"How To Get Your Email Messages Read!"

 

Face it – there’s so much SPAM floating around – it gives anyone doing legitimate e-mail marketing the proverbial double whammy. Not only do you have to convince your readers you aren’t trying to bamboozle them with garbage mail, but you have to stay on the right side of the law.

 

Something the SPAMMERS don’t give a flying fig about.

 

(Did you know that over a whopping 90% of ALL e-mail sent is Spam? No wonder it’s getting harder and harder to capture your prospects attention.)

 

So, without further ado … we start with:

 

The ‘SUBJECT’ Line.

 

Every e-mail usually has a subject – and that’s the first thing a prospect looks at to determine if your missive is worth looking at or not.

 

Screw this up – and either your message gets immediately tossed into the DELETE pile – or the Spam filters will do it automatically. Either way – you lose.

 

RULE OF THUMB ONE:

 

Longer is definitely NOT better.

 

Here’s the inside skinny: Subject lines should be no more than 45 Characters (letters and spaces) long. 35 characters are optimal.

 

Why? Because any more than that – and what you wrote tends to get truncated, In fact – many e-mail clients cut off the subject line at 40 characters. So the word to the wise is this:

 

BE CONCISE!

 

RULE OF THUMB TWO:

 

Think of how a friend would write you. They wouldn’t use all caps, or multiple exclamation points, or title case format in the subject line. When you use those styles – your message fairly screams: AD! Or even worse: SPAM!

 

You’re aiming to make your AD as personal as possible. So can the hype when it comes to composing your missive.

 

For instance, if you’re selling mattresses – you might start off with:

 

• Sleep OK last night? 

 

• However – if you write: How Did You Sleep Last Night?  – it automatically looks like an advertisement.

 

• Writing: HOW DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT???  practically guarantees an early demise into the universal rundle.

 

Subject Lines That’ll Cause You Headaches

 

Use these words or phrases –  and SPAM Filters may very well consider your missive tainted – and toss it out of hand.

 

RULE OF THUMB THREE: AVOID THESE!

 

• Hello
• Hello!
• Your Family
• Your own
• BUY NOW!
• Buy now
• Buy
• Free
• FREE!
• Any Popular Drug Name (Viagra, Cialis, Oxycontin)
• Low Cost Drugs
• Pharmacy
• Canadian Pharmacy
• Get it now!
• Wow!
• SALE!
• Your Insurance Policy
• Low Mortgages
• Mortgages

 

• Most anything in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
• Most anything starting with a $dollar sign
• Multiple exclamation points (!!!)
• Variations on common spellings – like Vligra, Vliagia, mortgege, insurance policey and so on ….

 

As you see – many of the above words and phrases can be quite innocuous – but not under the watchful eyes of Spam Filters. Use them at your own risk!

 

Body Punches

 

"Body Punches" deals with the actual e-mail content.

 

Now … let’s get down to work!

 

RULE OF THUMB FOUR:

 

Bigger Ain’t Better! If your e-mail content goes on and on – your response rate will go lower and lower. E-mail isn’t the place to make your full blown sales pitch.

 

Your e-mail missive should do one thing – and only one thing:

 

Get your prospect to take ONE particular action.  Not two, or three, or more. This is one case where giving options is a no-no.

 

The links you have should take your customer directly to your sales landing page – or whatever main page it is that has the action you want them to take. Don’t dawdle along the way and send them to cute, squeeze pages first. You want the express route to your customer’s interest – and ultimately their wallet.

 

Target the one thing you want then to do – and then do it!

 

RULE OF THUMB FIVE:

 

OK – this should be obvious, but many people miss the boat in this one:

 

HAVE A CLEAR CALL TO ACTION!

 

Never, ever assume your prospect will intuitively know what to do next. Even if the link is staring them right in the face – you’ll have to spell it out. Here are some examples:

 

• Click here to find out more… hyperlink
• Ready to discover more? Just click here… hyperlink
• You’re just a click away from losing weight … here’s the link:  hyperlink

 

 

RULE OF THUMB SIX:

 

Another “it should be obvious” point missed by many:

 

MAKE THE URL LINK OBVIOUS!

