email marketing

The subject line is the only part of your email that recipients are almost guaranteed to see. It’s arguably one of the most important elements of any email marketing campaign.

So here are some top tips for getting the subject line right:

1. Find out who’s opening your emails on what devices

It is widely advised that you get the key elements of your subject line into the first 60 characters. But with the increase in use of widescreen laptops does this rule still apply? We’ve actually seen increasing open rates for longer subject lines.

The key question is what devices are your recipients opening your emails on? Ask your ESP about ‘email client analysis’ to identify the percentage of your contacts that open your emails on smart phones. Small screens mean short subject lines are more effective.

2. Test it

Nothing beats split testing when it comes to honing the most effective subject line. Make sure you use a large enough test sample to get meaningful results (a 49%/51% test result isn’t significant enough to indicate the better subject line).

And don’t forget to focus on the criteria you are measuring the success of your split test by. It might not be that the subject line generating the most opens is the best measurement. If you have a key call to action in the email that measuring clicks is more worthwhile, or clicks to opens.

3. Be single minded

Be clear about the key offer, benefit or proposition in your email content and communicate that and only that in your subject line.

4. Beware being mysterious

Implied or intriguing subjects may drive more email opens, but specific, relevant subject lines are more likely to generate opens and click through. If you’re going to test a ‘mysterious’ subject line then make sure your recipients aren’t left feeling disappointed or misled when they open the email.

5. Tell, don’t sell

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put an offer in your subject line if it’s your key message. But keep the subject line as factual as possible.

6. Write it last

Make sure you come up with your subject lines after you’ve written the rest of your message. Many marketers do this the wrong way around and it means that your subject line doesn’t accurately reflect the content of your email.

7. Use a spell checker

It might sound obvious, but so many marketers fail to check this most basic requirement.

8. Make sure it is spam free

To ensure your subject line is spam filter friendly, make sure you avoid the use of capital letters and exclamation marks. There’s no one word that will get your message filtered out, but the most important thing is to just make sure your email doesn’t look like spam.

9. Wear your recipients’ shoes

Put yourself in their position as a recipient of your email when you write your all-important subject line. If you were them, what would trigger your interest and make you want to read more?

10. Seek inspiration in your own inbox

It’s always worth signing up to your competitors’ email newsletters and those of other organisations relevant to what you do. See what they do and borrow the best!

It can take time to build a responsive email marketing list of people who want to receive your newsletters and updates. Here are 5 important email marketing tips you can apply immediately whether you have a list of 50 or 5,000.

1. Personalise Your Message

Use the recipient's name in your message whenever possible. Something as simple as customising the email in this way can make your subscribers more likely to read through and act on your message.

2. Focus On One Message

It's fine to have a number of items in a newsletter type of email but if you are sending a non-newsletter type email with a particularly important call to action then resist the temptation to add extra padding. The more information the higher the chance the reader's eyes will glaze over and they'll reach for delete. Focus on one message and put it in the Subject Line and the first lines of the text to make it easier for those just skimming to absorb your message.

3. Include A Call To Action

Each email you send should clearly spell out what you want the recipient to do. Make links obvious. It's okay to be repetitive when it comes to the call to action - include it at the top of the message and again at the end.

4. Use A Professionally Designed Template

Use a email newsletter template that reflects your colours and brand of your business rather than sending out generic email. Using the same email template for your messages will help the reader recognise your company and foster a feeling of trust. Don't forget to test how your email looks across multiple email clients to make sure it looks how you want it to. You can see from your reports which email clients are being used by your subscribers. The use of iPhone, iPad and other mobile platforms to read email have increased hugely in recent months - make sure your template is Responsive ie: mobile compatible - if you are not sure ask us.

5. Check Your Reports

Is your list responsive? You should keep an eye on your open rates, click through rates, bounces and unsubscribes. Over time you will see what works for your list and what was poorly received. Asking your subscribers to update their profile with you by clicking the 'update preferences' gives them the chance to change the email address to which they receive your email. Perhaps you have been sending to info@theirbusiness and your email would be best going to sales@ or Tom@ ? Telling your subscribers that they can change the destination email can improve your open and response rates.

