Tips On Building Your Email Reputation & Avoid Becoming Spam

Email campaigns can be the single most effective marketing tactic in the modern business world, but getting marked as a spammer can be a serious detriment.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to make it to the top, with the proliferation of spam campaigns and internet service providers cracking down on business email.  One in every five corporate emails never reaches the recipient's inbox, finding itself either in the spam box, or blocked altogether. 

Small businesses are the most often affected by these spam filters; even willing recipients often are missing their business updates.  Many new businesses start with the wrong tactics with their email marketing campaign.  Many saturate the inboxes with generalized ads that tend to cause irritation in most customers.  Adversely, many companies do not send enough messages to be put on Internet service Providers message lists that prevent many of these problems.

Here are some things to keep in mind with your internet marketing.

Polish Your Reputation

Filters often look closely at particular spam methods, so write an interesting, unique add.  ISPs track your spam saturation, much in the same way credit reports track your score.  Email providers ticket your score through a number of methods, but the most common is the report spam option.  If approximately one in a thousand messages is reported, your emails may never reach inboxes. 

Use Your Own Lists

Avoid buying cold-call email lists, as many may be spam catching addresses that can automatically dock your reputation.  It may be time consuming but building your own lists of customers via surveys can be extremely beneficial.  Ask them in your survey what kind of emails the wish to receive.  If they subscribe to your newsletter but not advertisements, you should honor that or risk harming your ISP reputation.  Consider also, that segmenting lists based on your surveys will keep your customers reading.

If you’re looking for a little extra guidance in creating an excellent email campaign Guest Contact is ready to help. 

Six Things Not To Do With Your Email Marketing Campaign

When you first start an email campaign things can be tricky and confusing.  When done well you’ll see high quality results.  It’s important that you take the time to make sure you’re not doing any of the ‘No-Nos’ below:

 

DON’T Target a Broad Audience.

Most business promotions target a sweeping customer base, but often this can lead to more woes.  Create a sign-up survey when customers subscribe.  Create your advertisements based on the answers provided.  If you can’t ask, create ads that target a specific sub-group of customers.

DON'T Stop Testing.

Email marketing is a perfect testing ground for what products are catching people’s eye.  When you change an email campaign, try sending both the old and new versions, and see what receives more responses.  In certain cases, plain text may work better for you, but testing the waters is a simple thing to do.

DON'T Ignore Unsubscribers.

You can learn quite a bit from customers unsubscribing.  They will often be open and tell you what wasn’t working for them.  Create a survey for unsubscribes and see what your business may be lacking.

DON'T Make Response Difficult.

Keep it simple, if you have two statements or call to actions, it is too many.  Try to localize and specialize specific emails to target your audience directly.  Causing your customer to think, makes them less likely they will act.  Keep your goals simple, and your response will be simply amazing.

DON'T Overlook Smartphones:

Three-quarters of smartphone users check their email hourly, so do not overlook the importance of that market.  Tailor messages to cell phone users.  Remember to make links larger, as it is more difficult to find and click them if they are miniscule.  If you frustrate or fail to target mobile phone users, they will be less likely to purchase your product, and may even think less of your brand in the future. 

DON'T Spam.

If your email marketing is successful, you may be tempted to saturate inboxes for short term sales.  But be wary, sending too many emails can be a detriment to long term sales.  Users may unsubscribe because of clogged inboxes, or worse, report your ad as spam.

For more tips on creating a sizzling email campaign contact Guest Contact today.

Four Significant Ways To Make Your Email Marketing Stand Out

Email marketing still holds a prominent place, even with today's social media scene.  The amount of email marketing messages stayed at unprecedented levels this summer and according to some sources, business e-mail volume should grow about 20 percent just this year, due to more customers moving away from standard paper and print letters.

That makes your job all the more difficult.  Your restaurant is now competing with literally millions of ads, which means you must be deliberate when creating email marketing.  Here are a few tips how to make your email really stand out.

1.  Create a Full List

This is an important but easily missed point: Make sure you're targeting your potential customers.  By checking your open rates, you can discern if your list is outdated.  The market average is about twenty percent.  If you are not achieving that, you may need to organize your list; however some markets differ on these statistics.  Click-through and external link views can also be a good bellwether, but the open rate is generally the most important

 2.  Throw a Curveball

Try sprucing up your emails with unexpected quips.  Perhaps try segmenting your list to target those customers that haven't opened your emails in a while.  This may draw interest back to your campaign.  It may be tempting to send to these unresponsive customers and it can be difficult to delete these addresses but, speak to those that want to listen.

3.  Use your Images

Try using your own images.  Use corporate photos or staff models.  Your imagery doesn’t need a polish- real world photos often grab more attention.  Many elements make some email clients slow or unresponsive, so be careful. 

4.  Make it Easy to Read

Remove the jargon.  Try to communicate on a human level.  Simple speech is more likely to be read and responded to.  Making your call to action obvious may also help, and always use first-person to grab attention.

If you have more questions on how to create a great meal, contact Guest Contact today.

Four Strategic Places Where You Can Build Your Email Marketing List

Image courtesy by KROMKRATHOG at freedigitalphotos.net

You can learn all you want to about writing great emails but if you don’t develop a fantastic list of addresses to send these emails to you won’t have much success.  You need to develop a good following of people who want your messages.  Here are some ways to spread the word:

Build Opt-ins

 

Get them on your home page as well as in your emails to make it easier for people to sign-up.  Make sure to have links for your clients to easily share with their friends and people they think will like your page.  You can even offer coupons and discounts when they share your newsletter with a friend or more. 

Don’t Forget The Opt-In For Your Check-Out

You’ll have to make sure that your clients have a chance to opt-in for your email at their check out.  Then make sure your website has several places that will direct your traffic flow to check out and the pages in between should also have places to opt-in.  The best way to make sure you are able to get all the opt-ins possible is to make access to the page very easy to find. 

Place Opt-ins At The Comments Section

Another perfect spot for your opt-ins is near the comment section of your blog.  You’ll likely build a good following here with plenty of posts and people starting to follow.  Soon there’ll be comments and a thriving community.

If You Use Social Media

If you have Twitter or Facebook make sure to share the link to your email Opt-in.  It’s good to offer something by way of interesting fact or joke to lead them to your opt-in.  By making sure to offer plenty of chances for your readers to find your newsletter and spots where they can sign-up you’ll increase the amount of people your newsletter is exposed to.