 

Don’t bury the dang thing in tiny cursive font only a Sherlock Holmes could find on a sunny day. You want it to stand out! Blazon itself forward! Strut like a peacock…

 

Get my drift?

 

Have a hyperlink to your action call appear in the first fold (the part of the email that appears when it first loads). If possible, put it in the first 3^rd of the first fold.

 

Repeat it again below the first fold, then a final time at the very end.

 

 

RULE OF THUMB SEVEN:

 

ARE YOU SPAM SCORED? Face it – there’s a ton of SPAM floating around in cyberspace. In fact, recent studies have indicated that 90+% of ALL e-mail is nothing but SPAM.

 

From my own personal observations – I’d say it’s getting worse, not better. If you haven’t weeded out the words and phrases that capture the SPAM missives – then you’re liable to fall right into the same trash basket.

 

How do you get SPAM scored? First ask whomever you’re renting your list from. If they can’t do it – then try using SpamAssassin – from spamassassin.org. In the long run – it pays to be sure and nip trouble in the bud.

 

RULE OF THUMB EIGHT:

 

TIMING IS EVERYTHING! You know – there’s a time and a place for everything – and that goes for sending out your e-mails. If you’re selling to a business – then probably the weekends aren’t so hot. Ditto late afternoons or very early mornings.

 

Mondays are usually pretty lousy too. (Just think about your office – all those unanswered emails just sitting in your inbox after a nice weekend. Ouch!)

 

Friday afternoon? Almost as bad. They’ll be shunted off until Monday. And on Monday… well, just read what I just wrote above.

 

However – if you’re selling to consumer end users, then the weekends might just be the ticket to higher sales.

 

RULE OF THUMB NINE:

 

MAKE IT A SOFT LANDING!  You’ll want your e-mail reader to take a particular action, and that usually entails having them go to your website.

 

Now why go through all the hard work of having someone actually click through to your landing page – and then leave them dangling? Once they land on your website – make it darn obvious what they should do next. Don’t be coy and play games.

 

Closing

 

Every email has to say goodbye at some point. Which brings us to:

 

RULE OF THUMB TEN:

 

If at all possible, use your REAL name when doing the end salutation. People like buying from people, not impersonal corporations.

 

RULE OF THUMB ELEVEN:

 

You MUST have an opt-out disclaimer. You must have a method for the reader to tell you to buzz off. You must have a privacy policy. And you must keep to your word and delete a reader’s information if and when requested. No exceptions, no excuses.

 

Formatting

 

In most cases, having an HTML viewable email isn’t the best way to go. Many email browsers automatically default to “no images” upon opening, and then all your prospect will see is a big blank box.

 

RULE OF THUMB TWELVE:

 

If you do use images in your email promotions, be absolutely sure you have the ALT TAGS filled in with descriptive information about what the image is about. That way, if the picture doesn’t appear, at least there’ll be something your prospect can read. (And if it piques his or her interest, they may actually allow the full image to appear!)

 

RULE OF THUMB THIRTEEN:

 

When in doubt, use normal text – Arial or Verdana font (not less than 10 pt or more than 12 pt) is best.

 

The lines themselves should be no more than 65 to 70 characters long – including spaces.

 

Center the text so it appears in the middle of the viewer’s range of vision.

 

For example:

 

This sentence is far, far too long for most people to read and easily digest in an email sales promo, so it probably won’t get read.

 

This sentence is much better, easily readable – and short!

 

RULE OF THUMB FOURTEEN:

 

“The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness.”

 

In other words, there can be too much of a good thing. Some marketers think love-bombing your prospect with daily emails is the way to go.

 

If you’re sending out mostly pure information, that may be so. But if each one is an obvious sales pitch, forget it. Your readers will soon tire of your game, and tune you out.

 

My take? Out of every 5 emails you send, make sure 3 of them are pure informational missives. The other two can be hybrids or pure sales pitches. But don’t have back to back sales pitches – that will tend to taint the rest of them.

 

And this should go without saying: Once a day is OK. Any more than that, and you’ve entered the Land of SPAM.

 

How do you tell if you are overdoing it? Any noticeable spike in your opt-outs will indicate your prospects are getting tired of you. Back off!

 

OK… we’re done for now. Happy prospecting!

 

Back to Main Page