Email Marketing Tips

I’ve just read an article on strategies for email marketers to defend their policies in-house from overzealous managers trying to ramp up sales.

The article, from MarketingSherpa.com (available free til Aug 13th) shows how email marketers should ‘protect their list’ but the advice is applicable to any small business with a mail list.

To summarize, the higher-ups want to increase the size of the list, make more frequent mailings and not spend any money to do it. The problem, says MarketingSherpa, it that they are concerned with numbers, not the list members.

Things to learn from the article:

1. It’s not the size of the list, it’s the quality. Most good mail lists fall into a 90/20 or even 80/20 category; 10-20% of your list makes most of the purchases. By rapidly increasing the size rather than the quality the ratio drops and their is no real net gain.

– Seemingly fast techniques to grow your list — such as co-registration, sweepstakes, and list rental — don’t always generate high-quality names.

Another problem with only mildly interested new subscribers it that it increases the likelyhood of someone reporting your email message as spam. A few of those and you can start getting blocked by ISP’s or major company firewalls.

2. You can overwhelm subscribers. 44% of those surveyed in a MarketingSherpa poll said they unsubscribed because they received to much email from the sender. Only 31% said they unsubscribed because they received too much email overall.

How often is too often?

– Benchmarks for the appropriate email frequency are tough to come by. How often you can send to your subscribers depends on the nature of your mailings and your audience.

You are going to have to test or survey your specific subscribers to find out. Don’t just start sending mail til they all quit.

3. If you want better results, invest more money. Some suggestions are hiring a copywriter to add content, examining your email list software to see if it’s doing the job and integrating your list with your Customer Relations Management software.

Database integration is essential for lead nurturing, closed-loop reporting, and a much clearer picture of ROI. Those characteristics are the hallmark of a great email program that’s going to provide value in the long term.

As I said, the above strategies apply to all email marketers. Mail lists are not “free” marketing – they take a lot of work and care.