1. Regulations! Businesses must comply with the federal CAN-SPAM Act. Read this and remember it. Here are a few of the highlights.  Click on the link to read the full text.

a. Don’t use false or misleading header information.
b. Don’t use deceptive subject lines.
c. Identify the message as an ad.
d. Tell recipients where you’re located.
e. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you.
f. Honor opt-out requests promptly
g. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf.

2. Develop a quality mailing list. Businesses need a comprehensive and easily available list of all the e-mail recipients.  Whether that is from a subscriber page on their website, or through a list purchasing service, there are a ton of mailing lists available out there, but not all of them are worth obtaining (even some of the free ones).  Spend some time in generating the list, accumulating the relevant addresses and verifying those addresses. Don’t forget your past customers.  If they have been with you in the past, liked your product or service, chances of them being interested in what you have to say are pretty good. Don’t mail randomly.  Pre-screen your recipients, categorize them by specific demographic or target information and you will increase the effectiveness of your campaign.  The more time spent on refining your lists, the better your responses are likely to be.

3. Double Opt In & Sign Up confirmation

a. As an added safeguard against anti-spamming laws, always make your mailing lists double opt-in. This means that when a new user subscribes to your site or mailing list, they will be sent an email with a link that they must click on to confirm their subscription. This is very important because many people try to use a fake email account, someone else’s email address, or can accidentally enter an incorrect email address.  If the person uses someone else’s email address, this extra precaution removes the chance that the person who receives the message will report your email as spam.
b. In addition to the Double Opt In, every email you send should have a link that allows the receiver to unsubscribe.  This is also a requirement of the CAN-Spam Act, but we thought it warranted another note here.  Not providing this in your email is illegal and also an instant sign of spamming.
c. Contact Information is another requirement.  You should also clearly include your organization name, physical address or P.O. Box, phone number, and fax.  This should be done with or without those laws, as it also increases your credibility as a legitimate business.  It also allows for potential customers to make direct contact with you if they have any questions or want to know more about your products or services.

4. Personalization – Emails specifically addressed to the individual have a greater response rate than those that are generic and impersonal.  It is very easy to include a mail merge that personalizes the email or newsletter.

5. Formatting Content

a. Create a Powerful Subject Line – When your email reaches the recipient, you have about a half of a second to grab their attention.  Make sure the information in the headline accurately describes the information contained within the email, but also makes the reader want to read the content within.
b. Pyramid Your Content – Always include the most interesting content in the first paragraph of your email.  A lot of people have an email preview pane.  They won’t read the rest of the email if the first paragraph doesn’t catch their attention.
c. Keep it Simple – It will keep your readers reading, it will limit your spam filtering rate, and it just looks more professional.  Too many fonts, sizes, and colors trigger spam filters and look cluttered.  Too many images do the same thing.
d. Make sure you include a text-only version for those non-html emailers.  Though few and far between, we know that they are still out there.  And they are some of the hardest to reach.

6. Effective Distribution

a. Choose the right day of the week and the right time of day.  Emails sent on Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to have higher open rates and click through rates as well as emails sent at 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.  People are generally getting ready to go to lunch or leave for the day and may have a few minutes to spare because they don’t want to start new tasks before they leave.
b. With newsletters, consistency in timing helps establish trust, and it helps people to expect your newsletter.  It also increases your open rates and click through rates.  Plan newsletter to arrive on the same day of every week or two weeks, or month.  As long as it is consistent, people will respond.

7. Welcome New Subscribers – Set up an auto response email to new subscribers.  This has several benefits.  First, it makes the new subscriber feel like you are welcoming them to the “club”.  It also helps solidify their presence by recognizing them and establishing them.  This is also a great opportunity to engage them.  You can offer special incentives or discounts to products or services only available to new subscribers, only available for a specified period of time.  It can be a call to action.  And the more involved the subscriber is in the beginning, the more likely they will hang around.

