Email NewsLetters Tips

Think of your emails as a newspaper. You gotta have different sections: News, Sports, Dear Abby, etc. If you're a list.ly subscriber? Part of your newsletter should be a list of the week. I simply save content that I like, add it to my lists, and when I hit 7-8 on the list? It's good to go. Content curation is incredibly value-add for your audience... there's so much crap out there that you become an expert when you can sort through it all and give people the goods. I make lists for business owners... click my name (above) to see what I'm talking about in action.

An email marketing campaign starts with getting names and emails, remember we gain permission first. But that's not the end of your email campaign, not by a long shot. People need to be emailed in order to read them! I know too many businesses that collect the emails but get too scared to email their customers!

What makes you open an email?
If your subject title is not compelling, you lose before you hit send. Make it a question. Push envelopes while staying business-friendly. Make it so tempting to open that email, they can hardly wait!! :)

I add a bit of personality and humor to my e-mail newsletters and send them text only with no fancy graphics. I often get great feedback and get 40% open rates. I also use lots of techniques to convert people to e-mail subscribers on the blog, see the link!

I think that it’s very important to remember that however many subscribers you have, most of them will not be reading your newsletter (that’s just to avoid disappointment). But in order to get those few readers to act after reading your newsletter, I think that it’s very important to customize it, keep it short and concise (the more there is to read the less likely they are to do it) and always include one call to action (if you have too many it can give less results).

Here's my 1st tip with a link to example.

Make a list and share and embed the list on your blog.

This was a great idea that I first saw implemented by Mark Jones of @Collaboris and the SharePoint Community

I think great newsletters have less pomp & circumstance AKA plain text and limited images/multimedia. It could be one compelling video or photo.

Then talk directly to the reader and be personal. Share your feelings and stories.

Incorporate frequent line breaks so it's easy to read. Long paragraphs make us think it's a heavy e-mail!

Email overload and inbox fatigue are all too real. But, we all have an "inner circle" of emails we look forward to reading - you know, the ones we check our spam folders for when we haven't seen them recently. How can you get your emails into that coveted inner circle and - better still [...]

Email is a proven method for reaching prospects and cultivating long-term relationships with customers. You probably know it has one of the highest ROIs across online marketing channels, especially when used in tandem with social and search. Plus, email provides greater visibility compared with fleeting tweets and the fractured attention spans on Facebook.

With all the buzz around content marketing, liquid content, social media and more, its easy to forget or put aside some of the more tried and true methods of reaching an audience in favor of leveraging the latest or newest "shiny object".

If I invite you into my home we most likely have a relationship, that and I must trust you. Trust is a critical factor when building a relationship with your customers through email. Without trust we are just spamming people.