1. Subject Line

Your email subject line will determine whether or not the rest of the message is ever read. Remember to keep it straightforward.

• Start your line with a call-to-action.
• Include the name of your company.
• Keep the savings message at the front of the sentence.
• Make it short for quick scanning.

2. Opening Sentence

All the qualities that apply to a good subject line apply to your opening line. In fact, many successful emails use their subject line as the opening line, with a slight variation. It’s not redundant; it sets the tone for the message and can act as a header.

3. Action Words

Don’t let the passive voice creep into your message. For effective messages, you need to grab attention. Start sentences with directives like “Save,” “Ac,” “Click,” “Get,” “Shop,” etc. Usability studies have shown time and again that including a direct call to action can significantly improve response rates.

4. Set the Right Tone

Your email tone depends on two factors: your audience and business. Keep your email tone consistent with your Web site. The last thing you want is a customer to click through your email and land on your site feeling surprised or confused.

5. Know your Reader

If you have no idea who will be reading your email, you’ll have a tough time writing a compelling, persuasive message. Only when you clearly identify your target market, can you determine the best way to reach him or her.

6. Repeat the Offer

Repeat your offer throughout the message. At a minimum, it should be in the opening and closing lines of your email.

7. Be Brief

The truth is that the average person doesn’t really read email. When confronted with a big block of text on their computer screen, most people’s eyes will automatically skip over it. To encourage readers to take notice:

• Keep your paragraphs short and easy to scan.
• Separate the message into subsections, so someone can get the main points without having to read every word.
• Vary your paragraph structure with bulleted lists.
• Eliminate any unnecessary details.

8. Create Urgency

A sense of urgency in your email will encourage readers to click through right then, rather than waiting. If your savings offer ends soon, stress it! Even if it doesn’t, include words like “hurry!” and “now” and “for a limited time only.”

9. Keep it Simple

Clear writing with a direct message will always get a better response than overly detailed copy with too much information. Don’t overwhelm your readers with a long list of products and prices. Give them a taste that encourages them to click through to your Web site.

10. In Closing

End your email on a familiar note and choose the closing that’s right for your business. Examples include: “Sincerely, The team at Mike’s Fish Supply Shop” or “Sincerely, John Wilson, President.” Also, be sure to repeat your offer and call to action so that your reader knows what to do next.

Test Subject Lines

It’s imperative to grab the recipients’ attention and motivate them to open your email. Testing subject lines by sending the same emails to the same recipients, using two different subject lines allows you to measure the open rates between the two emails. For example, you may include the name of the recipient in the subject line in one email to see if this affects the open rate.

Segment Your List

Segmenting your list ensures you’re sending the most relevant emails to customers. When you send emails that most relate to the customers, it increases the chance the recipients open the email.

Time Your Email

Test the days and times you send emails to see how it affects the open rate. For example, if your customers are business owners, then sending out emails during business hours is probably going to have better open rates than those sent out after hours.

Avoid the Spam Folder

Certain words trigger the spam filter and send it to the spam folder, where it’s probably going to be deleted. A few of the worst offenders are “free,” “$$$,” “guarantee, “affordable,” “cheap, ” and “apply now.”

Appeal to the Reader

Use words and phrases in your subject line to speak directly to the reader. When you use relevant wording, you increase the chance of the reader opening it. It may require you to change your subject lines for each segment of your list.

Consistency

The key to successful email marketing is consistently sending your emails from the same email address on a regular schedule, so recipients recognize whom the email is from and are expecting to receive it.

Don’t Always be Selling

Share relevant and useful content, tips, articles advice and industry news alongside or in addition to sales event, coupons and promotions for your business. This positions you as a resource for information as well as a source for your product or service.

Personalize It

Use the recipient’s name in the subject line, at the beginning of the email and somewhere in the body of the email. Even if the email goes out to thousands of people on your list, this helps to personalize the emails so it seems as if you’re speaking directly to them.

Sell ‘em

Mix sales promotions in with other content to soft sell your business by including an “about” section on the company and a direct link to your Web site. This makes it easy for recipients to connect the information with your company, so when they see another email from your company, they’ll open it and read it again.

Ensure Deliverability

The software you use to send your emails can affect the delivery of your emails. Mass emails sent using bulk emailing software or from your email account can delay or prohibit the delivery of the emails. Software specifically designed for mailing to bulk lists ensures delivery of your emails.

No matter how great your emails are, if recipients don’t open them then it’s all for naught. Refine your email techniques to increase your open rates by grabbing their attention and compelling readers to open them.

1. Order Confirmation

With a high open rate, the order confirmation email presents the perfect chance to make your customer feel good about her purchase. This email tells customers their purchase was successful and marks the beginning of the anticipation stage where they eagerly await the arrival of their recent purchase(s). Beyond stating the exact product or service ordered and the price, this email can be used to confirm why the customer bought from you in the first place and even cross-sell your products.

