Many businesses look at their email marketing list in the wrong way thinking of it as a numbers game and simply adding new names as old ones disappear. Worse still are those who resort to email blasts, regardless of subject relevance. Either approach indicates an email list is being used incorrectly, with little consideration shown towards recipients. To some extent etiquette has a role to play in email effectiveness, so consider the following:

• Ensure your email recipients know who you are, and explain how you obtained their details. Speaking from experience I receive many email newsletters from businesses and struggle to work out who they are, or why they are emailing me. It's also a legal requirement to give your business contact details.
  
• Provide your recipients with an easy, instant unsubscribe process. It is pointless to continually communicate with anyone not interested in you or your products. Better by far, and cheaper, to email 500 recipients genuinely interested in your business than 5,000 with little or no interest.
  
• Review your statistics for up to 12 months after any email campaign. Checking responses, ie whether they are being sent to “trash”, filed or later reviewed, will clarify the interest rate of your emails. Understanding how recipients read your newsletters will benefit future campaigns.
  
• Use an Email Service Provider to manage your email campaigns. This will help you manage unsubscribes, improve deliverability and provide statistics on user engagement. (User engagement is an important topic we will discuss separately.)
  
• Segment your list into categories such as customers, prospects, interests. This will  prevent you from sending inappropriate offers or information.
  
• Send topical and informative emails, and submit them regularly to keep in touch with recipients. If you have not used your email marketing list for more than six months then send a re-engagement campaign. If recipients forget who you are, your email marketing list is redundant.

Thursday 29 October 2009 (17:00 - 20:00)

I will be speaking at a networking event at Burn Hall in York about how you can improve your website rank in Google. The event is free of charge and presents a great opportunity to network. For more information and to book your place please click here.

Monday 7 December 2009 (12:00 - 14:00)

This two hour seminar will provide simple explanations on how to use the professional social networking site; how to make connections; how to increase online networking contacts, and achieve a growing circle of business contacts; and the benefits for you and your business.

The venue for this one-off event is York Innovation Centre, York Science Park, Heslington, York, YO10 5DG.  It is free for Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber members, with a £25 fee for non-members. There are only five places left so if you would like to attend please email events coordinator Sarah Welsh at sarah.welsh@ynycc.com or book online here 

This Event is now FULLY BOOKED.

• Enable the “Automatic Lock” function on your device, and set the lock period to the minimum time
• Enable the “Require Pin” function or, if the option is available, the lock device on SIM card removal 
• If you use memory cards, enable the “Encrypt External Storage” option if supported by your device
• Only store essential names, numbers and documents on your mobile phone
• Check with your mobile provider if your device supports “Remote Wipe”, and know how to implement this
• Keep your mobile provider’s number handy as they can disable your phone when you give them your IMEI 
• Be prepared to notify the Information Commissioner and your customers if a mobile device with customer data is lost/stolen

There is plenty of scope for getting things wrong with email marketing campaigns; the focus here is on the most common errors made.

Poor Subject Line

Getting recipients of your email to open and read it is key to your marketing campaign’s success. It follows, therefore, that of primary importance is the field marked “Subject”. Yet research shows that the content of this title bar is often the last thing considered, and sometimes it is even left blank. What a wasted opportunity.

Equally important as not leaving it blank is devising a suitable subject. Headings such as “Free Coupon” tend to perform badly against simple descriptive titles such as “[Company] Newsletter.” My advice is to describe the content honestly, rather than “sell” it with a gimmick.

Unrecognised Source

Some email campaigns originate from unrecognisable email addresses, or companies with bizarre names few have heard of. Emails from unidentified sources are usually instantly deleted. If your company is known to everyone on the data base you are using, ensure its name (or yours) appears in the “From” field. You certainly don’t want the words “Mailing List” appearing as sender.

Awful Presentation

Emails have to be easy on the eye for comfortable reading, so how you format text is important. Central alignment of content makes text very hard to read.  Similarly, choosing an unusual font is a bad idea as it may not be among the listed styles on your recipients’ system and will consequently not display properly. Play safe – stick to the common fonts, and the standard “align left” for content.

