Email Marketing Tactics #20: Clean Up the Email List

Nothing lasts forever.  That’s as true for email subscribers as anything else.  An email opt-in is not a lifetime commitment.  Opt-outs should be a foregone conclusion as subscribers should have a simple way of removing themselves from communications.  However, many email marketers are reluctant to scrub their email lists of inaccurate or bouncing emails.  Maintaining your email list will help keep costs down and improve delivery.

Most Internet Service Providers take bounce rates into account as a SPAM signifier.  Therefore, quality email service providers will have an interest in clean lists.  However, don’t rely on a reprimand from your email service to prompt you into cleaning the list.  Make it a routine.

Depending on your email service’s billing practice it can save money.  Removing emails that bounce means less overall sends which reduces costs for per email billing.  Removing bad email addresses has the potential to drop under subscribers thresholds and drop rates to a lower tier for per subscriber billing.

A monthly or quarterly review of bounce rates is a good idea.  The larger the list the more frequent the review should be.  Bounce rates will grow over time.  It is not a sign of a poor performing email campaign as these recipients aren’t even receiving the message.  It’s a signifier of the transience of email addresses.  Plan on 20% of your email list going bad every year.  That is the rate that the average person changes email addresses.

Cleaning up an email list is an often overlooked necessity.  Many email marketers resist cleaning the list because they like seeing a lot of email addresses in heir subscriber list. They see it as a sign of success. Be honest with yourself.  Anyone can create thousands of fake email addresses and point to it as a sign of a thriving campaign.  The point is to communicate a valuable message to an interested audience, not gather email addresses.  Remove the bad email addresses so that you get an accurate sense of how the campaign is performing and a realistic view of who is paying attention.

Email Marketing Tactics #19: Test Email Communications

Test your email communications! It should go without saying but we can get overly comfortable creating our messages. That comfort level can become negligence and testing can get overlooked. This is always a costly mistake. Be diligent in testing emails and set a checklist to confirm that the email is ready to send.

Every decent email marketing program offers a function to send a test email. Send the email to your account. Then a checklist is the best way to hold yourself accountable to checking an email communication thoroughly. At minimum it should include:

  • Proofread the subject line for clarity and spelling errors.
  • Proofread the communication for spelling and grammatical errors.
  • Survey the layout for design errors or display issues.
  • Click all links to ensure they function correctly and redirect to the appropriate webpage.

Certain email campaigns might have a few more line items but if these four items are correct then the email is ready to send. If a second set of eyes is available it’s a good idea to have a proofreader. The person creating the email often gets too close and has problems identifying problems.

Make a habit of testing your emails. Typos and display issues will not get recipients to engage your company. Testing is the only way to ensure that you detect your errors, rather than your audience.

Email Marketing Tactics #18: Define a Send Frequency

Send frequency is an important aspect of email marketing. Defining a send frequency serves two purposes:

  • It sets a production schedule.
  • Provides communication delivery expectations to recipients.

Setting a production schedule is critical. The #1 biggest killer of email marketing campaigns is that the person running the campaign didn’t set a production schedule. When an email marketing campaign is run without a frequency schedule it is usually chronically late or has no discernable pattern. Inconsistent production decreases interest in the communications and builds frustration in producing them. Once this trend starts it’s only a matter of time before the email campaign is scrapped.

Delivery expectations are important for recipients. There is no set rule for send schedule. A general rule is that there should be at least a monthly communication but no more than weekly. This applies to the majority of email campaigns. Having said that, there are successful newsletters that are produced quarterly and for sophisticated email marketers, multiple emails a week cause no negative impacts on results. Having a send schedule helps define consistency and builds credibility. A communication that is always off schedule gives the impression that they are produced haphazardly and not a high quality.

Set a frequency schedule and define production actions that need to take place to meet that schedule. Sticking to it will ensure high quality communications that recipients are expecting.

Email Marketing Tactics #17: Provide Options for Recipients to Respond

All email recipients won’t respond to the same offer. That seems like simple common sense but many email campaigns ignore the advice. The person running the email campaign (or their boss) has a single item or event they’d like to promote and the email campaign pounds it to a pulp. For those people that aren’t interested in that particular promotion, they are never given a chance to interact. Intermix multiple promotions within the email campaign so a varied group of recipients have incentive to take the next step.

We’ve previously covered several common promotions: products, services, events, etc. It’s a good idea to include a few options in an email campaign. Ideally the options would span categories so that recipients have a chance to review products or specials but also get event announcements. At minimum, the single item should change. If there is one product offered over and over, sooner or later the email list will grow immune to the communications.

