E-Mail Marketing – 10 inside track tips for success

Is E-mail marketing part of your overall strategy? How successful do you find it? Unfortunately there are lots of ways in which you may be missing the mark, so I thought I would share a few insights with you.

1. Apparently 30% of consumers change their e-mail addresses every 12 months, and the younger the audience the more often they will do this. Have you anything in place which encourages them to notify you as to any changes?

2. Over 70% of people unsubscribe because they receive too many messages from the same source – so less is more.

3. And whilst we are on “less is more” people read 25% slower on the screen so do not inundate, 3 to 4 pieces of info will be plenty.

4. With regard to how we take in on screen information the first 2 to 3 words of your headings and sub headings are the most important

5. The eye tends to track down the left of the e-mail so put your most important messages on that side

6. Over 70% of people unsubscribe either because they do not find the content relevant (in which case you are failing to write for your target audience) or they assume the content is not relevant (in which case your subject headers are not doing their job)

7. Do not use the words “read more” after your information intro, Google will not follow this so think about things like “to find out more about our marketing postcards click here”

8. You should not only be monitoring your stats you should be doing something about them so:

• Are several of your key contacts failing to open your newsletter, why not phone to enquire why this might be the case?

• Are some of your contacts good at forwarding to a friend? Why not ask them for a testimonial?

9. Which day do you send out your e-mail? Best advice has always been Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but with an increasing amount of people accessing e-mail via their mobile devices this may change so measure, monitor and test!

10. Do you actively review your response rates? Do you then try a new tactic? The mantra is try it, test it, tweak it! But then, of course that goes for all marketing activities…

Have you any other tips you would like to share? I'd love to hear from you