Set a schedule for sending emails and stick to it.  It is not OK to haphazardly deviate from the send schedule.  A major part of email marketing success is due to reinforcement.  When the reinforcement is eroded the message fractures.

Think of the email campign as a publication (whether subscribers are paying for it or not).   There is a production deadline that needs to be met because the audience has been given an expectation.  A lack of consistency will erode the value of the email campaign.  The best content in the world isn’t useful if the audience doesn’t know when or if they will get it.

It’s not necessary to explain the send schedule to subscribers, though that is helpful when people subscribe so they have realistic expectations of when they will receive your content.  However, people get used to seeing email subscriptions at a certain recurring interval.  They will notice a significant change or delay even if the schedule hasn’t been explicitly laid out.  Always make sure that the email campaign schedule is consistent.

I will be posting a comprehensive listing of effective email tactics in coming weeks.  These will include 20 strategies that should be used in every email campaign to build and maintain a quality send list and provide conversions from those sends.

– Eric
eMarketing Innovation

Having a laser focus is critical in email marketing campaigns.  The focus should answer one of two questions:

• What do I want recipients to do?
• What value am I providing my audience?

If the answer can’t be summed up in in a short answer, the email needs to be simplified.  There shouldn’t be a lot of “ands” in what you are attempting to do.  Decrease offers or abridge content.  Remember, email marketing is not an extension of your website.  This is not the place to show any and everything you do.  It is an opportunity to present a simple idea or proposition that the audience is likely to be interested in.

If you are saying or asking too much in a single communication, the audience won’t understand.  Rather than using time and energy to get clarification, they’ll just delete the email.  Have a laser focus that is easy for your email marketing subscribers to follow.

One of the most common questions about email marketing is how often should emails be sent to the contact list.  Unfortunately there is no magic formula to follow.  However, an educated guess can  be achieved by weighing content vs. marketing goals. 

We’ve all heard “it’s better to give than receive”.  In email marketing the rule morphs into, “If you don’t give, you won’t receive.”  Most email marketing campaigns are conceived as a way of marketing products, services, or events. So to gauge send frequency, the first step is identifying what you are looking to promote.

Ideally a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 ratio is achieved in subscriber-centered content vs marketing promotion.  Unless there are special deals that the email subscribers anticipate getting, which double as a marketing promotion, anything less than 1-to-1 is almost sure to fail.

So let’s look at an example.  I work with a client who runs an event quarterly.  His ultimate goal is to advertise the event and get people to register.  The campaign we created uses a 2-to-1 ratio.  We run a content rich piece that provides tips and insights into his field of expertise.  The promotional piece is an event specific invitation that provides information and registration details.  We decided that two invitation were an ideal mix for the event.  So knowing we had three months to promote and needing two invitations in that time frame, we used our ratio.  Two invitations required four content rich emails.  A bi-weekly send schedule worked perfectly to make sure the contact group was getting the promised information but also met my clients goal of getting two event promotions delivered for each quarterly event.  The added bonus was that the content emails provided credibility by displaying his knowledge of the topic.

But what if the my client ran monthly events? A weekly schedule would be necessary.  What if he ran two events a month?  Then he would need to segment the emails into lists of contacts or personas that the content would apply.   If that wasn’t possible, he would need find other avenues to promote the event.  Don’t let this general equation convince you to make absurdly frequent sends.  No matter how good your content is your contact list does not want daily emails.   

Of course, this is just a guideline and a lot of individual factors come into play.  However, it can provide a basis to start a campaign and then make improvements as the numbers are analyzed.  It also forces us to take the users into consideration.  One of the most common and detrimental mistakes made in email marketing is focusing solely on what you want to market and forgetting about what the contact group was promised.  That’s the perfect recipe to have a large opt-out list or a big group of people that ignore your messages.

There is a temptation email marketers are often subject to.  It’s the “how large is the mailing list” lure.  It typically the most accessible metric that email marketers are subjected to and can cause a yearning for more and more people.  Resist this urge and keep tidy lists. Email success rates don’t come from how many people you send to, it comes from how many people read and take action on the emails that are sent.

Just to prove that anyone with enough time or money can build a large email list, you can review multiple list broker services.  These sites contain listings for millions of email addresses.  Just think, talking to millions of people; that don’t want to listen.  It’s more important to build a credible list than a large one.

This is just like cleaning your room when you were a kid.  Sure it might have felt good to be surrounded by all those neat toys but ultimately you couldn’t find or use the ones you intended to play with.  You were drowning in a pile of unusable possibilities.  That’s what large unkempt lists are, unusable possibilities.

So how do you keep a tight ship with your lists.  First, almost every email marketing program has the functionality to identify and scrub bad addresses.  Identify yours and use it.  Bad addresses are unmonitored email, bounced sends, full mailboxes, non-existent addressed, and some out-of-office reminders.  (If you get the same out of office reminder for six months, remove the address.  If it says the person is no longer with the company or passed away, definitely remove the address.)

Why does a clean list matter?

• First it might save you some money based on how your email marketing program runs.  If you are charged by the amount of names in the database, scrubbing bad ones can decrease your costs.  If you are charged by email sent, it will reduce the amount of outgoing email.
• Second, it will save web server bandwidth.  If it’s your servers running the email there is a direct benefit.  If you are purchasing a program that runs from a vendor’s servers, then think of it as a subsidiary good deed.
• Lastly it will clean up metrics.  A high bounce rate can negatively skew your open and click-through numbers.  Make sure you are getting accurate, and therefore actionable, data to improve your email marketing campaigns.

Clean email lists make for cleaner email marketing.  It helps to keep data accurate and might even save a buck or two.

Sooner or later every successful email marketing campaign will encounter piggy-backers.  These are solicitations to send out someone else’s promotional material to your subscriber base.  Nine times out of ten it’s a bad idea to agree to sending out other promotions.  Subscribers agreed to get a particular communication.  Sending promotions for other people or companies usually betrays that trust and is likely to damage your campaign and possibly your brand.

So when is the 10% of the time that it’s OK to accept a piggyback?  Partners or co-ventures.  If a association is having a roundtable and another speaker wants to include their content in an email you are already sending about your presentation for the day, then that’s OK.  If they have a product or event that directly lines up with your product or service and is incorporated into a regular communication, then that’s likely acceptable.  In short, if there is an easily understandable content synergy, it’s probably OK.

Temptation is highest when someone offers to pay you to send a promotional piece to your list.  I’ve never encountered a situation where this is appropriate.  By the very fact that they have to resort to a payout shows there is probably not a reasonable content synergy.  If the goal is to generate revenue via external promotions then it’s more suitable to create an advertising vehicle within your existing communications.  That’s something that can be explained to subscribers and doesn’t hit them with an unexpected solicitation. 

People often feel most pressured by a client or long-time partner that asks to get a promotion to their list.  Lengthy arguments on why your subscribers would want the message are common.  Think critically and really examine how closely someone else’s offer lines up with your core messaging.  While it’s never fun to decline, it’s something that needs to happen.  The reason is that it becomes a slippery slope.  If it happens once or twice subscribers are likely to forgive the sender.  However, if you allow one promotional piece to go out for someone else, it’s hard to turn down future requests.  Furthermore, other’s will notice and are likely to make the same overtures.

Make it a policy not to abuse your list.  Subscribers want your communications, not yours and anyone else who happens to ask to piggyback.  Keep your credibility by only sending what subscribers opted in for.