Get More From Your Email Marketing Campaign

If you own a website chances are you engage in some sort of email marketing. This form of marketing is affordable and can be extremely effective when done right; however doing it right isn’t nearly as easy as one might think. Read on for three essential points that could seriously enhance the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign today!

1.) Are You Sending Out Emails At The Right Time?

Have you ever taken a close look at your website traffic? If you have you will have noticed that it varies according to time, day and date. Exactly which time, day and date your site receives the most visitors will depend on your industry and target market. Your email marketing campaign is affected by similar variables; depending on the time, day and date you send out your emails you are likely to get different opening rates. No matter what the target market of your business here are a few general rules to observe.

If you are targeting work email addresses, Monday is not a good day to send as spam tends to accumulate over the weekend. This increases the chances of your email being overlooked or deleted. Friday is also not recommended, people are either rushing to complete work before the weekend or rushing to get out of the office early. Finally, early in the morning or late in the afternoon are also not recommended. Try increasing your opening rate by sending on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 10am and 2pm.

If on the other hand the majority of your database consists of personal email addresses, try sending in the evening when people are home from work or alternatively at the weekend.

There are no hard and fast rules, only repeat testing will reveal the best time, day and date to send. Speed up your testing by sending your next marketing email to different segments of your database and different times.

2.) Does Your Subject Line Provoke Interest?

Every email you send out is competing for attention, it has to compete with other promotional offers, work emails, personal email and even spam. Make sure your title provokes interest and screams to be opened.

Your title should let the reader know what they can expect while at the same time creating a feeling of curiosity. “The Work Pad quarterly newsletter” doesn’t accomplish this; “How to pick the work from home job for your personality” does. Creating a time sensitive offer is also an excellent way to increase openings, try a title like this: “Sign-up as an Affiliate – get $25 free – offer valid till 12pm tonight!”

Just as with delivery time, divide your database up into groups and test the opening rate of different titles; you’ll be amazed at the difference.

3.) Does Your Email Contain A Clear And Effective Call To Action?

The first two points are both designed to increase openings, but what happens after that? Depending on your business you might be trying to make a sale, encourage a sign-up or simply create a sales lead to be followed up later. Whatever your goal, make sure every marketing email you send out has a clear and effective call to action. To make sure your call to action is calling loud enough, try the following:

• Place a call near the top of the page, this ensure it is displayed in the preview window
• Try placing more than one call on the page; placing one near the top of the page, in the sidebar and near the footer will ensure it isn’t missed
• HTML newsletters generally get a better response than plain text newsletters. If you are using plain text try switching to HTML. Either get a designer to build one for you or use one of the ready-to-go templates offered by providers such as Email Brain or AWebber
• People’s concentration time is limited. Shorter more focussed emails generally receive a better response. Promote a select few products at a time, or even better promote a single product to a select group of customers
• Finally, depending on what product you sell you might consider marketing through story telling; sign-up to Perry Marshall’s newsletter for the best example of this. Perry usually pitches one select product at a time by telling an interesting story or lesson first, the story or lesson neatly leads into the sale of the product. I regularly find myself reading to the end of his emails