E-mail marketing that works

Email communications make the world go around in the 21st Century… especially the business world. With e-mail, it's possible to communicate advertising and marketing messages to clients and prospects without spending a lot of money. E-mail enables even small companies to participate in the big profits of big business.

For the most part, e-mail deliverability isn't rocket science. There are some technical 'settings' and 'tweaks' that you should entrust to an IT professional. However, you can control many of the factors that determine your e-mail deliverability. And how you choose to exercise that control goes a long way towards determining whether your message is welcomed into a recipient's e-mail box or deleted without even being opened.. or is tagged as spam long before it ever reaches its destination.

This comment focuses on things any business can do to improve success.

Do: build an opt-in subscriber list

Who would you rather do business with: the person who politely asks, "May I tell you about my product?" or the person who grabs your arm and starts screaming in your ear without asking permission? The answer is obvious, but e-mail marketing is so inexpensive that many business owners get seduced into sending unsolicited sales messages. And in the process, they lose credibility.

E-mail deliverability starts with permission, and no matter what sort of "assurances" you may get from someone offering to sell you an e-mail list, you don't have the permission of someone on a purchased list to e-mail them. If people haven't given you explicit permission to e-mail them, your marketing messages will be treated like what they are: spam.

Do: offer something of value

Instead of buying lists of e-mail addresses, invest your marketing dollars on something that will create 'friends' for your business, not enemies. A free information campaign where you ask people to subscribe to get a free report or something else of value to prospective customers is an ideal way to build an opt-in list of your own. Provide your subscribers with valuable, relevant content, and you'll be much more likely to keep getting your messages to them.

Do: make your intentions clear

From the point that subscribers opt in to your e-mail list, let them know:

- How often they can expect to hear from you

- What kind of content they can expect to receive

- What your message looks like

By clearly setting and then meeting expectations, you drive your subscribers to not only trust you as a reliable business partner, but also to anticipate your messages and to do what they can (adding you to their address book, contacting you if they miss a message) to make sure your e-mail s reach their inboxes.

Do: protect your reputation

Long-run deliverability derives largely from reputation, and your reputation comes from your subscribers. Want an easy way to get a bunch of spam complaints and unsubscribes? Send e-mails that don't contain the type of content your subscribers expect to receive from you, in the format they expect, on the timeline they expect.

Don't: fall into the trap

Certain words and phrases such as 'free' and 'get rich' are heavily associated with spamming. If you use them in an e-mail subject line, you increase the likelihood of your message being tagged as spam and being automatically filtered out (deleted) by a spam trap. Even an innocent subject line like 'Are You Free for a Meeting' could trigger a spam filter.

- The author is Digital Marketing Consultant at WSI. The views expressed are his own

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.