Writing for Effective Email Marketing

The most important part of marketing email is its message. Having a compelling message is crucial to its success. Crafting this message follows the same kinds of strategies that other marketing media would. Messaging, positioning and branding is beyond the scope of this newsletter. We can, however, highlight issues specific to writing and crafting email messages.

Odd spellings using alternative characters like the number one in place of an "I" is a dead give away that an email is spam. CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS are also indicative of spam. As are random numbers added to subject lines. There are other evil techniques used by spammers like teaser subject lines such as "Re: Hey." This kind of subject line might make me think that I'd sent an email to a friend with the subject "Hey" and that this is their response. While any genuine and professional email marketing would not stoop to such lows, it's good to remember, when crafting a subject line, that recipients have been trained to look suspiciously at every email subject. So be as clear as possible about who the email is from and why it's being sent. If the offer is appropriate and your list well-qualified, a clearly labeled subject line is best.

Spam emails often come with "from" fields with addresses like "vmtwjivyqmpnqprg@yahoo.com" or "bulker8080351711@hotmail.com." One of the problems bulk emailers have is that they need to automate so many emails. This requires generating "from" addresses on the fly. These obviously bogus email addresses are a quick giveaway that the email is spam and cause the recipient to hit the delete key right away. Make sure an email's "from" field contains an actual name or email address, and that it is clearly an email address of the company that sent it. If you are renting a list (see below) and the list provider takes responsibility for sending the actual email (which is most often the case) you will need to ask about how the "from" field will read.

Personalization helps get an email read. When the "from" field and the subject line are both specific and appropriate, the next place a person will look to decide if the email is spam or not is the body of the email. If the first line or so has a personal salutation with the person's name it will at least encourage the person to read a bit further. Another way to personalize an unsolicited (but appropriate) email is to include your name and contact information. If I receive an email that is introduced by a real person and their email address and phone number is included in the email, I never consider it spam. Even if I am not interested, or even if it's off target, personal contact information tells me that a real person sent the email, not a blast email system.

When sending out emails you must consider whether or not to send the email in HTML or in plain text. Most people can read HTML emails these days. Sending an email in HTML does provide you with the opportunity to design the email, making it more attractive. A text email has some benefits in that it loads almost instantaneously so recipients can decide quickly to either respond or delete it. This is a courteous practice. But if HTML formatted email is used, make sure the graphics are light weight and not overly used.   next >