So one of my main roles here at Purepages Towers is email marketing. Now at least 99% of the email reading world have received spam by now. And there’s a good chance you have signed up to receive a monthly newsletter from your favourite site. So these two things combined pose something of a headache for those people like me who are paid to advertise other people’s services and good through email. Spam means most people don’t actually pay attention to mails if they don’t recognize the address it was sent from. And there is also a good chance the mail might be highlighted as potential spam by the email system itself. So we have to entice people to open the email in the first place. So a decent, snappy subject line is crucial and in an ideal world mention your client’s name too so people don’t automatically assume its about making your wife happier with the help of blue pills at 50 cents for 500.
The second problem assuming you got past stage one is making people read the mail after the headline. Here we need to plant the seed early that you have a service that is cheap/reliable/friendly/all of the above. We all seem to have less and less time these days so reassuring the reader that it will be worth their while reading further is crucial.
There are more obvious things to remember too. Remember you are writing to another person - so make sure you write at least half decent English/German/Hebrew and do not ever use slang. Make sure there are no spelling mistakes - these make the whole thing look and sound unprofessional. No swearing as this is crude and unnecessary. Nice and clear imagery is also a good idea - don’t use enlarged thumbnail pictures - they look rubbish and will not be a good advertisement for your customer. There are many sites like iStock who specialise in royalty free images that are relatively inexpensive.
January 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
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January 13th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Spam is a huge problem nowadays — I get so many that I don’t even bother reporting the stuff that doesn’t make it through my server’s filters.
The most effective way to use email marketing is to send messages to people who have opted in to your particular site/offer. However, if you’re working with 3rd party leads, co-registrations, etc. — this isn’t always an option. Using all of the above myself in the past, people tend to respond better, and report it as spam less-often, when you’re sending them messages that they, personally, asked you to send them.
If you are in any way familiar with writing sales copy /persuasive articles for the web — the same principals apply. In my opinion, email marketing is more or less a personalized version of the marketing that takes place on a website.