1. Choose a good email marketing vendor
If you have a business, you’ll probably want to communicate to your customers on a regular basis. You can offer special deals, announce new or featured products, or share the latest news about your company. Choosing an email marketing vendor can seem difficult but it really doesn’t have to be. There are many good vendors out there that cater to businesses like yours. We recommend you checkout MailChimp. It is free up to 2,000 contacts and integrates well with WordPress.
2. Scrub-a-Dub
Make sure your email list is nice and clean. So what does that mean? Well, you should try to “scrub” your list by removing duplicates or emails that look generic like “info@somewhere.com”. These emails often end up in “black holes” or are even considered SPAM by many email systems. Also make sure your list is comprised of only opt-in users. You certainly don’t want to be marked as a SPAMMER. Reputation is everything, right?
3. Templates are your friends
Don’t hit each email with a blank slate. Create or find an email template that you can customize with your own branding and reuse. This creates consistency with the look and feel and improves usability of your communications. In other words, recipients will know what to expect and where to find the content they are most interested in when you send them an email. Most email marketing vendors have built-in templates to choose from and auto-populate the footer with any subscription info and social links.
4. Content Do’s & Don’ts
It always makes me crazy when I receive an email that is basically one BIG graphic. So why does this make me cringe? Well first it comes off a bit lazy, especially with all the options available for sending emails. Second, people may want to block images on their mobile devices, so your email will look empty when it arrives. And third, it doesn’t allow you to guide people to different content areas on your website or social outlets. So, use real text in your emails as much as possible. There are plenty of areas where graphics can be used to make the email look all your own. If the template layout is good, you will already know the size and position for each graphic. And to make creating content even easier, create an email strategy and marketing calendar to forego the “mad scramble.”
5. So, How did it go?
Try to get into the routine of checking to see how your email was received, how many emails bounced, how many click-throughs you received, what content was most popular, what was shared, etc. Maybe even follow-up with some recipients and ask them for some feedback. This will help you “dial-in” your communications better and increase engagement and interest in your emails.