Email Marketing Guidelines and Tips

Email marketing can help you reach your target audience faster.

According to Constant Contact, an online email marketing service provider, email marketing is a strategy in which you use professional-looking electronic communications to stay in touch with customers and build relationships with them. There is a lot to know about email marketing when first starting out. Learning a variety of guidelines and tips can help you develop an effective campaign.

Set Expectations

Before asking people to sign up for your email marketing communications, tell them what they will get. Communicate the benefits of signing up to your emails. Also, let users know how often they can expect to receive the communication piece.

Give Something of Value

According to Smashing Magazine, consider giving some type of reward to users for signing up to receive your email communications such as a free gift, voucher or discount on your product or service. If you're going to give away something of value, let users know as soon as possible in the sign-up process.

Know the Law

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 outlines requirements for sending commercial email. There are certain penalties and guidelines for what constitutes "spam," or unwanted email. For example, you can't use false or misleading header information in your emails or use deceptive subject lines, and you must identify the message as an ad, tell recipients where you're located and tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Review these guidelines thoroughly before developing any type of email marketing campaign.

Be Concise and Interesting

When reading email, many of your customers and potential customers will simply scan for areas that interest them. The "Email Newsletter Usability Report" from Nielsen Norman Group concluded the average reader skims a newsletter for 51 seconds. For this reason, email messages should be concise. Use simple language over complex language, brief sentences and short paragraphs. Break up content with bullets and numbers. Perhaps most important, ensure your content is relevant and intriguing. This means send emails that your customers want to read. For example, if you sell a dietary supplement, send your email subscribers weekly health tips and recipes rather than just ads for your products.

Test

According to Campaign Monitor, there is continual change among many email providers such as Yahoo!, Hotmail and Gmail, so it's important to test and re-test your email designs on a regular basis. Conduct a quick test every month to make sure your email designs look professional for various email providers.

References

• Smashing Magazine: Email Newsletter Design: Guidelines And Examples
• Campaign Monitor: Designing and Building Emails
• Microsoft Office: Tips On E-mail Marketing
• Constant Contact: What Is Email Marketing?
• Federal Trade Commission: The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
• Nielsen Norman Group: Email Newsletter Usability