8. Spam Filters: There is a reason why there are laws and there is a reason why there are spam filters.  Not everyone follows the rules and the smarter the spammers get, the smarter the filters have to be.  In turn, legitimate businesses have to use extra precautions when creating their emails so that they don’t get picked off by the filters even if the content is secure and the receiver has subscribed to the information.

a. Use contrasting colors for back ground and text.  If you use 2 colors within the same family of colors (think light blue text on a dark blue background or vice versa) – spam filters might think you are hiding text.
b. Using the right and wrong words: words like “free”, “sex”, “Viagra”, and anything with an “Exclamation!” are very heavy spam triggers.  You should avoid these types of words whenever and wherever possible.  Experienced writers will have a full list of these words and will know how to create an email that grabs your audience’s attention.
c. Images:  Don’t include too many images (1-2 per email is a good rule) and keep images small.

9. Test Your Email!

a. Test Your Links – make sure they go somewhere.  This is what you are trying to get people to do.  If they click on a link that doesn’t work it demeans your purpose and your credibility.
b. Test the whole email for spam filter pickup.  Signing up for multiple email accounts is easy and free.  You can set up a Gmail account, a Hotmail account, and a Yahoo! account.  You may also have a friend who works for a large corporation that have their own firewalls.  Test the email on a small scale before you send it to your entire email list.  If the email gets pushed to the junk mail folder or the spam folder or gets completely filtered and not delivered, then you will know that you have some clean up to do.
c. There are also tools out there that will help you determine if you have too many flags in your email.  One tool is spam assassin.  It is software that will send you a report and a list of why your email was considered spam.

10. Proof, Edit, Make Sure There Are NO Errors – once it is sent, there is no pulling it back.  Give it to a colleague, a friend, anyone that hasn’t already seen it through every revision and have them take a long, slow, look at it.  Even the slightest mistake will stand out.  This is a representation of your company.  Make the impression last.

So you can see there is a lot to know about email marketing before you hit the send button.  Full Moon Design Group can help you achieve your goals while avoiding costly errors.  We can ensure that your message goes out at the right time, to the right people, and with the best possible outcomes.  Building an effective email campaign isn’t easy, but we make the process easy for you.  We integrate it with your overall marketing campaign to gain maximum exposure for your business and your brand.  There is a right mix of elements and we can help you determine what the right mix is for you.  Give us a call. 512-428-9072

]]> http://www.fullmoondesigngroup.com/blog/uncategorized/pt-2-top-10-guidelines-for-making-your-email-marketing-campaign-a-success/feed 0 http://www.fullmoondesigngroup.com/blog/marketing/to-%e2%80%9ce%e2%80%9d-mail-or-not-to-%e2%80%9ce%e2%80%9d-mail-%e2%80%93-is-this-really-a-question-email-marketing-part-1 http://www.fullmoondesigngroup.com/blog/marketing/to-%e2%80%9ce%e2%80%9d-mail-or-not-to-%e2%80%9ce%e2%80%9d-mail-%e2%80%93-is-this-really-a-question-email-marketing-part-1#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:57:48 +0000 Katie Osborne http://www.fullmoondesigngroup.com/blog/?p=450 Did you know that most people spend more time reading email than browsing the Internet?  We are an email-centric society.  It is one of the primary ways we conduct business, share ideas, and communicate. It is both powerful and inexpensive; two things that most businesses need.    Used wisely, a few of the benefits to businesses are that it can boost direct sales, raise brand awareness, increase communication with target audiences, enhance credibility, promote other areas of the business, and increase referrals.  Through email marketing businesses can engage in conversations and use it as a platform for testing new marketing ideas.

Email marketing is fast.  It reaches customers almost immediately and responses typically occur within a matter of seconds to a matter of days.  No long term waiting for measuring the success of the campaign.

Business can also tailor different messages to a variety of audiences and through the results of each campaign they can better understand what works and what doesn’t.  Tracking the success is easy and businesses can discover areas of improvement and refine their messaging as they grow.

While email marketing is cost effective, it is far from easy.  If not done properly or used inappropriately, the effects can backfire in both a loss of customers and being placed on black lists as well as having financial repercussions with fines from anti-spamming laws.  You usually have only one chance to make the right impression.  Once your target “unsubscribes” or lists you as a spammer, you will be gone from their in-box forever.

