What is the value of an email address? What you pay to have one email address from someone in your target market?
The fact is businesses pay for email lists each day and most of the lists just aren't that valuable. To really maximize your email campaigns follow these few steps from Paul Chaney.
- Make the integrity of your list your number one goal: Double opt-in techniques will help make your list more valuable to you.
- The Subject Line is Key: Spam and overcrowded inboxes are the problem. You have about two seconds to appeal to your audience. Check your subject line through a spam checking service like Spam Assassin (spamassiassin.apache.org) before you send. MarketingSherpa reported on a study that reveals that the boring subject lines with your company name in the subject have a much higher open rate.
- Provide a Call to Action: Ask them to do something, and make it easy for them to do it.
- Don't Over Mail your List: There is no concrete answer to how often you should send email. Monitor your conversion data and open rates - if they drop off you might consider mailing less frequent (or more frequent).
- HTML vs. TEXT ONLY: This used to be an issue, but today nearly every email client can receive HTML. One thing to note, however, is not to include all of your text within an image. Make sure there is plenty of text to offset the "text only" default view of most email programs.
Lastly, how well are you doing with your email campaigns? Do you have a list of subscribers that are valuable to you? Do you have any good tips, suggestions, or lessons learned that you would like to share?
