50 Email Marketing Tactics Part 1

Email is a wonderful business tool that, if used properly, will enhance
your sales and marketing efforts significantly. Try these methods to
get the most out of email communications:

1. Use permission lists only.
2. If you buy a list, make sure it is qualified – that is, those email
addresses are valid and they belong to people who have opted in to
receive emails on products like yours.
3. Ideally, build your own list.
4. Include an opt-in page on your web site, so people can sign up to
receive email communications from you.
5. As an incentive, offer customers something free in exchange for
signing up – a one time discount code, or a free ebook.
6. Make it easy to opt out or update an email address.
7. Only ask for the information you need – too many questions puts
people off.
8. Adopt a formal policy about how the data will be used, and make
sure each subscriber has to read those terms before opting in.
9. Honor those terms, no matter what.
10. Put a cap on the number of emails you send each subscriber –
once a week is likely to be welcomed, but three times a week may
cause people to opt out.
11. Set up your system to flag addresses after so many failed
delivery attempts; this will make it easier to keep your email list
clean and up to date.
12. Avoid attachments; many people won’t open them.
13. Go for something that will work in the body of an email.
14. Offer plain text as well as HTML to accommodate different
loading speeds.
15. Set up a reply email, so your subscribers can reach you when
they want to respond to the email.
16. Consider using a newsletter format for your email
communications.
17. Subscribe to a few email newsletters, so you can see how others
are using the medium.
18. Make notes on what type of newsletter formats seem to grab
your attention.
19. Ask others for their opinion of which newsletters they like, and
why.
20. Don’t send email communications when there is nothing new to
say. Repetition will only cost you subscribers.
21. Make the content of the email interesting.
22. Avoid the appearance of being spam, by not using all capital
letters in the title for the email, or announcing "Free" in the title
line.
23. Do always make sure the subscriber’s name appears in the "To"
field. It’s more personal.
24. Look into using email programs that automatically include the
subscriber’s name in the body of the email.
25. Keep it short and sweet. Rambling emails, even if they are
newsletters, are likely to be closed and deleted without being read.