Outsize Images

Promotional emails are sometimes simply a scan of a company’s leaflet, with a huge image embedded with little or no worthwhile text. Don’t commit this crime.  Many email programs do not display images by default, so such emails can appear empty or blank. They also run the risk of being deleted by spam filtering systems. Use images only if they are necessary, and keep them down to 10% or less of your email content.

Badly Coded HTML

This is a technical issue but worth mentioning to anyone with coding knowledge, or in-house programmers. Emails are single or multi-part templates with many HTML emails using CSS and <HEAD> tags for text coding and display commands. However, some email programs (especially web based ones) strip out <HEAD> tags to prevent security problems. Any style code commands listed here will be stripped out, thus mangling the coding and making the email impossible to read. To add style to your email, make sure inline CSS coding is used. Be aware, too, that HTML exports from some programs, such as Microsoft Word, Publisher and PowerPoint, can create very bad HTML that does not work in email.

No "Unsubscribe" Link

There are pointless risks run with either not offering an “unsubscribe” link, or putting a “Reply with Unsubscribe” link in the Subject/title bar. Recipients of such emails will instantly hit the “Spam” button, and you could get blacklisted. Instead, make it as easy as possible for recipients to leave your list by providing a simple “one click” instant unsubscribe link. That way they will think better of you, and you will not be wasting your resources emailing uninterested people.

Spam Appearance

Marketing emails that are blatant promotional messages will resemble spam and, like all junk mail, end up being deleted. It is wise, therefore, to steer clear of highlighting text in bold, to refrain from displaying content in capitals, and to avoid using too many colours. Using the word “free”, particularly in bold or coloured text (whether in capitals or lower case), can also trigger automated spam filter systems if usage in ratio terms is out of proportion to other words used.

Unfamiliar Contacts

If it has taken far more than a year to build up your list of leads, and if you are not in regular contact with everyone on it, will they remember you? Don’t email infrequent customers and prospects out of the blue; some may have forgotten you, been replaced or changed their email address. Instead, turn a potential negative into a positive by sending a short and sweet re-subscribe email along the lines of:  “We know it has been a while since we were in touch. If you are still interested in hearing from us, please click here to subscribe.” 

Sending email newsletters involves overcoming different obstacles so my tips for tackling the basics may help you when compiling and transmitting your own.

Some email marketing beginners get off the starting block by creating a simple email message, sending it to multiple recipients via their email client. There are pitfalls to be aware of when doing this, which were highlighted in one of our articles last year, entitled Multiple Recipient Emails.

Email Nuisances

People who send out too many emails can find themselves in trouble with their ISP (Internet Service Provider). Those who commit this crime and are deemed a nuisance by their ISP can, as a result, find their internet connection cut off. Don’t run this risk; instead of annoying your ISP, use an ESP (Email Service Provider).

Email Service Providers (ESPs)

A much better method for transmitting email newsletters is to use an Email Service Provider, who is specifically set up for this purpose, and is skilled in managing emails to thousands of recipients at a time.

ESPs come in all shapes and sizes, from those who provide full campaign creation and management, to the “self-service” providers who allow you to build your own campaigns via a web interface. Service costs vary; the most inexpensive method is to use a self-service provider.

Self-Service Providers (SSPs)

SSPs provide a simple graphical interface for you to design your own email newsletter, plus easy-to-use options for uploading and adding your email recipients. They will also manage any “bounces” (undelivered emails) and “unsubscribe” requests for you, saving you both time and hassle.

Reliable Recommendations

AGUK uses and recommends the following providers:

• Mail Chimp*
• Constant Contact

They offer similar services at similar prices and personal choice is down to individual preference on the interface provided. Both companies are based in the USA and charge in US Dollars, with a free service for lists of up to 100 email addresses. In our opinion, there are no UK-based ESP services to rival the level of options provided by these two companies, but if you know of one we would be happy to hear from you.

Please note that using a hyperlink ending with an asterisk (*) , as shown above,  may result in a small financial referral contribution to AGUK. This in no way influences our recommendation and if you wish to avoid this automatic reward, you can instead use the following link: Mail Chimp