The number of marketing e-mails that flash across my inbox
has seen a dramatic rise over the last month or so. I’ve put this down to a couple of factors,
firstly, I’ve been pretty actively networking over the last couple of months so
guess my e-mail address has gone into a few people’s databases. Secondly, as the doom and gloom about the
economy continues to be peddled by the media, businesses are looking for new
marketing channels to spread their sales message. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say and you’d
be right, it’s good to see small businesses embracing web technologies when it
comes to their marketing strategy.
What I have noticed, however, is that the quality of e-mail
varies enormously between different companies and there are a number of
pitfalls to be avoided when embarking on e-mail marketing campaigns.
Don’t be a spammer
The first thing you need to ensure is that your marketing messages can beat the
spam filters, not easy considering the amount of spam that is around these
days. Some obvious ways are to avoid using
capitals and exclamation marks in your subject line, don’t use words like “free”
and “sex” or refer to “boosting
performance” – something Sun Microsystems didn’t consider when they sent the
e-mail below that I found in my spam folder:
There are also technical considerations when it comes to
beating spam filters such as the reputation of the IP address your outgoing
e-mail is sent through.
Let people opt out
Around 40% of the marketing e-mails I received yesterday alone did not include
an unsubscribe option. The Privacy and
Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, which state that “individuals
should be given a simple way to opt out in every future communication”, do not
apply to e-mails sent to business. That
said it is still considered best practice to include an easy unsubscribe option
in your marketing e-mails otherwise you may find yourself alienating any
potential customers.
Protect your contact data
A number of marketing e-mails that I have received not only contained my e-mail
address in the header but also the e-mail addresses and names of all the other
recipients. Not only may you have an
obligation under the Data Protection Act to protect your customer data, you
also run the risk of giving away your e-mail marketing contact list to any
unscrupulous competitors that receive your e-mail.
Make it interesting
People receive tens to hundreds of e-mails every day, if your marketing message
is just a big block of text they’re not likely to take much notice. Make your e-mail marketing messages stand out
by breaking your text up into paragraphs or using bulleted lists to highlight
your key points, use appropriate colour and images to catch people’s eye. Some good examples of eye-catching and
interesting e-mails can seen here.
Think about tracking
So you’ve sent your e-mails, how do you know what people have done with
them? There are many e-mail marketing
software packages that can allow you to track which users opened your e-mail and
which links they clicked to your website (if you included any). This is important as people very rarely pick
up the phone and ring as soon as they receive your e-mail. Your message needs to be in front of them
when they are ready to buy. By tracking
their clicks over time you can find out what they’re interested in and tailor
e-mails to meet their needs.
Of course this is a lot to take in for the average small business
owner and sounds like it might be expensive to implement. There are, however, a number of software
packages that small businesses can use to manage their e-mail campaigns. Most will provide the sort of functionality
you need to avoid the pitfalls mentioned above for a cost of around £20 per
month so nothing that’s going to break the bank. Some even offer free trials so you can try out
the software before committing any investment.
