S3 Blog

Emails are one of the most popular forms of communication today and people spend a great deal of time reading their e-mail each day. In order to get the most from your e-mail marketing you need to make sure that you are following the 10 best e-mail marketing practices, which are:

1. Be consistent - regardless of what type of business you are if you frequently e-mail your customers you need to keep the look of your e-mails consistent. This will help to imprint your brand image into the minds of your customers and will keep your subscribers coming back for more.

2. Think about the Tuesday / Wednesday response time - this is the theory that the best time to send a business e-mail is on Tuesdays or Wednesdays as people are more responsive to e-mails on these days.

3. Utilise a sign up confirmation - in order to avoid your e-mails being classed as spam you should go for a double process for your customers to opt in. So after a customer has entered their e-mail address on to your website you should send them an e-mail to confirm their subscription. It also appears to contain a link to your e-mail marketing program within the e-mail which will help to verify that your customer signed up to your e-mail subscription.

4. Give subscribers a one click unsubscription option. If subscribers no longer want to receive your e-mails allow them to opt out using a one click unsubscription.

5. Be personal - make sure that you address your subscribers by their name in the first line of the e-mail. Doing this helps to build customer confidence in your brand as they feel as though they already have a personal relationship with your business.

6. Avoid spam filters - spam filters will take any e-mails that they consider as spam and either put them into a spam box or block them totally. So when you’re writing your e-mails try to avoid words such as discount, free, save or any monetary symbols.

7. Half second subject line - make your subject line of your e-mail is short and punchy. When we e-mails subscribers usually spend approximately half a second reading the subject of each e-mail, so make sure you capture their attention with a short subject line.

8. Offer a free bonus - although many e-mails claim to offer something for free many fail to deliver. So for your customers a money off coupon or even a free e-book if they subscribe to your subscription - and make sure that you give it to them.

9. Always have a signature on the bottom of your e-mails - by providing your name company details, a link to your website and the cover how to unsubscribe your e-mails will be more attractive to your subscribers.

10. E-mail based information /learning -why not offer a 10 part in learning course which will be e-mailed to subscribers? This type of e-mail is hugely popular and can help your subscription list to grow substantially.