there are plenty to choose from. Some email services which send out bulk emails don’t allow emails such as ‘admin@’ as its seen as too generic, this is not very helpful so its best to make sure your provider cleans your email list first, they can do this by checking trough the list before mailing it out.

6. Your writing style
Your best approach is a ‘conversational’ style of writing, as if you are chatting to the reader. Imagine you are in a coffee shop and talking to the reader, if there is anything in your email campaign that you wouldn’t mention out load to them in person then delete it.

7. Repeat it in your blog
Once you have created the campaign then repeat your message in a blog, re-enforcing the campaign will sell it to other readers of your blog and widen the audience.

8. Don’t try too hard
Yes you want a sale, but no one wants to be pushed around. A few years ago you would walk into a shop to be confronted by sales staff asking if they can help, questions such as ‘what are you looking for in particular?’ but most of the time you just want to be left alone to browse. Customers need to feel that they have made the decision to buy, not by being forced into it. Give then the information and give them space to breath otherwise they will walk away if they feel they are buying something they may later regret.

9. Targeted
Try to see it from your customers point of view. Are you offering something of a direct benefit to them, is what you are offering going to make a difference to them – why do they need this offer.

10: Timing
There are plenty of websites which will advise you of the best time to send out your email campaign, it has a lot to do with the industry you are selling to. For example you wouldn’t expect much of a response if you were emailing restaurants during a lunchtime service, likewise selling to schools and colleges by emailing them at weekends. Ask you email service provide to give you the statistics they have, you’ll be surprised by the results. It was often thought that response would be reduced if email campaigns were sent on Friday afternoons, the thinking behind this is that towards the end of Friday afternoon most people are thinking about what they are doing at the weekend or they may have even finished early for the day. But if all email marketeers are thinking this logic, then that surely means that there is less competition for your campaign to be read.

Dean Williams

Dean Williams is a design and marketing blogger working for Print-Print Limited, promoting business and building brands through quality print marketing. If you’re interested in small business promotion then please get in touch hello@print-print.co.uk