E-mail marketing: top tips to attract click-happy readers

A recent mailout from our sister site UKBike.com

After a long day at the office, coming home to an inbox full of irritating advertising will have you reaching for the delete key quicker than you can say 'spam'. E-mail marketing, therefore, is an exact science. A quick web search will bring up a host of marketing gurus who offer tips for successful mailout campaigns, such as Dave Chaffey; not to mention the abundance of agencies who offer to deliver your message effectively to the right people on your behalf.

That's not to say that e-mail campaigns cannot be created in-house. Done correctly, e-mail marketing is a very cost-effective tool in communicating with customers old and new. The return on investment (ROI) rate for e-mail campaigns remains consistently high, as small businesses discover the most effective techniques in content and layout to convert a humble e-mail address into a paying customer.

Mailouts require skill and intrigue to ensure that your latest campaign isn't one step away from the Deleted Items folder, as these tips demonstrate...

Familiarity breeds contempt
The contempt from the recipient will be particularly venomous if you continually bombard customers with six e-mails a day. It's the old pestering problem, and if you're constantly keeping your client base updated with all sorts of trivial information, it's akin to a kid pestering a parent on the road with "are we there yet?" Bombarding your customers into submission isn't going to work, while a crisp, to-the-point e-mail every once in a while may win them over in the long run.

Creativity isn’t a crime...
Most marketing e-mails are boring, and the majority of recipients will lose interest after the first few lines. Make it stand out from the crowd – a quirky approach that subtly hammers home the point might just be the tonic. Needless to say, a well-crafted subject line that avoids spam keywords such as 'free' and 'money' will go a long way to grabbing the recipient's attention.

...but stay on message
Is your e-mail relevant to the recipient? Is he or she really going to care about the great work your company is doing in the community? Study trends and feedback to discover what it is your recipients want to know. One often-overlooked technique is to apply Google's Analytics tracking tool to the links within your message, as demonstrated here by Dave Chaffey; this provides a thorough report on how the e-mail was handled by the recipient, information that can be vital in planning future mailouts.

Finally, data collection
Put simply, you need to find out how many people subscribe willingly to your mail list. Plenty of people might 'drop in' to enter a competition, but it is more effective to target the more pro-active user base, those who are most likely to be converted into regular customers.

There are plenty of e-mail marketing resources online, and we certainly recommend a look at the walk-through guides provided by Business Link, The Messaging Times and EmailTools.co.uk.

Do you own an SME that has created your own e-mail campaigns? Have you used any particular software or agencies, and if so, how effective were they? As ever, the Friday-Ad Business Blog wants to hear your experiences – please leave your comments below, or e-mail us at businessblog@friday-ad.co.uk.