Nine Ways to Keep Up With Increased Inbox Competition in 2009

photo by Gaetan Lee

I've talked about how companies are increasing spending on email marketing during the recession and how email marketing is more relevant than ever in 2009, so this will lead us to another point to discuss about email marketing this year.

With so many companies planning on INCREASING their email marketing expenditures because of it's affordable pricing and ROI, that means there is going to be increased COMPETITION as well.

Are your email marketing campaigns ready to face the increased competition? Will your email list messages stand out from all the others in your customers inbox? Let's review a few questions that will help judge the potential of your email campaigns:

1. What do your emails offer that the competition does not?
2. Are you offering short term value, long term value or both?
3. Is everyone in your company on the same page about you email marketing?
4. Are your emails reflective of your brand image?
5. Are your email campaigns well targeted?
6. Are you sending too many emails?
7. Are you offering clear benefits to signing up?
8. When you have and exceptionally good or exceptionally bad campaign, are you taking the time to find out WHY?
9. Do your email marketing campaigns have clear objectives?

Ask yourself these questions, discuss them with your sales team and find ways to improve your campaigns for 2009 so you can stand out from those full email inboxes and keep your customers opening your offers.

Companies Love Email Marketing During Recession

photo by Sharat Ganapati

Even as the economic climate has a lot of people watching their budgets carefully, email marketing remains at the top of many marketers lists as a favorite method of ad spend.

The reason is simple: Email Marketing continues to show a consistent return on investment.

When times are tough and budgets need to get cut, the last thing you want to do is cut spending on marketing campaigns that continue to show a positive return on investment for every dollar spent. It's low cost, targeted and measurable effective. That's not the type of thing anyone needs to be cutting their budget on.

Companies are still seeing results from their in house email lists. Your in-house email lists are interested customers who are interested in what you have to offer and have signed up to learn more and receive the benefits your products and services have to offer.

29% of marketers are planning on increasing their spend on email list rentals. These are email lists put together by outside companies and segmented by demographics so they can be rented to other companies. This reverses a trend of recent years where budgets for rented lists have shrunk. The recession though is causing people to reexamine list rentals and to realize that used correctly they still generate a good ROI and can boost your sales in tough times.

Contact Orange Email Marketing for a free consultation about our email list rentals, bulk email broadcasting and email marketing software.

Explode Open Rates with "Front Loaded" Subject Lines

photo by Scott Robinson

So far in my posts about email marketing subject lines, we've talked about the importance of keeping your subject lines short, words that can trigger spam filters and being clear about the contents of an email. I'm going to return to the matter of subject line length and talk about how to maximize the short amount of space you have.

Testing shows that shorter email marketing subject lines have better open rates. Keep it short and simple. This gets your point across quickly and a short subject line has less of a chance of getting cut off in the recipients email program.

One of the main reasons this works is because then you can trim the fat from your subject down to the basic essentials. The person on your email lists can tell right away who it's from and whether or not it's worth opening.

To sweeten the deal, "Front Load" your email messages with the "trigger words" that are most likely to get that point across and get the open. Let them know what the benefit to opening your email will be, and let them know within the first three words. You can see how I applied that same theory to this email marketing blog post, with "Explode Open Rates". That's something that all email marketers want, right?

Get that point across QUICK! Let them know there's a BENEFIT they will receive for opening your email.

For more information and a free consultation, contact Orange Email Marketing, a full service email marketing company.

If You Want Them to Open It, Tell Them What's Inside

photo by Chelsea Oaks

So you want the people on you email marketing lists to open your email? Tell them what's inside!

Sounds easy right? Well it should be yes but lots of people manage to botch this by not being clear in the subject line. Let's take a look at a few poorly written subject lines that just don't make things clear.

"You have to have one!" - One what?
"Extremely important announcement" - Sure it is! Sounds spammy.
"This is so Easy" - What is so easy?
"Top Secret Just for You" - What's this about again?
"Special CD ROM Offer" - Ooooo, I feel special.
"We have the answer" - Did I even ask you a question?
"You asked for more..." - Did I? Did I really? What was it I asked about again?

These just don't make it clear why I should open them. They have answers to questions that I didn't ask. They have less chance of being opened.

How about "Introducing the new Product X"
"Important Product Announcement from Email Marketing Blowout"
"Product X makes cleanup so easy"
"Exclusive Information for Email Blowout Subscribers"
"Free CD ROM for Product X Customers"
"Answers to common questions about the new Product X"
"You asked for more information about Email Marketing Lists"

These do make the subject lines a little longer but they provide information. They give you an idea what's inside. They help inform who it's from and why you may be interested.

