Are You Making These 7
Deadly Email Mistakes?
by Mari Smith
MISTAKE #1: Your email
messages are filled with spam-triggers and you’re blissfully
unaware.
Even including one or two tiny “innocent” spam-triggers
can make a huge difference between delivered emails and dumped
emails. Blindly sending your email messages out without first
checking the content for spam filters is a deadly mistake
and money down the drain!
SOLUTION #1: Run your content through
a professional content checker every single time!
Do this 100% of the time and you’ll dramatically
increase your delivery rate. I also strongly suggest you send
a test message to yourself first. Most good hosting companies
provide a spam filter on your server. And, of course, start
to familiarize yourself with the most common spam trigger
words and phrases. For example, putting “FREE,”
or any variation, in the subject line is a big no-no. Suggested
content checker: http://www.lyris.com/resources/contentchecker/
MISTAKE #2: You don’t
include personalized data in your emails.
Studies show consistently that people buy from people they
KNOW, LIKE and TRUST. But when we get mass-produced emails,
it doesn’t quite cut it. It feels like border-line spam,
in fact. You need to take time to build relationships with
your subscribers. And the more you know about them, the more
personalized information you can include in your emails.
SOLUTION #2: At minimum, personalize every single email
you send out with your recipient’s FIRST NAME.
“Dear Friend” is a huge red flag in
the world of spam, by the way. MUCH better to say “Hi
John,” or “Hello Jayne,” or “Greetings
Jill.” A person’s first name is the sweetest sounding
word in their entire vocabulary! Plus, with a decent email
program like KickStartCart.com or CoolerEmail.com you can merge
in “dynamic data.” That is, the data changes for
each individual.
MISTAKE #3: You don’t
include calls to action in your email body.
What’s the point in contacting your subscribers if you
don’t tell them what action you want them to take? Granted,
if you’re just sending out weekly tips, for example,
the action you want them to take is to just read, right? But
even with a tips/advice type of email communication, you should
be including a good email signature file.
SOLUTION #3: Include at least TWO calls to action in your
marketing emails.
When you’re sending out a specific marketing
email – that is you’re promoting a product or service
– at minimum, you need to include TWO calls to action.
Depending on the length of the copy, you might manage to put
as many as four or five calls to action. Just a simple link
is fine. When composing your marketing emails, always start
with the end in mind. Ask yourself, “What is the single
action I want my readers to take?”
MISTAKE #4: You email your list too
often or too seldom.
This is one of the worst mistakes I see in the world of email
marketing. There are one or two of the “Big Guys”
out there who insist on emailing DAILY. And it is simply TOO
MUCH! On the other end of the spectrum, if you don’t
have a set schedule and just email “whenever you feel
like it” this has the opposite effect. “Out of sight,
out of mind!”
SOLUTION #4: Use a Marketing Calendar to properly time
your campaigns.
What is a Marketing Calendar? This is a special
tool to implement a structured, systematic, series of marketing
emails. That way, you can stay on top of your promotions and
sleep soundly at night! Once you have a regular schedule set
up, then you can intersperse your e-zine emails with promotional
emails on an irregular basis.
MISTAKE #5: You manage your list
manually.
With the inexpensive professional choices available today,
it’s insane to try to manage your list yourself. Besides,
you don’t have a fraction of the sophisticated tracking
systems available when you use Outlook or web-based email
like Yahoo, AOL or Hotmail.
SOLUTION #5: Switch over to a professional email system
NOW!
My top picks are: KickStartCart.com – full
email management and shopping cart solution; CoolerEmail.com – full
email management software; and if ALL you want to do is create
and send out an e-zine (no shopping cart, no autoresponders),
ConstantContact.com will do
the job well. They have simple templates to plug in your content.
MISTAKE #6: You rarely, if ever,
check your metrics.
“Metric? Huh? What’s a metric?” That’s
the response I hear most often when asking people about this
topic! Metrics are statistics like your delivery rate, open
rate, read rate, click-through rate, forward-to-a-friend rate,
unsubscribe rate etc.
SOLUTION #6: Learn how to analyze and use your stats properly.
Any decent professional email management software should provide
you with charts, graphs and statistics that you can monitor
pretty much “real time.” My pick is CoolerEmail.com – they
assign points to each subscriber for each email I send depending
on how many times they opened and read an email message, how
many click-throughs and how many forwards they sent (send-to-a-friend).
MISTAKE #7: You’re not doing
enough to build your list.
Okay, so you slapped up a website. Maybe you even hired a
webmaster to do a nice job for you. Perhaps you have an e-zine
in place now and slowly subscribers are trickling in. But
what else are you doing? Do you do something every day (minimum
every week) to build your list and market to them?
SOLUTION #7: Select at least six different list-building
methods
There are endless ways to drive traffic to your
website and build your list effectively and efficiently with
prospects hungry for what you have to offer. I strongly recommend
you start with KEYWORD ANALYSIS. Once you understand exactly
what keywords your customers are searching for, you can better
target your product, services and all your marketing efforts.
Next, you’ll want to do SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO).
My friend Andrew Zirkin of BrandSEO.com
can help you with both keyword analysis and SEO.
Now, with these two pieces in place you can purchase ads through
Pay Per Click services (such as Google, MSN.com, Ask.com, Yahoo!SearchMarketing and
Amazon.com's new ClickRiver),
write articles and submit them to directories, do reciprocal
linking, be a guest on internet radio, be a featured expert
on others’ teleclasses, create a squeeze page, offer
freemiums, buy ads in e-zines, start a blog, create podcasts…
the list goes on.
©
2005-2007 Mari Smith.
Mari
Smith is an eMarketing Specialist and Author of “Email
Th@t Sizzles: How to Write Professional Emails That Get Opened,
Get Read and Make People Take ACTION!” Find out
more about Mari’s services for your business at: www.MariSmith.com
and claim your FREE report at www.EmailThatSizzles.com.
Feel
free to use this article in your e-zine or website so long
as you include the final blurb above in its entirety and send
a copy of where you published this article to mari@marismith.com.
Thank you!
Discover How to Create Profitable Information
Products,
Drive a Stampede of Hungry Customers to Your Website,
Explode Your Business Online,
and Make Tons of Money While You Sleep!
| |
The
Top 25 Hottest Topics You Must Know About Email and
Internet Marketing Today!
Value:
$87 |
|
Instant
Access! Enter your name and email address below
to grab my Resource Guide absolutely
chock-full of recommended links, tools, tips and tricks
to support you in growing your business online. |
| |
| Cheers!
|
 |
Mari
Smith – “My Email Guru”
Email Marketing Specialist, Copywriter & Success
Coach
Author Email
Th@t Sizzles |
Return to Top
Back to Articles List
|
