A mailing list is only a good marketing tool if your prospects are receiving your email messages. Your own email box is likely to be flooded on a daily basis with mortgage offers, work from home jobs, pornography and other spam messages- so you know just how hard it is to cut through the clutter and get your legitimate messages read by your prospects.
The Wall Street Journal confirmed this email marketing problem in a recent article that explained that when email marketing first took hold, click through rates averaged 15%, while the current click through rate is a very low 1.8%.
If you plan to cut through the email marketing clutter and reach your mailing list, you need to do everything right. Here are 7 ways to make sure your email is getting through to your prospects.
1. Write attention-grabbing, high-impact, notice-me-right now subject lines!
If your subject line is too long, your email will not get opened. If your subject line is uninteresting, your email will not get opened. As a rule, keep your subject line to 40 characters or less (including spaces). Make sure you communicate as clearly as possible whats inside the email- without giving it all away so the reader has a reason to open the email.
2. Did you include your web site URL in several places?
How many newsletters or emails have you opened that you couldnt find the web site address? Many marketers make the mistake of putting their web address only at the bottom of their email, in the signature line. Thats assuming your prospects are going to read all the way to the end of your email! Make sure to include the URL in the top of your email for people who just click links without reading, and again in the middle for the people who scan email text, and again in your signature line for the readers.
3. Remove common trigger words from your email text.
There are certain words and phrases that spam filters are "trained" to look for. If they are found in an email the entire email is often blocked and the person never receives it. Unfortunately for email marketers, there is no real consistency among the different spam filters and blocking software, so you can never know exactly which words might trigger the entire email to be blocked. Common trigger words (in both the subject line and email text) include: free, sale, win, no cost and order now. Some marketers have found success by using these words creatively when necessary: F-R-E-E, or S.a.l.e for example.
4. Understand the needs of your readers
If you start your email marketing letters by outlining the benefits and features of the product or service you are marketing, you're going to lose your reader before they even get to the offer. You need to prove to your email list members that you know what their needs are and answer their problem. Start your email letter with the problem you know they have, and follow it with how your product or service offers the best solution.
5. Don't be shy with the details
There are many people who write email marketing letters and make them so short that they're missing the important details because they are afraid their readers won't read more information. If the information you provide your subscribers is valuable, they will read it even if it's lengthy. Don't create a two paragraph letter that leaves out important details just because you want to keep the letter short; it's far more effective to write a seven or eight paragraph letter with all the necessary information.
6. Forget what you learned in your essay writing class
Email marketing letters require energy to be successful. If you write the letter the way a textbook essay reads, you're not going to get very strong results. Spice it up a little with some attitude or personality and you're likely to bring the reader to your side! It may be just what was needed to cut through all the email clutter and get your message noticed.
7. Double-Opt in & White lists
These are two techniques that verify that the subscribers on your list want to receive information and emails from you. A double-opt in list is when the subscribers sign up to receive your newsletter or emails, and then have to click a link in their email to verify that sign up. A white list is when the customer places your email address in their address book so that the messages get through the spam filters.
The bottom line is it's becoming increasingly difficult to reach your customers and mailing list subscribers with email marketing campaigns. You need to take specific action to get yourself through the clutter, and consider the details of allowing email marketing to be the powerful venue that it can be to help you increase sales and profits.
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