2. Welcome Email

Where an order confirmation email’s main purpose is to verify the order and confirm its success, a welcome email should set expectations for future communications. If sent immediately after the purchase, a welcome email reaches a highly receptive audience excited about a recent purchase. It’s a great place to communicate additional information about your company and your products and set the stage for a successful long-term relationship.

What should be included in a welcome email? It should restate the benefits of your email program. Here are some examples:

• Early notification of new products
• Early access to the latest sales and promotions
• Exclusive sales and promotions
• News, articles, features, podcasts, etc.
• Recommendations for future purchases

3. Newsletter

Many people have a short memory span when it comes to purchases. A regular newsletter helps keep your business in front of people who’ve already taken the leap to purchase from you. It gives you a forum for establishing your expertise in your industry, providing tips on how to use current products or generating interest in new products. In short, it’s a way to increase engagement with your products and services and your brand.

Here are some helpful articles to get you started with your customer newsletter:

• Email Newsletter Design Guide
• eNewsletter Checklist

4. Sales and Promotions

Slashing prices? Offering a special bonus for customers who spend a certain amount? Make your sales a success by drawing your previous customers back to you for discounts and promotions. An email marketing campaign is the best (most inexpensive) way to get the word out about your sale to a receptive audience.

5. Renewal Notices

The key to successful sales is to make it easy. If you’re running a subscription-based business, chances are high your subscribers don’t know when to renew without a little reminder. And with cluttered email boxes, it’s easy to overlook, accidentally delete or just plain forget about a renewal reminder. That’s why it’s best to develop a series of renewal notices and send them out at intervals as the expiration date approaches.

Now that you have a plan for which email messages to send, you may be wondering how you’ll build your list. Don’t worry; we have you covered. Read Build an Opt-in Email List for some ideas.

Content

• Set a regular distribution schedule.
  For most businesses, sending a newsletter once a month is a good idea. Your customers will come to expect the newsletter each month, and you will have enough time between newsletters to prepare for the next one.
• Find or write informational content related to your industry.
  A newsletter requires a soft-sell approach. This is your chance to position yourself as an expert in the field and someone who wants to share knowledge with customers. It’s not the place to openly tout your products and ask for the sale. Gather content that is informational, useful and practical for your readers.
• If you use outside writers, edit the newsletter for style and tone.
  Each writer has his or her own voice. But your newsletter should be cohesive and flow smoothly from one story to the next. Appoint an editor to pull all the pieces together into a single, unified newsletter.
• Offer a special promotion for newsletter readers.
  Nothing encourages readership growth like a special promotion that can only be found in the company newsletter. It’s a great way to keep customers reading from month to month and a nice way to subtly encourage sales.
• Use a professional designer or a good template for your HTML version of the newsletter.
  After your subject line, the design of the newsletter will make the biggest impression. A professional design enhances your image and gives your newsletter more credibility. If you can’t afford to hire a designer, find a newsletter template that fits your company’s personality.

Deploying

• Customize the subject line for a better open rate.
  Studies show that people have a stronger tendency to open an email customized with their information. If you have a large list, you can insert code to pull the customer’s first name from your database automatically.
• Review your subject line for any words that might trip the spam filters.
  Some of the worst offenders are free,” “$$$,” “guarantee, “affordable,” “cheap ” and “apply now.” Because your enewsletter is a soft-sell medium, these words are probably not a good fit anyway.
• Make sure your have a clean list.
  Double check to make sure that everyone who has unsubscribed in the past has been removed from your list. Also, make sure all new sign-ups are included.
• Do a final review of all the content.
  Read through the entire newsletter and click all the links to make sure they’re working. This is your last chance to catch any mistakes.
• Send your newsletter.

First Impressions

A good welcome email should thank your customer for buying a product from you. Never underestimate the response you will get simply by saying thank you. The fact that you have taken the time to thank them for choosing you instead of another Internet business will not go unnoticed.

Prompting the recipient to add your details to their email address book is another good idea. If you are going to be sending them emails in future you want to be sure they will be able to receive them. It is an easy process but many people don’t think to do it unless you suggest it to them. Be sure to include an opportunity to opt out too. You can include it at the very bottom if you wish, but it is required by law.

Pay attention to your subject line as well. This may be the first thing your customer sees, so it should contain the name of your business. This is better than including the name of your Web site, particularly if your Web site address is slightly different from your business name for example. A message which thanks them for buying from your business should suffice.

Invite them Back

You should still include a link back to your Web site in the body of the email however. Remind people they can go back to your Web site and look for other things that may interest them. This subtle call to action may result in a few more sales for you and it reminds them where you can be found.