Don't be too quick to delete bounced addresses. An email can bounce for any number of reasons such as that the recipient's email inbox is full. It's best to wait and see if the address bounces more than once before deleting it from your list.

Autoresponders make it easy to stay in touch with your subscribers without lifting a finger. Quickly build and schedule automated welcome messages, birthday greetings and other date-based campaigns. Send single emails or a sequence over time.

Choose your trigger

You set exactly what should trigger each autoresponder to be sent. Whenever a subscriber matches that condition, we’ll send away.

When a subscriber joins your list

Great for a welcome email or even a sequence of emails over time to new subscribers when they join your list.

The anniversary of a subscriber’s date

Perfect for special annual events like a subscriber’s birthday or wedding anniversary. We ignore the year value and send this annually. Just set it and forget it.

The exact match for a subscriber’s date

Ideal for one-off emails that need to be sent based on a specific subscriber’s date, like a membership renewal reminder or a post purchase follow-up.

You can set up a sequence of unlimited emails for each type of autoresponder you create. Combine these with our new date-based custom fields and the possibilities are endless.

With so many calls on your time you need to make sure that your efforts spent following up sales leads is focused on those that you know are considering a purchase or have shown some interest already in your service, the Warm leads…

This is where the MailMaker123 online reports really shine. When you have sent a campaign you can immediately see who has already opened them and clicked on your links.

To start with the most important details will be the opened so far and clicked on a link percentages. You can click on each of these to see exactly who has opened or clicked and when they have done so. If perhaps you had sent a campaign to 500 people and 200 opened it, of these 50 clicked on a link about a service you offer then these are the leads you might focus on. You may even decide to make a special offer to the select 10 people that opened this link multiple times. This allows you to make a sales pitch to a select few rather than broadcasting a reduced rate to everyone.

Regards

The MailMaker123 team

The long-term goal for most businesses out there is all about attracting the right customer and successfully keeping that customer coming back for more.

So how do you encourage their on-going interest, and invite them to explore additional products or services?

Keeping touch with customers using email marketing, thank you cards and more.
Treating your staff well so they treat your customers well.
Showing that you care and remembering what they like and don’t like.
You build Loyalty by rewarding them for choosing you over your competitors.

That's where loyalty programmes come into play—and for email marketers, they fall into two general categories:

Granting VIP status at a certain spending level.

This type of programme rewards loyal customers with exclusive perks, special gifts, gift cards and pre-launch sneak-peeks to customers who spend a certain level in a calendar year. You can even target those who are near or on their way toward that VIP amount by reminding them of the benefits via auto responder emails.

Giving rewards at a certain spending level.

Rewarding those customers who continually purchase a product by sending email offers with coupons, for example a 5% discount. There might be a cheaper product on the market but the steady campaigns have kept them from investigating alternatives.

You can build your Loyalty Programme membership by placing information:

In prominent locations at your website
At point of sale in your business
In your welcome series for newsletters

In short, you build customer loyalty by treating people how they want to be treated. Show them why it's worth their while to stay. Earn the on-going loyalty of your best customers by revealing VIP bonuses with your email campaigns.

We really encourage clients to resend a campaign about 12 or 14 days later to those who didn't open the first time around - use a different subject line and get more opens for your initial effort - a great way to use your monthly account for best value effect! You are getting a second pass on your list without bothering those subscribers that opened already - Don't forget to use a different subject line that may appeal to them this time!

MarketingSherpa confirm this approach in this interesting article ....

Want to get quick access to great looking reports on any campaigns you've sent?

You can view your account on any popular mobile device like an iPhone or Android and the mobile version will be shown by default. You don't need to install anything, because it is a web application, not a native phone application. Here's a quick preview of how it looks on an iPhone.

You can access to your account using Safari and login to email.mailmaker123.ie

Launch it like a real application

One great thing about the iPhone is that you can launch web applications just like a traditional app you've bought from the App Store. By logging into your account with Safari and adding it to your Home screen, you have a dedicated button that will load your latest reports with a single click.

Just click the arrow key to add this to your home screen.