Showing posts with label best practices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best practices. Show all posts

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Email Marketing Basics That Always Improve Results



In life, many times the "basics" still work. Saying please and thank you, treating others how you wish to be treated, drink water to be healthy, everything in moderation; so many of these things still apply.

In email marketing, the basics still work also. You need to make your campaigns look better for the boss? Let's go over a few basics that will always improve the results of any campaign.

  • Scrub Your List - If you're wasting your time and resources sending to people who have no interest in what you offer, this will save time and increase both response and deliverability. Remove names from your email address list which have bounced three consecutive times.
  • Segment Your List - So you've got a nice big list that you own. What if you could break your email list rental down into 6-10 segments which you can now send more customized relevant emails to? Your response rates will go up, guaranteed. You opt-outs will also drop.
  • Find the Perfect Frequency - If you send too many emails you're asking for trouble. What is best for you? It depends on your market. Once again, the best thing to do is TEST. It might be once a month, twice a month or once a week. Test the response, track your results and then stick with your schedule.
  • Send Emails on the Right Days - What are the right days? We've been seeing good results on Mondays and Tuesdays. Some clients actually see good results on Saturdays. Others on Thursday. Again, test for the best response and then stick to that day.
If you always follow these rules you'll always see the best results. Keep track of your data from your email blast software so you can see what is working and then stick to it. Sure your new campaign may be brilliant and your anxious to send it today, but if your data shows it's better to wait until Monday, then wait, or you're just lowering your success rate.

To learn how you can use OrangeFire Email Marketing Software to manage your email newsletter campaigns, please contact Orange Email Marketing.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Words to Keep Out of Your Email Subject Lines


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.