Linking back to the main page of your Web site is a good idea. But you should also link back to the account page of your customer, or perhaps the FAQ section as this is often required by new customers. Being helpful and welcoming is the secret to a long term relationship that starts on the right foot.

Don’t Wait

Finally, be sure you send your welcome email immediately after a successful purchase has been made. The purchase will be fresh in the customer’s mind, so reaching out and thanking them straightaway will help to cement a positive image of your business to carry forward into future sales. In short, you cannot do without constructing a solid welcome email for all your new customers.

CAN-SPAM doesn’t seek to stop commercial emails, only to regulate how those emails are presented, and the rules are things that legitimate businesses should be doing anyway.

Be Honest

• Use real header information: Your “From” line should include a real email address or name, either the sender’s or your business’s. Your “Reply-to” email should also be a legitimate address.
• Use true subject lines: They should accurately reflect the content of the email. Don’t use “Free Consultation,” if your email discusses only paid services. Also, links in your emails should lead to relevant landing pages. If your email offers a free consultation, your landing page should include information on requesting a free consultation.
• Provide a mailing address: CAN-SPAM requires a physical mailing address in every email. You can accomplish this easily by creating an email template that includes this information, possibly as a footer.

Be Clear About Intent

CAN-SPAM says you must clearly label advertising as such. Subject lines that are obviously commercial, like “This Week’s Specials” or “View our New Collection” are CAN-SPAM compliant.

More ambiguous subject lines, like “We need to talk,” may not be. This subject might be truthful, if your email discusses how a conversation with you would benefit the recipient, but it is also deceptive because it sounds personal but is actually commercial. If you use this type of subject line, you must add the word “advertisement,” as in “We need to talk (Advertisement).”

Give Recipients a Choice

• Provide a simple opt-out option: The simplest opt-out link automatically removes the email address from your list. Alternatively, you can send the person to a Web page to confirm the decision to opt out. You may not require any additional information to process the request.

You have 10 days to comply with any opt-out request, but it is safest to make it instantaneous. Most reputable bulk email vendors automatically insert an opt-out link at the bottom of each email.

• Send only to opt-in subscribers: This is not a requirement of CAN-SPAM, but it is the safest way to avoid recipients labeling your messages as spam. It’s also the best way to make sure you are reaching people who actually want to read your message. Of course, you must still follow all of the above rules.

Every email sent in violation of CAN-SPAM is subject to up to $16,000 in penalties, so it is in your best interest to follow the rules, which are really quite reasonable. You have plenty of leeway for creativity in your email marketing; just do it within the confines of the CAN-SPAM Act.

This means the email address is placed on a shared list of banned senders, and none of the outgoing messages will be delivered to recipients. The process of being removed from a blacklist is difficult, time-consuming and avoidable by following best practices when building your email list:

• Offer many opt-in opportunities — Allow individuals to sign-up for your email list from several locations. On your Web site, provide a page for visitors to subscribe to your enewsletter or email-based promotions. Additionally, integrate the ability to subscribe with your shopping cart, so that each new customer is invited to subscribe. Offline, provide an opportunity for in-store customers to subscribe to your enewsletter and email-based promotions at checkout. Ask store clerks to extend an invitation to customers.
• Set expectations — Let subscribers know, before they choose to participate, how your company will use email to communicate. Describe how often you are going to contact individuals who provide email addresses. Describe what information will be sent. If they are subscribing to a newsletter, provide examples for them to review prior to subscribing.
• Double opt-in — This is the practice of validating email addresses provided by your customer to ensure that the email they provided is accurate. The process works as follows:
  • Customer provides their email address to your company.
  • Your company sends an invitation to the email address provided by the customer asking them to confirm they’d like to be added to your email list.
  • Your company adds appropriate customers to its list:
    • Customers that respond to the second invitation are added to your list.
    • Customers that do not respond to the second invitation are not added to your list.

Double opt-in is the best method for building your email list because it verifies that customers are providing accurate email addresses and provides customers with opportunity to initiate their own subscription to your list.

• Offer an opt-out— Individuals receiving email from your company should be able to remove themselves from your list at anytime. This is best achieved by including the ability to unsubscribe from every email your company sends. Opt-out ensures that individuals are removed promptly from your list when they no longer want to receive email from your company.
• Never purchase or trade email addresses — Email addresses should never be bought or traded. Protect the privacy of your customers. If another company wants to extend a special offer to your email subscribers, send the offer yourself.

Anatomy of an Effective Newsletter

The purpose of a customer newsletter is to share useful content alongside information about your business, products and services. A newsletter is a soft sell approach to promoting your business, but more importantly, it’s a tool to creating credibility for your business and positioning your company as an expert in the minds of the recipients.

