E-mail marketing is an essential part of selling your product or promoting your blog.  It is a great way to remind people that your website still exists.  The hardest part is to get people to opt-in to your e-mails.  Getting them to remain a subscriber can also be challenging so here are some tips.  Make sure to properly brand your e-mails.  Make sure to add your logo to every e-mail you send out to prove its authenticity.  If you notice that you are losing subscribers, then your methods are working and you will have to change them right away.  If you are gaining subscribers, then you know that you are on the right path and maybe change might be a bad thing.

Make sure to know the rules

Before you start sending out e-mails, make sure to know what the rules of sending out mass e-mails are. This means that you have to know what is allowed by the CAN-SPAM Act.

The CAN-SPAM act is a law that was passed in 2003 that set out the guidelines for e-mails sent out on a mass basis. Spam filters check to see if e-mails are following these guidelines and then decides whether to block them or not.

Essentially the CAN-SPAM says that you are not allowed to use false or misleading information in the header. You are not allowed to use deceptive subject lines and you have to clearly messages as advertisements. You must tell recipients where you are located and inform people how to opt out of receiving future e-mails from you. The CAN-SPAM Act also requires you to unsubscribe people within 10 days if a recipient asks for it. Below is an example of an unsubscribe line that I have seen from LivingSocial:
“You are receiving this email because you have an existing relationship with LivingSocial. If you no longer wish to receive marketing communications, you can unsubscribe.” The word “unsubscribe” is linked to an e-mail that sets you up to opt-out from LivingSocial.

Even if you believe that your e-mails are spam free, make sure to test it out with several friends to make sure you aren’t being sent to a spam filter. Sometimes e-mail campaign software gives you the ability to test e-mail as spam. Utilize those features.

Make sure to have clear goals

Make sure to ask yourself, “what is my goals with this e-mail newsletter?” If it is to focus on a product launch, then you may want to make your e-mail look extra flashy. If the purpose is to send out a newsletter to the local community, make sure that the news is relevant to the citizens. If you want the reader to visit your website, make sure there is plenty of links to it.

Use consistency when branding e-mails

Make sure to use your logo and company colors throughout the e-mails you send out. Fonts should also be the same or similar. I have seen some e-mails that integrate similar elements from the company website into e-mail including header images and navigation links. This encourages your e-mail visitors to take your company more seriously. This will turn into brand loyalty and trust. Groupon is well known for integrating elements from their website into their daily e-mails:

Test Your E-mails on Mobile Devices

Almost every smartphone has their custom own mail clients. On my iPhone, I know for a fact that I cannot see e-mails designed in HTML. I only see plain text. Check out your branded e-mails on as many smartphones as possible.

Don’t assume that everyone receives HTML-designed e-mails

After your e-mail is sent out, the best thing is to avoid assuming that everyone has HTML-enabled e-mail services. What this means is that you should not simply embed a bunch of images with HTML tags and assume that people will see what you are talking about.

The best thing to do is keep one header image at the top and then write about your service or message entirely in text below. Just in case someone cannot see e-mails in HTML form, it is good to utilize the “alt” attribute for images. Properly Describe the image in the “alt” attribute.

Make sure to include a web based version at the top of the e-mail and link to it using a message like “having trouble seeing this e-mail. Click here.”

Create personalized e-mail message

Several e-mail services allows you to address the recipient by their first name and last name. For example, “Hi John Smith, here’s 10% off hard drives!” is more noticeable than just “Hard drive discount.”

However it may not be good to be too personable in your e-mail marketing. Do not use the first and last name constantly, otherwise you would come off as being too desperate. It may only be appropriate to only use the first and last name in the body of the e-mail and not in the subject.

If you run an e-commerce website, I would recommend personalizing e-mails based on buyer habits. For example, if someone bought Adobe Photoshop through your website, you may want to suggest buying Adobe Illustrator to them.

Provide incentives

The reason why daily e-mail services like LivingSocial and Groupon are doing so well is because they provide incentives to their customer base. Even though their incentives are substantial, your e-mails do not necessarily have to be extravagant. As long as you provide a percentage discount off of a product on your e-commerce website, people will respond.

Another incentive I have seen is providing incentives to people on their birthday. For example, Coldstone Creamery and Starbucks both sent me coupons for a free purchase on my birthday and I made sure to visit their retail locations right away.

Call To Action

A call to action in an e-mail campaign is when the recipient of an e-mail is encouraged to respond to offers. Call to action examples include “Check out this deal” and “View more information.” Below is an example from FareCompare.com. Notice how they show an incentive with a discounted deal to the Historic Hotel near Penn Station and a discount to all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico? Then the e-mail reader is asked to click the link and view more information.

Write good content and double-check grammar

When writing content for your e-mail, use power verbs and double check your grammar. If your content is full of grammar and spelling mistakes, then your credibility will go down the toilet. Use humor, metaphors when necessary, and make sure the opening line WAKES UP THE READER!

The content should have depth and it should be memorable to readers. There is nothing wrong with taking time to make the content look perfect. If your content is interesting enough, the odds are that your e-mails will be forward and your readership base will grow.

Monitor e-mail analytics

Whenever you send out e-mails, monitor the analytics around it is very important. This way you will know if people actually open your e-mail, clicks on the links, or marks it as junk mail. You will also be able to find out if your e-mails are being forwarded to friends. Some of the best e-mail analytics services I know of are AWeber, Campaign Monitor, and Mailchimp. Using these services you can find out if people are taking action after reading your e-mails and if they are clicking on the links to articles and blog posts. You can also check if e-mails are getting bounced. If your e-mails are being moved into junk mail folders, then you will know that you are doing something wrong with subject lines and content.

Writing perfect e-mail newsletters will require trial-and-error. Remember to take some tips from this blog post and tips from other sources. If you have any tips of your own, please let us know in the comments.