The fact that the cost per contact is incredibly inexpensive makes email marketing extremely appealing to businesses, but also to those annoying spammers as well.  The activity from spammers that don’t follow the rules make it much more difficult for the legitimate marketers out there to reach their target audiences.  But even with its limitations, email marketing is still more effective than its Internet marketing counterpart and is an effective tool in reaching target audiences.

But to be effective, email marketing involves time to develop.  Professionals are usually hired to write and create the emails.  There are a lot of rules and regulations that professional marketers can help businesses through.  Hiring a professional is well worth your time and money, especially considering the cost effectiveness of email marketing.  When developing these campaigns, experience should outweigh the cost.  Don’t use inexperienced writers or designers, because in the end, their mistakes could cost you more than the difference in the price.  You have to remember, is losing customers due to a bad email campaign worth the cost?  Is the cost of legal fees for not following the rules worth the discounted rates you receive by amateurs that are still learning the ropes?  No.  This is one of those areas where, if you go it alone, good luck – You will need it.  If you hire a professional (that’s us!), your return will be obvious in the end.

And if you do take on this task, remember this:  The time and effort it takes you to develop the campaign yourself has a cost of its own.  While you are working on this, you are not working on your core business and you are using your customers as guinea pigs to your learning curve;  we can do it faster and in the long run, less expensive than you can do this yourself.

In the next post, we will discuss those rules and regulations.  Then you can decide if it is a task on which you are willing to gamble your business.  In the mean time, if you have questions or want to learn more, feel free to give us a call: Full Moon Design Group 512-428-9072

1.  The social market is just one more component in the Wheel of Persuasion. Direct mail and email marketing are

Marketing Wheel of Persuasion

tools on the wheel as well, and in order to have an effective campaign, all elements must be considered,utilized and executed properly, and then measured to receive the maximum ROI.

2.  While there is a mass migration to social media and so many companies are advertising and selling their “wares” on social media sites, they are forgetting about direct mail and email marketing; thus these avenues may actually become more effective.  Direct mail and email marketing can also be just as cost effective as a properly planned social media campaign.  By using all of these avenues to reach your targets on multiple levels and multiple locations you are reinforcing brand recognition and messaging, and creating a stronger campaign as you go.

3.  Email marketing may seem easy, but there are a lot of very strict laws out there that prohibit businesses from sending unsolicited messages.  If you are caught doing this without following the rules, it can be costly on a number of levels.  (A.)  You can be given a pretty steep fine and in this economy can anyone really afford this?  (B.)  You lose the trust of your audience.  When you send spam, you are bringing your company and your campaign down to the same level as those businesses (is that what they really are?) that send out the latest discounts on male enhancement drugs.  Is this really the category under which you want your message to be filed?  No.  Marketing professionals are very aware of these laws and it is in your best interest to consult with them before you try to send anything out.

One thing to remember about using social media to promote your business is that it takes time to develop relationships and gain the trust of those people you are trying to reach.  Then once you reach them, often the messaging is not perceived in the manner in which you intended it to be conveyed.  But remember, perception is reality from each person’s standpoint.  Full Moon Design Group is experienced in reaching audiences using techniques that limit those variations in perception and truly get across the meaning in the light our clients want to be seen in.

Consistency is the key. Direct mail, email marketing and social media can actually be used to cross promote each other.  The point being is that marketing effectiveness does not happen in a bubble.  They should all be a part of your overall campaign.  They strengthen your brand, your image, your message and get you in front of your customers.  Let us help you develop a strategic overall marketing campaign and design the right mix of all of these elements that is right for your company.  Contact us today: 512.428.9072

I know it’s hard to find the time, money and energy to commit to all of the above activities. However, it’s important to keep in mind that at least 75% of them should be getting done. And… done well!

There’s all sorts of information you can research online to create effective campaigns that can and will bring desired results. Or, you can call us here at Full Moon Design Group to discuss. It’s important to thoughtfully research and develop your program to get the maximum results… from your logo design to the organizations you choose to volunteer. Taking the time to create a solid foundation will help your company flourish over time. And… you’ll find it will flourish at a faster rate.