Just be clear. No trickery needed. No sales pitch necessary. If you're sending your monthly newsletter than say "Email Blowout Monthly Newsletter" so people no what they're getting.

It is simple after all.

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Visit Orange Email Marketing for more email marketing solutions.

Words to Keep Out of Your Email Subject Lines

photo by Danny Hope

We've talked about how you should keep your email subject lines short, now lets talk about some words that you should KEEP OUT of your email subject lines. We'll spend a lot of time talking about how to get people to open you emails (All about the SUBJECT and FROM) but you also have to worry about your emails getting there in the first place.

You don't want your emails to get marked as spam, filtered out, and never make it into the inbox. Email marketing has been abused so much that many spam filters have designated certain words as "too spammy".

You may have a great opt in email list of people who want your emails, but if you use the following words in your email subject lines, they will trigger spam filters and never get there.

Words that will trigger spam filters if used in the subject line

$$$
100% free
cash bonus
ad
apply now
Earn $
earn extra cash
explode your business
double your income
eliminate debt
extra income
f r e e
You're a Winner!
fast cash
financial freedom
financially independent
free gift
free info
free membership
free offer
home based
homebased business
income from home
increase sales
increase your sales
incredible deal
info you requested
information you requested
internet market
limited time offer
make $
opportunity
serious cash
web traffic
weight loss
online marketing

Some of these sound like spam - I'm looking at you, "You're a Winner!" but others you might not realize could send you email to the spam folder.

This list is by no means complete. Spam filters have lists that continually grow over time as those spammers try new words to slip by and eventually get caught. I also didn't include the really obvious ones: "Viagra", "Cialis", "penis" and "increase your length". There's really no good reason to us these and if you were planning on using these, well... you're already a spammer anyway :-)

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Contact Orange Email Marketing for a free consultation about email marketing, bulk email software, email lists and online marketing.

Email Marketing Subject Lines - Keep it Short and Sweet

photo by Angie Schwendemann

Email Subject Lines! I could talk a lot about their importance in email marketing because they're the most important part of your campaigns. Your email message and offer is extremely important but many recipients will never make it that far if you don't have a good email subject line. Today we'll discuss the optimum length of your subject line.

In the general sense, shorter subject lines are associated with better open rates for your email marketing campaigns. This is a widely excepted general rule and with some testing, you will see the shorter subject lines will usually beat longer subject lines.

Too long of a subject line is worthless because it will end up cut off and unseen by the recipient. The display length will vary depending on the email program being used but you will be limited to somewhere between 45 - 75 characters.

Take advantage of that limited space. Your message has got to be short and sweet, convey the intended message and most importantly, entice that buy email list recipient to open it.

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For full service email marketing solutions, contact Orange Email Marketing for a free consultation.

How Many Emails is Too Many?

photo by Gaetan Lee

You've got your targeted email list. You've got permission. You've got content that you're sure you list is going to love, and lots of it. How many marketing emails should you send? How frequently should you send them?

There's no simple answer. A lot of you decision will be based upon your target audience and their buying cycle. This will differ for every business and you should know your customers best.

You certainly need to send more than one message. In direct mailing and advertising, three impressions is considered optimal for generating a response. The goal is to get them to think of you enough so that when it's time to make a purchase they'll think of your company.

The key to having your email marketing messages is that every one of them needs to offer value and usefulness to the recipient. The more sales-y and pressure filled language in the email and the more likely it will be perceived as unwanted. Your audience might be responsive to a strong sales message though. Most don't want the hard sell. Again, it's best to know your customer and what they want.

So what's the optimal number of emails to send a month? It's all up to you. Or better yet, you could leave it to your customers and offer them personalized frequency options, (daily, weekly, monthly, as needed basis). Tailor it right to your audience and you'll get the best results.

Contact Orange Email Marketing for full service email marketing, email marketing software and internet marketing consulting.

Define Your Email Objectives

photo by WoodleyWonderworks

So let's talk about defining your Email Marketing Objectives. What do you want to achieve from your email marketing campaign?

You probably want to make more money. You want to build your business. Those are general "wants" but what we want to define are the objectives. Your objectives should be easy to understand and also to measure.

Breakdown of the Most Common Email Marketing Objectives:

Market Research - You can collect data, demographics and the needs of your customers by conducting research through your email marketing lists. You could test the market potential of a new product before you've invested a lot of resources in it.

