Ask Aunt May: Improving Email Marketing

What’s the simplest thing that can I do to improve my email marketing program in 2006?

Need direction,

Langley, BC.

A: Dear Direction;

Hmph! That depends on who you are. To answer your question, I dug deep into the vault where I keep my most treasured possessions – examples of the most embarrassing email campaigns of 2006 – to compile a list of New Year’s Resolutions for you to follow. Here they are – 6 Simple Rules for getting email right.

• Use some text content. Email is meant to be read. Therefore, it makes sense to include some text. You’d think this would be obvious. It’s not. At least three major Canadian companies routinely send HTML emails where the copy is embedded in a graphic. This means that many readers won’t see anything but broken images. Now that’s a brand message your competition won’t want to copy.
• Proof your copy! Suck and such are NOT the same word and your word editing software won’t catch the error. Human eyes need to read (yes read – what can I say it’s a theme!) your email campaigns before they go out. Take the time to proof your copy and avoid some embarrassing mistakes.
• Test ALL your links. Yes, I did actually receive email campaigns this year where the link to the privacy statement, or worse, the unsubscribe was broken. Can you say amateur?
• Take PROOF out of the subject line before you send. OK – if you’ve got any kind of decent email management tool, this is taken care of automatically. Or it should be. But I’ve heard of at least one major mailer that had some real problems with this issue in 2005. Your customers don’t want to get proofs.
• Track your open and click-through rates. Really, there are tools out there that can do this for you. And I’m astounded when I receive email from any business where it’s obvious from the URLs within the message that they aren’t measuring response. How do you know it’s working?
• Scrub your list. Newsflash – it’s 2006. If your email marketing tool is unable to automatically handle replies and bounces, it’s time to come out of the Stone Age. The rest of us have been here for years and we love it!I know – you’re thinking that five of these are no brainers, and the sixth is – well, you know you should but you’ve got a really good excuse. That’s why they’re listed here. Every one of these things is covered in chapter one of Email Marketing 101 – a Newbie’s Guide. Which is exactly why they’re the most embarrassing mistakes of 2005.Aunt May