So far you have defined the reasons why you want to contact your subscribers and the frequency with which you will contact them via email.

Now its time to work out what type of content you will be sending them that will not only stop them from unsubscribing but create a perception that encourages the subscriber to react the way you want them to.

The best approach we can recommend in order to provide great content to your subscribers is ask yourself the following two questions:

“What would I be interested in receiving?” and “What would I not be interested in receiving?”

Common sense in this area is fundamental to success. For example would your subscribers be really interested in an email that only contained the following:

1. How fantastic your product/service is.
2. How many awards your product has won.
3. How fantastic you are.
4. How bad your competitors are.
5. How fantastic you and your products/services are together.

Would you like to receive an email from a business that just contained sales talk?

We wouldn’t and we know most of your subscribers wouldn’t either.

What they would like however is:

1. Interesting and helpful information about the product/service they are interested in hearing about.
2. Great deals on your products/services.
3. Other news or information covering the topic of interest. For example if you are providing information about computers then a good idea is to supply information about topics that would be of interest such as the latest virus or the latest gadget.

A Word on Personalisation

Personalisation can be very powerful when used within email content. For example using “Hello Marc” instead of just plain “Hello” gives a perception of intimacy with the subscriber and makes the subscriber feel that the message is purely for them.

However you can quickly go over the top with personalisation and in fact scare the subscriber off! For example if you are a mortgage broker and through legitimate means you knew if your subscribers had mortgages with the top banks:

“Hello Marc,
Since you live in Wellington, New Zealand and have a mortgage with BNZ we would like to offer…”

Now as a subscriber would you be worried about what the mortgage broker is doing with your private data?

Research conducted by the College of Business at the University of Illinois on the subject of personalisation within emails further enforces our recommendation.

1. Displaying a recipient’s personal information just for the sake of it can backfire: recipients may feel threatened.
2. If you do display personal data, only do so where there is an explicit connection between this data and the email’s content. Like this:
   “As a resident of Wellington, we’d like to invite you to the opening of our new store in town.”
3. The more useful your emails, the more recipients tolerate sub-optimal practices.
4. Most important:Personalisation is more about tailoring your email’s content based on what you know about the recipient (demographics, past clickthrough behavior, purchase records etc.) and less about showing off to recipients how much you know about them.

Placement of Important Information within Your Email

When thinking about the content for your email campaign we suggest you prioritise the different topics in order of their importance. The more important the topic the closer to the top of the email it should be.

Research has found that information “above the fold” will have higher clickthrough rate than information at the bottom of the email. It makes sense but not many people put it into practice.

“Above the Fold” is a term used to define the part of the email that appears in the preview pane of an email client (see image above for an example).

Tags: email marketing tips, Email Message Design

Key Techniques for Growing Your Mailing Lists:

1. Website home page ’sign up’ subscribe facility – and thoughout website
2. Signature Link in emails
3. Subscribe Link in all Mail Out messages
4. Lineage in all marketing campaigns
5. Run regular subscription promotions

Website Subscribe Facility

A high percentage of website visitors never go beyond your homepage so put the ‘call to action’ on your homepage to capture these visitors on your mailing list. Once they are on your mailing list you can communicate with them (compliantly) on a regular basis with relevant information. Two very effective methods of capturing your website visitors onto your mailing list are:

1. An animated banner as seen in figure 1. The animated banner is hyperlinked to the subscription page so the visitor can self subscribe to your email communication.

(figure 1)

2. A text link – as seen in figure 2. The text is hyperlinked to the subscription page for self subscription.

(figure 2)

Ensure you have the subscribe facility also on other key web pages throughout your website. Repetition is good! (contact us at [business:Mobilize Mail] to discuss your options)

Signature Link in Emails

Ensure you have a hyperlink to your subscription page in your email signature and your signature is attached to your email replies as well as your new messages. An example of a hyperlink subscribe email for our own mailing list is:

Email marketing tips and news

The actual URL link to the subscription page is hidden behind the “email marketing tips and news” so it is more attractive and in theory/practice results in more clicks to view the webpage.

All members of your team can be driving your key message and increasing your mailing lists by adding a link in their email signatures e.g. 5 members of your team sending out 50 messages a day = 250 emails with your mailing list subscription link.

Subscribe Link in all Mail Out messages

All mail outs should contain a link to your mailing list subscription page. You may send ‘text only’ or non-template messages occasionally – we suggest you ensure there is a link to your mailing list subscription page so these messages enable new subscriptions.

Lineage in Marketing Campaigns

In your print, tv or radio marketing campaigns put in a few words about your newsletter subscription. E.g . “Visit our website and sign up to our finance tips and latest news”

Run Regular Subscription Promotions

Once or twice a year a promotion to grow your mailing list can drive the numbers upwards. Consider providing a discount or free gift for subscription. I know a business that provides a free e-book to every people subscribing to his newsletter and he now has over 15,000 relevant subscribers.

Five easy steps for you to take immediately to replace the unsubscribed subscribers and grow your mailing list in 2009 and beyond.

Tags: email marketing tips, Email Message Design

Now that you have defined a reason as to why you are emailing people you need to work out a mail-out frequency and stick to it!

We recommend for commercial emails not to have a weekly mail-out frequency. If you do then be prepared to see your mailing list quickly dry up. Ask yourself if you would like to hear from a business every week.

A fortnightly mail-out frequency is risky but if you have great content that your subscribers love more than their family pet then go for it.

However based on our experience a monthly mail-out frequency is standard and generally the expected norm. This does not let you off the hook in terms of providing great content – that is still very much expected from your subscribers.

When you setup a mailing list within your account make sure you add in the “List Description” field the mail-out frequency so your subscribers know what they are letting themselves in for. The “List Description” field is mentioned in the confirmation emails the subscriber receives.

Tags: best practices, email marketing tips

A mentor once told me that the rarest thing in the world is common sense.

Over the years I constantly remind myself of this advice and with email marketing its very important to use common sense. Here is an example.

Last week I received a commercial email from a property related business which was full of talk about how great a company they were, how many sales they did last month, how many awards they have won, blah-blah-blah.

Now if the author bothered to think like one of his/her subscribers they would ask themselves:

1. What benefit is this email giving me?
2. Do they help me with a problem I have?
3. Would I read another email sent from them?

9 times out of 10 if you think like your subscribers before you write your email message you will provide an email that will add value to the subscriber and they will continue to open your emails.

If you don’t then 10 times out of 10 you will start losing subscribers and that means business.

Tip: Think like your subscribers when creating your email message.

Tags: email marketing tips