Varying the offers to recipients serves two purposes:

  • It hits a wider demographic. Subscribers to email marketing campaigns usually have a host of reasons for opting in. Varied offers takes that difference into account and casts a wider net on what the individual might react to.
  • It prevents list exhaustion. Even if a recipient is interested in a single promotion, they won’t continually be. Changing options keep recipients more engaged because they are seeing new promotions available to them.

Think of your email marketing campaign like a television station. You can’t show the same episode of the same show over and over without people tuning out. Mix up the promotions so different demographics find what they want and stay engaged with the communications.

Email Marketing Tactics #16: Use Landing Pages

Landing pages are essential for a successful email marketing campaign. Web and email users have an expectation for immediacy.  Landing pages instantly link recipients to the offer the email promised with no need to navigate.  When recipients don’t have any trouble finding what they want, there is less friction in completing the action.  Obviously as email marketers, our goal is to make it as easy as possible for recipients to take action on our offers.

If you are asking what a landing page is I’ll provide a short explanation.  A landing page is a webpage set up specifically for an email communication.  When recipients click a link in the email they arrive at the webpage which speaks directly to what the email referenced.  So they “land” on this page from an email.

Landing pages are important because there is no way of knowing how committed a recipient will be to your email offer.  Offering a landing page removes the hassle of navigating to what they want.  It also provides an immediate opportunity to build on their interaction by speaking about the offer that caught their interest.

Examples of landing pages would be:

  • An Offer to Attend an Event – The landing page should have all the logistic info and a more in depth look at what the topic will be.  A next step to register or get more information (likely a form) is critical.  Speaker bios are often appropriate as well.
  • Product or Service Promo – More information and feature/benefit about the product or service and a next step (likely a form) to take advantage of the offer.

Of course this is a simplistic overview of landing pages but it gets at the core of what they should contain.  Basically landing pages should support the email with more information and provide a next step, which is almost always an online form.

If you are sending recipients to your homepage or not providing a clear next step for them, then you are providing incentive for them to leave.  It’s amazing how easily online users will get frustrated and move on.  In most cases, if a recipient lands on a page from a marketing email and can’t find what they are looking for in 3 seconds, they move on.  Make sure they are getting what they want right off the bat and that’s 2 seconds more than you’ll need.

Email Marketing Tactics #15: Use the Subject Line Effectively

The subject line in an email marketing campaign is the front line. It’s the first thing a recipient sees and forms their judgment about whether the email should be opened or deleted as SPAM. It can make or break a communication. Make sure the subject line honestly and succinctly states what the email is about.

Brevity is the soul of wit. This has never been truer than with a marketing email’s subject line. It serves the same function as a headline for an ad. It needs to give a sense of what the message is while drawing the recipient in.

A typical guideline is to keep subject lines to 50 characters or less. A shorter message allows a recipient to digest the information easily and let’ the full subject appear in most email programs preview pane.

The email subject should always honestly state what the email is about. If it is a series of informational emails, state which email it is in the series and the topic discussed. If it is an ad, state the primary benefit being offered. If it’s an event, state what the event is and if space allows, when and where it will take place.

It’s advisable to avoid gimmicks like “GET THIS FREE” or “ACT NOW!!!” Basically the worst of what infomercials have to offer should not be in your subject line for two reasons.

The first is that conversion is typically poor. Due to all the SPAM people receive they are skeptical of offers via email. When an offer is combined with gimmicks most recipients don’t view it as credible.

The second reason is that SPAM filters will scrub many of these tactics. For example the word “free”, anything in all capital letters, or excessive punctuation/symbols will usually count as a knock against the email in SPAM filters. One on its own likely won’t get the email sent to a SPAM folder but combining them raises the possibility.

Spend time writing effective email subjects. The best subject lines are short, get to the point, and provide a reason for recipients to open the marketing email.

Email Marketing Tactics #14: Use Appropriate Technology

There are a lot of options for sending email marketing campaigns.  Some are good, some are bad, and some are ugly.  Whatever solution you decide on should be specific to email marketing.  Using a patchwork of technologies to run an email marketing campaign wastes time, usually causes technical problems, and adds risk to violating legal guidelines.  Use a technology that is designed for email marketing and suitable for streamlining the process.

The most common inappropriate technology is using an internal database with form or bulk email capabilities.  Another common error is using an email program, like Outlook, to do bulk sends from a contact list. 