Brand Awareness - Trying to get people to pay attention to your company, build new relationships or offering your previous contacts something new.

Prospecting - Just like in traditional outside sales, your trying to reach and entice new customers and start the sales process with them.

Cross-Selling and Up-Selling - Existing clients that you may be able to offer additional products and services to.

Customer Management - You've already made the sale now you want to maintain and build a relationship.

Customer Retention - Keep them as a happy, satisfied customer. Maintain their loyalty and offer special rewards to keep them coming back.

Sales Promotions - Limited time special offers for your lists. A special price to entice them to buy now.

You will notice that many of these are interconnected. They also go beyond just a simple promotion. We're talking about using email marketing as a long term strategy, not a one time thing to make the sale. Your email lists can keep providing you value again and again.

Contact Orange Email Marketing for a free email marketing consultation.

Your Inactive Email Subscribers Still Have Value

photo by cabezadeturco

When any business sends out their email marketing messages, there's usually one specific goal in mind: Make a sale. I know from the clients I consult with, that everyone is obsessed with their click-throughs. That's understandable, as that's the easiest way to quickly judge a campaign. Email marketing click throughs are important but just because you did not make an immediate sale does not always mean the email campaign was unsuccessful.

A leading marketing research company MarketingSherpa decided to find out why some of their email list subscribers were not opening their emails. They did it the old fashioned way, by picking up the phone and calling up subscribers to ask "Why aren't you opeing are emails?".

You might expect to hear a lot of different reasons but the most common one they heard was:

"I like your email. Don't stop sending it. I may not always have time to read it, but I want it."

Surprising? It turns out that almost 40% of the names subscribed through their email list builder were actually "delayed response viewers" meaning they DID open their marketing emails but not on the first day, often waiting up to 30 days to open their emails.

That made me think, I do the same thing as well. I'm signed up to all kinds of marketing news and marketing "guru" lists. I get tons of emails every day. I simply CAN'T read them all because I'm too busy working. But I don't delete them all. When I get the chance, I often scroll through, look at the sender names and subject lines and click on the best ones. I value these emails, even if I can't read them when they first come in.

Just because someone didn't click through on the first day, doesn't mean they're a loss. As long as that person is still subscribed, you can assume they still want your emails. Make sure you're writing good subject lines, make sure you're including content that they would want, and you can still get that sale!

Contact Orange Email Marketing for full service email marketing.

Does Signing Up to Your Email List Offer Real Value?

photo by Saquan Stimpson

So what do I get if I sign up for your email list?

Ask yourself that, put yourself in the place of a visitor to your website. Using myself as an example, why should I sign up for your email list? So I can be bombarded by frequent email messages? No thanks. So I can sign up because I interested in one product but then get the hard sell on other services that I have no interest in? So my email inbox, which is so full that each day several messages go unread can have even MORE messages in it? NO THANKS!

Not that I'm not interested. I am visiting your site after all. I may really like your company and it's products. But if you want me to give you my email, what's in it for me?

Approach your email signup form or newsletter signup with that question in mind. People will gladly opt-in for your email marketing campaign if they think there a real benefit for it.

Here are a few enticements you can make that will increase your opt in email rates:

Give something immediately with signup - Give the person something as soon as they signup. Not just an email or a newsletter. Give them special coupon. A credit to their account. A gift sent to their home. Something to download such as a report, mp3, a video. There are really limitless possibilities but the point is GIVE THEM SOMETHING and make it INSTANT GRATIFICATION. No only will they be more likely to opt in but they've received value from you already and their first impression of you is favorable.

Tell them you won't share your address - So simple to overlook but this one increases signups EVERY time. In fact it's the most requested offer people want to hear. Chances are that your list is more valuable to your company than anyone else, so why sell it? Keep it to yourself and build a customer relationship and more sales. Let them know you don't sell your list and they won't start getting emails from every one of your affiliates and business partners.

Special Prices for Subscribers - People love getting a deal, and they love knowing they're getting a better deal then everyone else. Signup for your newsletter and take 5% off of every order.

Customize Email Frequency - Let them decide if they want weekly or monthly emails.

Sneak Previews of New Products or Early Ordering - Again, this is offering them something the "regular" customers don't get. Let your subscribers buy the product a month before everyone else can and they'll love you.


There are many more possibilities. The point is, they're giving you something, so you need to give them something if you want that email. From there it's only a matter of time before you make that sale.

