Get the recipient's consent in advance (Opt-in, not opt-out)
Provide numerous opt-in opportunities with low barriers to entry
Collect more than just the email address
Ensure the amount of work required to sign up is minimal
Include email list sign-up on all forms on your site, including inquiry, order, and feedback forms
Publish and abided by the Privacy policy.
Monitor the number/variety of contacts to avoid burnout
Your Email Messages
Offer an easy way to unsubscribe
Sign with a real person
Ensure your content is relevant
Ensure your email is timely
Ensure your message is beneficial
If a promotional message, include a compelling offer and a call-to-action
If a newsletter, include a header, a table of contents, a welcome, and multiple "departments"
Include a privacy statement
Include a disclaimer
Includes unsubscribe instructions
Make the message "short and sweet"
Use links
Avoid spam filter triggers ("Free", "opt-in", "!!!", "forward to a friend", 'Bcc', etc.)
Do not include attachments
Plaintext Emails
Precede URLs with "http://" and emails with "mailto:"
Limit the line width to 65 characters
HTML Emails
Use tables to control placement & avoid long lines
Embed a form to make it easy for the recipient to respond to the offer
Auto fill in as many form fields as possible
Do not use scripts
Do not use Flash
Do not stream video
Send HTML and plaintext together in multi-part MIME format
Personalizing
Greet the recipient by first name
Personalize the "Subject" line
Personalize the offer
Personalize the message copy
Ensure the "To" line contains the recipient's email address
Ensure the recipient can control the contact frequency
Send the email between 10 and 2 Tuesday through Thursday
Segmenting
Segment your list by demographics, psychographics, clickographics (visiting behavior and transaction history)
List Brokers
Avoid the use of purchased lists
If renting a list, ensure it is double opt-in, fastidiously clean of unsubscribes, and finely segmented
Testing
Get a control group
Vary only one thing at a time
Test the offer
Test the "Subject" line
Test the "From" line
Test the message copy
Test the layout
Test the message length
Test the timing
Test the contact frequency
Track the response rates of each test (making call-to-action URLs & e-mail addresses unique for each test group)
Tracking/Reporting
Measure the unsubscribe rate
Measure the bounce rate
Measure the unique open rate
Measure the total open rate
Measure the clickthrough rate
Measure the conversion rate
Measure the "individuals" clickthrough behavior
Automation
Handle bounces and unsubscribe requests automatically
This case study looks at Designer Exposure's
use of gravityMail for "New stock updates"
Clients include
"As the leading resource for marketing professionals, MarketingPower.com had outgrown
our system of blasting generic email campaigns, handling thousands of bounced emails,
and having no indication of success.
Then we started using gravityMail.
With gravityMail, sending personalized campaigns is so easy, even a non-technical
person like me can do it! We save hours of time on each campaign, while real-time
results give us powerful insights into improving our email success.
Any marketer searching for a "best-practice" email marketing solution
should consider using gravityMail. Our only regret is not having done so sooner!"
Bob Wallach, CEO MarketingPower.com (online division of American Marketing Association)
Recommended: Sign up to the newsletter and read the book,Successful
Email Marketing Your Complete How-To Guide, by Debbie Mayo-Smith.
Please note that gravityMail is for opt-in lists only - we do
not support spam or unsolicited email.
Any use of gravityMail for such purposes violates our Terms of Service.
