Your subscribers are trying to tell you something: If you’re looking to achieve higher open rates and happy subscribers, then you need to focus who you’re delivering to, what you’re delivering, and how it’s received. Add the following to your list of email marketing best practices, and you’re sure to have a successful campaign…
Quantity is not always better than quality. Building an email list is important, but you also need to be sure to keep it clean. A “dirty” list (old email addresses) can negatively affect your campaigns performance. Clean your lists each year, but don’t just flat-out purge inactive users (see out tips below on how to deal with these subscribers). “List hygiene” reduces spam complaints and helps to keep you off the spam cop’s radar. One rule of thumb we use is, “if the subscriber isn’t willing to give you their name, then they are probably not worth keeping.” If you have their name, you can personalize the message, and it shows that the beginning of your dialog with them isn’t completely anonymous – which is where most spam complaints and inactive accounts come from.
Test your email deliverability.Set up your own little email testing environment, to monitor whether your emails are triggering spam (going into the junk folder), and as importantly, whether the layout of your email is displayed correctly. Consider using Outlook 2003 and 2007, as well as Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL (you can use their free web mail service at aol.com). Outlook spam rules change monthly so it’s key to always update your Outlook “junk rules” (go to Outlook’s Help, and select ‘Check for Updates’).
Ask your readers what they want – and stick to it! Clients who use this approach (as opposed to one-size fits-all emailing) generate 60-70% higher open and click rates. Ask subscribers to segment themselves on the sign up page (job function/title, state/country- something that helps you know any geographic preferences, topics of interest, level of interest in your company, how often they’d like to hear from you, etc.). The key is to think through, “if I were a subscriber, how might I want to personalize what I get?”. It is very rare for any company to have all their messages be 100% applicable to all subscribers. Avoid this 20th century marketing mentality, and let your subscribers CHOOSE what they want – and it will pay off significantly.
Email format.Ask your users if they prefer HTML or TEXT…and better yet, whether they will likely read your email on a PDA or phone (if so, set their format to TEXT). Then, start redesigning your templates so that:
- HTML: You are designing for images off, the preview pane, the elimination of background images, and strong usage of inline styles. Remember that although you may have put together an amazing layout, some of your subscribers may not be able to see it the way you want them to. Make your template work for everyone.
- TEXT: If you have a reasonable amount of mobile users, setting your text template width to 40 characters wide as opposed to the traditional 72-80 characters. Test this with a Blackberry, Treo or iPhone. Keep link design short…and work with your web designers to create mobile friendly landing pages.
Don’t forget the inactive users!
- Resend your emails a week later to those who didn’t open/click anything in the initial broadcast. Reset your subject line to reflect the most popular link or articletitle from your first broadcast. You’ll improve your overall open/click rates by 10-30%.
- Another popular resending idea is to take the non-open/click people a day or two after the original broadcast, and send a TEXT email telling them, “In case you missed it, our latest newsletter is now available online”, along with a brief outline of the key topics included in the newsletter.
- Finally, another clever strategy is to take the inactive people from the first broadcast, and resend it FROM their sale representative(s), with a subject line
of “FWD: [firstname], I thought you might like to see our latest newsletter…”
Regularly monitor and manage your soft-bounces.Look for challenge/response emails and fix them (e.g. Matt is trying to reduce his spam. Please verify that you are a human, not a spammer by clicking here). Watch for client inquiries. The vast majority of people who receive your emails actually believe someone is monitoring every reply, and when you don’t – they get quite upset. Also watch out for AOL users who have set their email client to reject images. If you receive these, simply go into that user’s profile, and change them to TEXT – and you will retain them as an active subscriber.
Make your content more compelling by employing any/all of the following:
- Include external content/articles from the web. This makes your messaging more valuable and credible, showing that you are looking around the web for content that can help your subscribers.
- Make your email subscription an RSS feed as well. Some subscribers prefer to receive your content in this fashion
- Create a multi-authoring environment. Maybe it includes your salesforce, product managers, executives, or other team-member of your marketing department. Perhaps it’s even your PR firm or ad agency. The more contributors, the better the collaboration and end product.
- Incorporate an “archive” into your mix, allowing subscribers to search and read previously written content. This can also improve your company’s search-engine rankings.
- Always split up your content into two parts- a “brief” that appears in the email “front page”, and the balance that resides on the web (landing pages).
- Add your most-important message to the very top of your template. Similar to the “view this online” or “add us to your address book” notations….write your most compelling headline there. This will drive people to read your email more than you think. These messages also will be the first things subscribers see in Outlook and Gmail.
“If at first you don’t succeed. Try, try again.” – Thomas H. Palmer