Contact Orange Email Marketing for more Email Marketing Services

Too Many Emails Will Lose You Customers

Photo by Ricardo Liberato

You know I'm a big advocate of email marketing. I talk about it here every day. I make money with it and so do many of the clients I perform email marketing consulting with. So how do I feel about he email marketing messages that end up in my personal inbox?

The answer to that question will lead us to today's lesson: Don't send TOO MANY email messages.

Yes, there is definitely such a thing as too many email messages. Of course, this should be obvious, because you, much like myself, are deleting emails out of your inbox every day without ever reading them. Yet somehow, many of the email marketing campaigns run by some of the largest and most successful companies in the world fail to realize this.

Here's an example. I ordered a product online from a well known clothing retailer that you can find in major cities across the country. When I placed my order I was signed into their email list, which I had absolutely no problem with. I really like their products and check into their site when there are specials, because when not on sale their clothes are a little expensive for me. But when they send me an email, there's always a link to the "SALE" section of the site, which offers online only discounts. This sale link is another great thing to add to your email messages by the way. Promote your main offer, but include a couple other links of interest.

But the point is this: I am voluntarily opted into their email list. I really like this store. I really like their products. I WANT to receive messages from them. So what's the problem.

The problem is this: Over the course of the month of December, I began to receive DAILY emails from them. Every single day there would be a new email. Now, who really needs to receive a marketing email from store, even one that you like every single day? Maybe some people do, but I do not.

So I opted out. I withdrew myself from the email list of a company who's products I enjoy and who I had even wanted to receive emails from. But they abused my permission. They didn't have something valuable to offer in each message, they were just pestering me. This isn't what I wanted, and research shows it's not what most people want. The average customer is fine with one email a week. Five a week though is TOO MUCH.

Learn the lesson: If you abuse your opt in email lists, you're going to just anger the very people who you're trying to sell to. You're going to get people like me, who love your products and want to receive your emails, to say "Forget it!" and opt out. You're emails are going to get marked as spam, which will hurt the deliverability of all your marketing emails. You're going to lose customers and you're going to lose money.

SO DON'T ABUSE YOUR EMAIL LISTS!!!!

Contact Orange Spot Email Marketing for Email Marketing Software Pricing

Holiday Email Marketing Soars

photo by Martin Howard

Yesterday I wrote about how during a recession email marketing is more important than ever due to it's affordability and accountability. Today I can provide you data showing that the country's biggest retailers agree with me.

According to the Retail Email Index, email marketing volume for the nation's biggest retailers was up big time over the 2008 holiday season. Email messages sent out by the top 100 U.S. retailers was up 45% over 2007. Marketing messages in 2007 were up 42% over 2006. As you can see, email marketing usage continues to grow year by year.

Although volume was up, so were the number of emails that were blocked or had other deliverability issues. This just drives home the fact that you need to have a quality opt in email list that is receptive to your messages. You may want to segment your list even further to insure you don't lose subscribers. Just because someone opted in for one of your lists, doesn't mean they wanted to receive every email your company sends out. Create separate email lists so that your customers stay happy. A few unwanted emails and you could lose that contact for good.

Contact Orange Email Marketing for information on email list rental today.

Why Email Marketing is More Relevant Than Ever in 2009

Photo by Peter Kaminski

Is Email Marketing in your advertising mix for 2009? Are you thinking email is sooooooo been done, nobody reads it anymore? If so, it's time to adjust your thinking, because email marketing usage continues to grow, even as other marketing budgets shrink.

Why is that? It's not because it's a fad, email is well established now and not just the "next big thing" like Twitter is now and Second Life two years ago. Email marketing has been used and abused for so long it just seems like old hat to some people.

Everyone else though, is still using it. Many, many people and companies are using email marketing to make big money. Others are using it for promotion, branding, list building, advertising and lead acquisition..... which in the long run will make you more money.

At the start of 2009, as advertising budgets are shrinking, many companies are INCREASING their email marketing budget. Why is that? Because email marketing is cheap, highly traceable and accountable for every dime that is spent. When you compare the price of a TV ad to the price of email marketing, it's not even close. You can reach tens of thousands of customers instantly with email, and you will know exactly how many of them viewed it, visited your site and spent money. No other media spend can give you that kind of certainty.

If you have been ignoring or underutilizing your email marketing efforts, it's time to look at this medium again. Find Custom Email Marketing Solutions with Orange Email Marketing.