Subject Lines

You may have the best customer newsletter ever created, but if can’t get your customers to open it, then it’s all for naught. The first step to get them to click the newsletter open is to create email subject lines that intrigue them enough to want to find out more. When creating your subject lines, think about the headlines that grab your attention in newspapers, magazines and emails you read and then model your subject lines after these headlines. Keep you subject lines short, simple and to-the-point with a twist of intrigue thrown in for good measure.

Personalize It

While the same newsletter goes to all of your customers, personalizing the newsletter with the name of the customer can be a powerful tool. Newsletter software programs allow you to include the customers’ names with a few clicks of your mouse. Personalization helps you to connect better with the customer and make them feel like you’re speaking directly to them.

Article

Since a newsletter is about sharing useful content with your customers, the primary item in your newsletter is an informational article with tips, advice or other information that relates to your industry and is relevant to your audience. You can either write these articles, hire a writer to do it for you or use reprint articles, where the writer allows you to use the content as long as they receive credit for the article.

Layout

Clean, simple, easy-to-read and professional newsletters create the right first impression. Creating an aesthetically pleasing newsletter can propel the recipient to read the information it contains. You can have a graphic designer create a newsletter template for you or you can use software programs that allow you to customize professionally designed templates.
You should also include a promotion or special offer, have an About Us section that describes your company and provides full contact information for your business. Contact information should include an email address, phone, Web site address and physical/mailing address.

Successful customer newsletters share these characteristics. Newsletters are a very effective marketing tool when it contains these characteristics.

It’s All About Context

Research shows that various Internet businesses send emails on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. It is generally agreed that sending emails less than once a month is not a good idea. But while you might consider one email a day to be too much, you need to consider what context those emails are being sent in.

For example, suppose you create an email course on a specific subject relevant to your business. In this case you may promote it as a seven-day course in which every sign up will receive one step every day for a week. This would be perfectly acceptable because you have told them in advance what they will receive. You are also providing more than just a sales email, although each step of your course may well include a link back to your Web site or a link to a related product as well.

Don’t Overdo It

But if you are simply sending newsletters or promotional emails, overdoing it can harm your business. You probably hate missing out on bargains, but would you really want to be emailed about the bargains available at one specific site every single day?

If you look into the subject of email frequency on the Internet, you will discover that everyone has a different idea about what constitutes too many or too few emails. But they all agree that testing is essential to discover what your own subscribers are happy to receive. Ask your subscribers how often they would like to receive an email from you. You have probably received an email like this yourself from time to time. Not everyone will reply but you may get enough of a response to gauge what the best move forward would be.

So you should look at the context and content of your emails before making a decision on how often to send them. Bear in mind also that frequency could change depending on what is happening with your business. If you are accustomed to sending out a monthly email at the beginning of each month but some important news occurs mid month, don’t wait until the following month to share it. If it is important enough you should let your customers know immediately. Otherwise they may wonder why you couldn’t be bothered to tell them earlier.

Whatever frequency you finally settle on for your own needs, make sure you have enough material, news or content to make each email you send worthwhile. If you are sending them out just for the sake of it you may well experience people leaving your mailing list. Planning ahead to ensure your emails are always timely, relevant and worth reading will mean your efforts are well rewarded and your customers are kept happy.

But how many will go on to visit your Web site and interact with your business – which is what you want in the end?

Setting up the Sale

If you have a good solid email that converts, you will make more money from it. It is that simple. And you can begin by focusing on the purpose of your email in each case. If you are not considering why you are writing your email before you begin, you will not end up with something worth sending. So find a reason for creating it in the first place. Do you want to announce a new product on your Web site? Do you want to give your valued email subscribers a discount to take advantage of?

Strong Call to Action

Once you’ve got something in mind, you can work with it to create an email that converts readers into buyers. This requires a good strong call to action. It is not enough to present information to your readers without actually guiding them to do what you want them to do.

For example, you might want them to buy a new product from your Web site. Your first instinct might be to tell them all about it and then let them make their own mind up about whether to buy it or not. But don’t be nervous about nudging them in the right direction. This is what a call to action is all about. If you want them to visit your Web site and buy your product, tell them. Tell them to visit your Web site now and take advantage of the low introductory price that will soon be going up. Tell them how the product will help them do or achieve something. You’ll be surprised the effect it can have.

You must also make sure you keep everything as simple as possible. Think about how you read emails. Which ones do you read through to the end, and which ones do you delete?

Short, simple and focused emails are what you need to aim for. Revise and revise again to keep them tight and to the point. You will get a better conversion rate if you can appeal to your audience in a short succinct email that has a strong call to action.

Do your current emails meet these requirements? If they don’t, now is the time to make a change and focus on your emails making your business more money.