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Email Marketing Best Practice Checklist
Here is a list of best practices to assist in your email marketing plans.
If you are thinking about starting email marketing this is a good resource for
"where to begin". If you are a current email marketer, it
will ensure you are following the best practices and guidelines
required to make your
campaigns a success.
Get your message read. If you send in HTML make sure to have a link to a hosted version of your
message on a website, this way even if images do not appear in email client, your customer can still
view them.
When sending a newsletter always keep a consistent look or template and
keep the from email address the same.
Ask your customers to add you to their address list or white list to ensure
your email gets delivered.
Have a sign-up box on every page of your website and in your newsletter, check out our free tools
section for advice on what to use.
If you think your emails campaign has not been successful or wondering if
it has been effective. Call your customers and follow-up to ensure your message
is received, this is also a great
way to up-sell as well as personalize your company image.
Make sure you ask for your customers email addresses in your hard copy, print and other mediums
of advertising. Tell them what you will be sending them and how often.
Make sure your emails look similar to your website and overall branding image. Business cards,
letterheads and signs all reflect your company – so should your emails.
Test your emails in various email clients. You should have test accounts
set-up to verify the look of your email for your end recipients.
Proof read your entire message including the subject line and from email
address.
Test all your links and "mailto:" links before mailing. Also, ensure you
have included an unsubscribe
link in your message.
Email newsletters should be keep to one screen/page in length. You can always
link to your website
to drive more traffic and allow viewing of more information.
Fit your newsletter inside of a predetermined screen width so that most viewers will see
without scrolling.
Give access to old newsletters (archives) in the current message. Often
if you like what
you are digesting you will look for more.
Create strong, intriguing and relationship building subject lines for your emails.
Keep the message on a personal and casual tone. Try to think like a customer, we all have
preferences when using the internet and reading our emails create your message with this in mind.
Be genuine, this is a relationship building process.
Do not base your email marketing success on one, two or even three campaigns. Reviewing
the overall performance is important. So many factors can affect your results when using
the internet;from filters, blacklists, poorly written content to even major events occurring
such as an election or power outage. Track your campaigns to watch how they develop over the long term.
Ask for feedback and suggestions from your readers.
Know your competitors and sign up for their email tips and newsletters.
Keep your bounce backs in control, managing your lists allows for ease of sending and
better overall performance with most email marketing tools and software.
Talk to your business associates, finding out what tools are working with their campaigns.
Refer to colleagues and associates any good products, services and software that
you find, becoming an affiliate will even give you something back.
Make sure you put your full physical mailing address in every email.
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