Email Marketing Success Factors

Email Marketing Success Factors
Building trust is the most important feature in an effective marketing program. Without trust, recipients are less likely to open or act on your emails, and are more likely to unsubscribe or file spam complaints. To build trust, ask only for the most necessary information at registration, and use a double opt-in system. This kind of system requires the subscriber to respond to a confirmation message, in order to ensure the subscription request was valid. Make sure your lists are good; unsolicited, incorrect, out-of-date or duplicated addresses affect both a campaign's performance and your company's reputation.

The timing of email delivery is important. Wednesday is the most popular day for opening emails, followed by Tuesday. There's an ongoing debate about whether plain text messages are more or less likely to succeed than HTML messages. There's data to support both schools of thought, and customers should be offered a choice. Some ISPs will block images, which can diminish the impact of an HTML email.

A simple rule is to communicate often, but not so often that your messages are annoying. On-line consumers are impatient, so use short paragraphs, and keep it simple. Always provide an opportunity for interaction, so the communication can be two-way; provide a link that will take the reader someplace where an action can be taken.

Use the right level of authentication technologies. ISPs have a variety of techniques for separating spammers from recognized senders, and you need to understand and comply with them. Make it easy for readers to perform administrative tasks (such as unsubscribe, change profile and contact). Also, be sure your messages are W3C HTML-compliant; if not, they risk being blocked, particularly at MSN and Hotmail.

Design your message with the Inbox in mind. An attention grabbing subject line is a must, and the fewer characters the better. HTML emails are handled differently in different email programs (AOL, EarthLink, Hotmail and Yahoo!), so be sure to test your message in multiple clients to spot bad links and identify copy that triggers spam filters. Follow good, user-friendly design principles. Don't frustrate your readers or they may decide to report you as a spammer, even if they have opted in.