If you are blasting emails out from a database or contact list but there are no settings specifically for email marketing, then there is a risk involved.  Typically these scenarios involve a lot of manual manipulation.  The risk is that unsubscribes slip through the cracks or CAN-SPAM requirements are forgotten.  Missing even one of these instances can result in complaints or legal issues.  Furthermore there is no tracking of data to gauge whether the technology is delivering the emails and whether it is effective or not.

Email marketing has its challenges; don’t create more by using inappropriate technology.   Your email marketing technology should at minimum provide:

  • Some kind of list management
  • Send features that regulate CAN- SPAM laws
  • Reporting features

These three items are critical.  If your email marketing technology provides segmentation further drill downs, or HTML features, it’s a bonus.  If your email marketing technology lacks any of these, it’s in inappropriate technology and a new system needs to be implemented.

Email Marketing Tactics #13: Maintain Privacy

Maintaining privacy is essential when running an email marketing campaign. Subscribers have signed up to receive communications from your organization, nothing more, nothing less.  Don’t betray that trust.  Maintain subscriber information privacy.

There are two common ways that email marketers violate subscriber privacy:

  • Cross promoting with other organizations
  • Selling their list to other organizations

Cross promoting can be a tricky issue.  In some cases it does make sense to highlight another organization because it syncs up nicely with the topic the email marketing campaign covers.

An example might be a business partner that is holding an event.  The business partner might ask you to send their invite to your list.  Assuming the business partner’s event closely aligns with the subject of the email campaign, it’s likely that the subscribers would be interested in the information.

However, simply sending the invite for the business partner or worse yet handing over your email subscriber list would likely violate subscriber policy.  They didn’t sign up for communications from your business partner, only from you.  There is likely going to be some resentment or confusion as to why they are receiving a promotion from the business partner.

A work-around for this situation would be to feature the event in a newsletter or upcoming events email.  If it is included in normal communications and maintains consistency with other emails, then it likely does not violate privacy.  It simply highlights a related event that they have the choice to get more information about.  We are still providing value by doing data collection for our subscribers.

The other privacy violation is selling the subscriber list.  The course of action here is simple: don’t do it.

There is no excuse for selling off your email list.  Subscribers represent a valuable resource in prospects and clients that are interested in hearing from your company.  Treat it as the asset it is.

Post a privacy policy on your site for subscribers to see when they opt-in.  Then follow the policy by protecting subscriber privacy and they will likely reward you with an ongoing relationship.  The ongoing contact will improve awareness about your organization and likely lead to leads or sales over time.

Email Marketing Tactics #12: HTML and Text Versions

There is a lot of debate over which email format is better, text or html.  Text supporters site small files and less chances of filtering.  HTML supporters site better layouts and superior conversions.  Like most things, there are pros and cons to both.  Truly superior email marketing campaigns don’t make a choice for recipients, they let recipients choose their preference.  Great email marketing is provided in both text and HTML formats.

This sounds complicated but many good email service providers automate the process.  Subscribers can update their preferences to text or HTML.  Two versions of the same email are created and when the email is sent, the email service provider delivers the version a recipient selected.

It does take a little more time but it’s a sound investment.  It allows you to reap the advantages of both formats.  Recipients that can receive more dynamic HTML messages are free to do so.  The people whose SPAM filters block HTML or whose email program can’t display images or code, have the option of getting a text version.

Providing recipients with an option for text or HTML emails caters to the audience’s preference and ensures that you can deliver your communications in the most effective way.

Email Marketing Tactics #11: Focused

An email marketing campaign is a series of emails.  Don’t try to fit too much into a single communication.  Focus on one small offer or one small topic.  The other things you want to cover should be laid out in other communications in the campaign.  Each email in an email marketing campaign should have a singular focus and should add up to a targetted focus.

For instance, when writing 20 Tactics of Effective Email Marketing (which was originally an email campaign), each tactic is an email.  There is a singular focus and detail given for each tactic.  Some common mistakes that are made would be:

  • Listing all 20 topics in an email with no description or explanation as to what they mean.
  • Breaking them into small of 2 or 3 chunks and writing a sentence or two on each topic.
  • Doing them individually but with little content and placing promotions or offers all around the tactic.

Keep each email focused and with a solid campaign it will add up to a focused series.  Keeping focused makes sure that the audience can follow the campaign which generates credibility.  That credibility can be leveraged when a solicitation is made or they encounter a situation that fits your expertise.

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