Email Newsletter Best Practices

There are  top five best practices that you should always consider when thinking about and designing an email
newsletter and campaign.

***. One Call-to-Action: Go straight to your message. Though you may feature multiple products in a direct sales email, do not ask customers reading the email to do anything other than purchase as you will distract them from the
intended goal. Do not clutter your direct sales emails with content links, information links or even social
media links.

1. Excerpt Content and Link to the Full Version: If you are including a column or article, always simply
include an excerpt or “tease” within your email newsletter and then link to the full article or column on
your website. Not only does this drive valuable page impressions to your website, but it also avoids your
email newsletter being flagged as spam instead of going to the inbox because of a questionable word
usage in your full content.

2. Make Links Clear and Visible & Use Text Links: Make sure that all links to your website, partner
sites or other locations are clear and visible. When possible, default to blue, underlined links for easy
user recognition. Though in web design it is often unadvisable to use the words “click here” in a link, in
email design it typically is more effective to use the words “click here.” Make sure that your links are text
links and not image-based links as images may not appear in all emails.

3. Prioritize the Content That Users Will Care About in the Top Three Inches: In a typical email
preview pane, you will have approximately three inches to display your content and allow a reader to
decide whether to read the full email or not. Make sure that your most engaging newsletter content
appears within these top three inches and do not waste the space with graphic headers or filler “welcome”
content.

4. Use a “Table of Contents” or “In This Email”: Because email newsletters tend to be longer and
users tend to scan them quickly, use a table of contents or a quick list of what’s in the email near the top
so that users can quickly refer to it to see what content they may want to read.

5. Allow Readers the Option of Reading the Newsletter on a Webpage: Particularly for users who
read their email on their mobile device, the option to click a link and instead see a hosted version of the
newsletter on a webpage instead of having to read the entire newsletter within their inbox is a huge
benefit. Offering this option will significantly increase the number

***. One Call-to-Action: Go straight to your message. Though you may feature multiple products in a direct sales email, do not ask
customers reading the email to do anything other than purchase as you will distract them from the
intended goal. Do not clutter your direct sales emails with content links, information links or even social
media links.

www.globalmailers.net
 

How to Rate a Bulk Email Campaign

How to Rate a Bulk Email Campaign:

I created the following chart to help you better understand how you need to gauge the success of your emailing campaign. It is important to realize that when you send a bulk email campaign, that your reaching an audience that has never received prior correspondence from you. This means your open ratio's are going to be dramatically lower than what they would be if you were emailing to a "relationship" based list (which is a list that directly opted into your website to receive email from you). Relationship based "opt-in" email lists generally have an open ratio between 30-60% and nearly zero SPAM complaints.

Since bulk email lists and purchased lists (where the prospect did not directly "Opt-Into" your specific website) generally have an overall lower open ratio, I have given examples below of how you would best judge the successes of any bulk email campaign. I judge the effectiveness of a campaign based on the amount of emails that are opened and by the click-through ratios of the emails intended recipients (These examples are based on my two years experience of emailing nearly 3 Billion people in nearly 10,000 bulk email campaigns).

Examples:

2%+ Open Ratio: If you receive an open ratio of more than 2%, then I consider that you've had a VERY VERY successful email campaign. This means your subject lines for the email were near perfect and caused the supreme level of desired effect you would wish to have in a bulk emailing. Getting a 2% open ratio in bulk emailing is usually a rare event and doesn't happen to often. Only about 5% or less of any campaigns will ever get this level of response.

1% Open Ratio: I consider that you've had a very excellent emailing campaign. I consider a 1% open ratio to be the ideal bench mark of success in any bulk emailing campaign. This means you have a great overall subject line and have your finger on the pulse of your audience.

.5% and above: Good overall campaign. It is typical that 75% of all email campaigns will usually end up between a .5 and a 1% open ratio. This means you're making a good connection with your audience and you have not turned them away. With some changes to your subject line, you may hopefully find yourself at the 1% open ratio mark and above.

.1 to .5% Open Ratio: Poor performance campaign. I would recommend that you immediately change your subject lines to make a better connection to your target audience. I would also check your spam settings to make sure you do not have too many red flags in your message. Either you received this open open ratio because your audience doesn't care about your subject line or your emailing on Saturday or Sunday (which are the worst days to send out bulk email). If you happened to send out a campaign on the weekend, why don't you try again on Monday and see if you get the same result. If on Monday you see the same figures, then I would immediately change your subject lines.

Other factors: As we evaluate your campaigns performance, I will be looking for three overall factors:

1. If the email has a great open ratio (lets say around 1% open) but has a very low click-through ratio, then there is nothing wrong with the subject line but the content of your email probably needs to be changed to give your audience a better way of going to your website to receive your offer.

2. If the email has a great click-through ratio but has a low open ratio, then we know your e-mail’s body content is great it is just the subject line that needs to be changed. This is an ideal problem to have because we know the body of the email is working great and changing a subject line is allot easier than changing the emails content.

