100,000 words. No, that’s not the length of this post. It is the estimated amount of information the average American takes in per day according to a recently released UC San Diego study that made its way into a New York Times story last month. Now imagine your company’s Marketing Director asking you to come up with an email campaign so good that it will not only get through all of your potential customers’ spam filters, render perfectly in any browser, and earn you a few seconds of their attention – but it will also stick out in that 100K crowd.
This blog post can’t promise any of that. However, following these tips will at least improve the chances that your words will be what your customer or client will retain at the end of the day.
Step 1: Conceptualizing
Conceptualizing your email should include more than just designing its look and feel. The copy you place into your eblast is vital, too. When it comes to making content that will stick in a reader’s memory, it never hurts to include material that helps/educates/informs the reader, but does not necessarily advertise your product. If you work in food, add a few recipes (with your products in the ingredients list) to your newsletter. If your business is sporting goods, supply a few tips on proper nutrition or pre-workout preparation.
As you hammer out your copy, you should also pay attention to factors that control whether or not you even make it to the Inbox. Avoid gimmicky lingo whenever possible, especially in the subject line. "FREE," multiple dollar signs, or even the word "coupon" in your email's subject could trigger a spam filter. Every email client - and sometimes, individual domains - have a different spam filter, but there are certainly things they have in common. Microsoft provides a list (by no means complete) on their site of words and phrases to look out for when sending emails to Outlook users. You can find it here.
Step 2: Development
XHTML, CSS, SQL, and countless other anagrams have come along over the past 10 years, drastically changing how we code, design, and implement websites in the age of Web 2.0. Don't count on using very much of it in email marketing.
This is because unlike Internet browsers, email and webmail clients have not adopted a centralized convention for reading HTML or CSS. This requires more of a "back to the basics" approach to coding in an effort to play to the lowest common denominator amongst all of the most popular email clients. Be ready to party like it's 1999. Avoid using advanced CSS or Flash in your emails; they will almost never render correctly across all major clients.
Step 3: Quality-Assurance
Speaking of the major clients, do you know which ones they are? As each one handles HTML a little differently from the others, it is vital to test your eblast across them all. Microsoft Outlook and Entourage, as well as Mozilla Thunderbird are good starting points. GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail are the major web-based clients, and obtaining a test email account for each is free.
Don't just watch for formatting or code issues. Though it can be lengthy and tedious, checking across the four major webmail providers also gives you insight into which ones will send your eblast into its spam filter and for whatever reason. Most of the time, it's due to your subject line. If a particular webmail client keeps labeling your eblast as spam, tweaking it slightly in accordance to the guidelines in Step 1 can help improve your deliverability.
Step 4: Sending
You've coded the email, you tested in every imaginable way, it formats correctly in all the popular email clients, and no one mistakenly believes it's spam. Now it's time for the send. But how do you get your eblasts to thousands of your customers?
Timing is a very important consideration when deploying your campaign. Your potential customers will miss the “what” of your eblast completely if you don’t know the proper “when.” Generally, it’s a bad idea to try to send during “off” hours in the day, such as weekends or evenings. Shooting for the middle of the day or the early afternoon Tuesday through Thursday tends to work best. This is the middle of the workweek, when customers with email access at their jobs are most likely to “stumble” upon your message.
In addition to the “what” and “when,” pay attention to the “how.” A large number of email marketing services exist in the marketplace today. Constant Contact, Lyris, and ExactTarget are some of the bigger examples. A lot of these services offer tools such as a WYSIWYG HTML editor, templates (in case you don’t have a designer or developer on board), and tools to help you find out whether or not your newsletter complies with CAN-SPAM and avoids spam filters.
These tips only provide a starting point. A lot of the earlier mentioned email marketing services offer conventions, whitepapers, and other sources of information on how to reach your base. Blogs abound with free advice on email marketing. However, with time and experience, you will soon find yourself confident in your ability to make those words in your newsletter compete with the other 100,000 out there.
