Fluid Design Group has identified a set of principles we call "The 8 Tip for Email Marketing" don't let that number fool you, though, as most marketers are already deploying many of these imperatives. Increasingly, though, companies that fail to follow all of these principles will find their email marketing programs underperforming their competitors and not achieving maximum ROI. Email Marketing
Email Marketing Tip 1 - Permission is Not Optional
When you send unsolicited email, you hurt your brand, your campaign and your sender reputation. Don't use "stealth" methods to collect email addresses, such as pre-checked boxes on site registration forms. Use a two-stage subscription process that requires confirmation before the address goes into your database. Ask older opt-ins if they still want to receive your email, and retain all the permission data on each opt-in.
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Email Marketing Tip 2 - Manage Your Sender Reputation
You'll get on an ISP's bad side if you send too many emails too often to too many bad email addresses, or generating too many spam complaints. Result? The ISP will block your emails, shunt them to oblivion in the bulk folder and won't tell you what you did wrong. Honor unsubscribe requests immediately, stay off blacklists, monitor and resolve spam complaints, and use a double opt-in process and unique IP address if you don't already.
Email Marketing Tip 3 - Clean and Analyze Mailing Lists
A "dirty" list - too many unsolicited, incorrect, out-of-date or duplicated addresses - hurts your campaign's performance and your company's delivery and sender reputation. "List hygiene" cleans out bad addresses, reduces undeliverable emails and helps you spot problems fast. Email Marketing
Tip 4 - Deploy Authentication Technologies
Some ISPs are using methods that allow email from recognized senders but block spammers and malicious senders. They include "whitelisting," SPF Classic, SenderID and DomainKeys. Ask your email service provider which methods it supports. Unauthenticated emails could be blocked, filtered or sent to bulk/junk folders.
Tip 5 - Test for Delivery and Correct Rendering
HTML emails - with pictures, colors and graphics -- can look or function differently when viewed in different email programs and ISP-based email services. Send a sample email to test emails accounts at major providers, such as AOL, Earthlink, Hotmail and Yahoo! to spot bad links, copy that triggers spam filters, bad images or other problems. Also, make sure your emails are W3C HTML-compliant. Otherwise, you risk being filtered, particularly at MSN and Hotmail.
Email Marketing Tip 6 - Establish and Build Trust
Ask only for the most necessary information at registration. Send only what you say you will, when and how often you promised at registration. Without trust, recipients are less likely to open or act on your emails and more likely to unsubscribe or file spam complaints. Email Marketing
Email Marketing Tip 7 - Respect Recipients' Privacy
This is just good business practice, but you'll also avoid legal and ethical problems. Include a short, simple email privacy statement within your opt-in form and link it to the full policy statement on your Web site.
Email Marketing Tip 8 - Give Recipients What They Want and Need
Your subscribers expect control. If you don't give them what they want, they'll go elsewhere. Let them decide the format (text or HTML), the frequency, the content and whether you can send them other kinds of information. Then, segment your lists to reflect those choices. |