3. If your email campaign is getting both great open and click-through ratio's but you call us complaining that no one is either opting into your website or your making sales, then you have a website issue and not an email issue. I would suggest you make whatever changes are needed to your website to adapt to the desires of your target audience. Remember that you are trying to do two primary things: Create Desire from your audience and Establish Trust. If your getting good numbers on your emails but no results then you need to take a hard look at what it is your selling and how your selling it (also whether your offering is even in demand on the Internet). I personally think that about thirty percent of our clientele's issues with emailing is that they have services no one wants to buy online (I.E. people don't want to buy a golf ball online).

THE PERFECT EMAIL

I define the perfect email as one where you are able to connect to your core target audience in less than 3-5 seconds. That within that time frame, your audience has a reasonable understanding of everything your trying to offer them. This is important because you need to realize that the people on the Internet have VERY VERY short attention spans. They are connected to virtually all the human knowledge they can get their hands on and you need to convince them in 3 second period that what you have to offer directly lines up with a major desire or present need they may have. *Remember to let your website be your "Infomercial" to establish their trust. Anyway, below is a prime example of an email we would send out for a bulk email campaign:

________________________________________________________________

Subject Line: New Loan Officer Email Database

Body Content:

If you're looking for the most comprehensive list of loan officer and mortgage broker email addresses, then you need to come visit us today at http://www.globalmailers.net

We have the Largest Email Database of Loan Officers and cost hundreds less than our competition.

Visit us today at http://www.globalmailers.net

Only $27 for our Entire Database of 750,000 email records!

See you There.

Sincerely,

Mark ED.

---END---

This email reflects in my opinion, the simplest approach to drive interested traffic to our site. We get the message across without getting the client lost in the message.

BUY THE BEST EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWARE

Buying the correct software for your email marketing needs is vital for any successful campaign. Email advertising as come along way in the last few years and getting your emails into the in-boxes of your customers should always be the main focus of your internet marketing strategy.

This is the exact reason why we produced the new Mass Email Blaster Deluxe. We have tried hundreds of other email marketing software available on the internet only to find that speed and deliverability was lacking in all cases. We really believe that we have built the best piece of software that takes away all the negative things that we have found from using other bulk email senders. Our new web based email marketing software- The Mass Email Sender Deluxe,  is a set and forget system!!. You don't need to stay on your computer.  Just upload any quantity of email and leave it to run on its own. It can do the following:-

  Easy creation of subscriber groups
  Quickly Import and Export your subscriber base
  WYSIWYG HTML Mailing Creation among other functions.

TARGETED EMAIL ADDRESSES ACHIEVE BETTER RESULT!

• Using targeted email addresses is one of the cheapest forms of advertising you will ever employ.  
• You may want to run periodically, or on the other hand establish a regular dispatch.. Using a good service that does all the work for you can dramatically bring the marketing budget down and augment business prospects, not only for the present, but possibly developing a long term trading partner. 
• A satisfied client, who has the potential for future services or products is one of the easiest conversions to make and can provide steady business for years to come. Email advertising has proved to be a very powerful and cheap way of generating new business opportunities.

 When using email addresses, to sell a product such as an ebook, there are certain pointers that can tell you if the email directory is a quality one. Simply having an email address does not always denote that they are the best quality and therefore more likely to give a better return. When email listings are compiled, they usually contain other information regarding the potential recipient. Email providers amass data from people showing a particular interest in a given field sector, have agreed to receive future correspondence on that subject matter, and proffered extra information usually asked in this process.

Bona fide email addresses compiled for the purpose of an advertising campaign aim to bring potential and like- minded bodies together. This is why using a subject related list can yield much better results than one that is not. You already have an audience which has used or enquired on service or product in that specific given category. It is therefore a sensible and genuine attempt to allay the seedier side of an advertising launch, merely to saturate email addresses pall mall in the hope that ‘something bites’ In many cases, due to the fact they are not relevant to the recipient, they are seen more as a nuisance factor than anything else. Let’s face it, we all receive those mails that slip through the filters into our inboxes, and merely delete them immediately. People who opt-in for circulation usually have a genuine interest in that subject matter: stamp collecting, antique cars, goods and service, financial advice, bathroom design etc etc.

Whilst the subject ‘net header’ may be general, there is a much better chance of interested parties being on the end of that circulation. Don’t forget, especially if you are into high priced merchandise, a few conversions can make a major difference to your business. It must be stressed that your initial presentation needs to be pegged correctly. A correctly chosen email list provider should get you in the front door, but you need to attain satisfactory closure. You may have the best product or service in your niche category, but could fail to make the sale with substandard interface. If you are unsure, it is best to seek advice from many marketing companies that are available to advise and deliver the best options. Then you have the best of both worlds-targeted market and first class material. 

Email Marketing

It seems as though the majority of us are using the Internet as the best way to advertise businesses and email marketing has never been as popular. Using the web is also becoming ever popular with search engines such as Google have never been so easy to use and, if the technology and software keeps going the way it is then, maybe just maybe there will be some light at the end of the gloomy tunnel.