Remember, the success of any email marketing program depends on genuinely compelling content. Make sure yours is nicely loaded with cookie content so readers begin to be trained to open everything you send.
If you don’t build this trust and credibility with great content, other techniques won’t work very well, but there are a few practical things you can do to give your messages the best possible fighting chance.
1. Use a single warm, personal message early on
It creates a really nice rapport with your list.
Early in your message sequence (I usually put it at message two), include a cheerful, warm, individual-sounding message. Something informal, like, “Hey, really good to see you here, hope you enjoy the content.”
You’re not trying to fool anyone that this was an individually typed message for that recipient, but you are trying to create the same feeling of personal relationship. Invite questions, comments, and feedback at this point, and let them know that you’d love to hear from them.
2. Conversations have two sides
Make sure you’ve got somebody monitoring any replies to your email marketing, and that that person is giving thoughtful, personal replies to each message they get.
It’s also smart to use an individual person’s name in the “From” field, rather than the name of a company. Anything you can do to capitalise on the intimate nature of email just makes sense.
3. Pay attention to spam triggers, but don’t obsess
With our new email tool we get automatic spam hot buttons which flag up words or phrases likely to push your email into a black hole! If you are sending your own email, make sure that you are not using words or phrases which can be blocked - some of them are obvious, like pharmaceutical brand names.
Others are annoying, because they tend to be the words and phrases that have the most selling power. For example, links that say "click here" can make your content look a little spammer to the filters, precisely because savvy marketers know how to create better calls to click here to get better results.
This is one good reason to put a long sales message onto a landing page, rather than an individual email message. The last thing you want to do is to use less persuasive language just to keep a spam filter happy.
Always remember that you’re writing for people, not filters. When you make your readers happy and deliver the content they need and want, no spam filter can stop you.
Have fun.
