As someone who receives at least 300 emails a day, not to mention pokes, tweets, texts, etc, I am constantly replying, deleting, forwarding, creating email inbox rules and even critiquing emails all day long. While most of my emails are business related, I receive many, many “marketing messages,” some that I’ve signed up for and some that are unsolicited.
While most of my SPAM is filtered out automatically, as a digital marketer, I do enjoy seeing what people are pitching, selling, promoting, and marketing. What consistently shocks me is how awful many of these emails are: untargeted, irrelevant and just down right ugly! Many times it looks like there was not a designer involved or that the person creating the email simply took a print ad or flyer and cut and pasted it into the email.
Following are a few basic principles for creating emails that are effective communication devices and will actually yield you favorable results.
- The “list” is the No. 1 most important aspect of any e-mail campaign. In-house lists will always out-perform a bought list.
- CAN SPAM laws need to be taken seriously. Know how your list is compiled and make sure the recipients have opted-in to receive communications.
- Decent open rates are 5 percent for bought lists and 15 percent for house lists.
- Click through rates will vary by industry and by e-mail type (newsletter vs. promotional).
- The best open rates are typically on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but this will vary by industry. (for example, restaurants may do better toward the end of the week.)
- It’s best to send the e-mail so it reaches their inbox by 7 a.m
- TEST. TEST. TEST. (Subject lines, links, offers, creative, days of week, time of day, compatibility with different browsers… everything!)
