We’ve put together 5 easy tips on how to grow your email marketing list – these are all permission based ideas, and can be used for a broad range of email marketing lists, if used appropriately. Take a read through, and see which ones you can leverage in your email marketing program.

1. Streamline your Subscribe. Do you really need all 30 questions to have someone subscribe to your email? Probably not. Clean up your form, so it’s just the key demographics you need for your online strategy (sometimes its as little as just their email address and first name…). The less fields there are, the less chance of the user turning away because they don’t want to share their phone number, address, blood type, etc.
2. Hold a contest/giveaway. Everyone wants to win something – perhaps a free consultation, an iPod, a donation made in the winner’s name… anything. Try putting the enter-to-win form prominently on your page, and let your visitor know that they have a chance to win, and see what happens. Its more to grab attention than anything – sure, you’ll come across the professional contest players, who just want to win, but you’ll also find that there are a lot more people who just needed a little nudge to subscribe. (Be sure to check local laws with regards to contests and giveaways)
3. Tell your subscribers to tell their friends. If you have a loyal subscription base already, why not ask your current users to tell their friends about your email newsletter? Most email tools today offer a quick and easy way to send a copy of your email to their friends, without compromising your permission marketing efforts. If the friend likes it, they can choose to subscribe. In fact, what if you offered a prize to the subscriber who tells the most friends?
4. Forms, forms, everywhere. Adding your email signup form to every page may just do the trick. Keeping it clean and unobtrusive is key in this case, but by adding a first name and email capture form is simple enough that no matter where the visitor is, they can opt in. Have more demographics you require? Tease them with just their email, and take them to the extended form on the next page.
5. Show them what they’ll get. List an archive of past email issues you’ve sent out, so they can see the quality and relevance of your email newsletters and promotions. This way, they can try before they buy, when it comes to your email program. Plus, having an archive of old, quality, and topical emails provide search engines with a tantalizing snack.

These tips on how to grow your email list are all simple, in fact, almost too simple – but they work quite well. Simplifying the process, and making the visitor more aware of what they are subscribing to is key to growing a strong, permission based email marketing list. Plus, if you can leverage your current subscribers, and encourage them to tell their friends, you’ll find very quickly that the saying “birds of a feather flock together” couldn’t be any truer.

1. Watch your links. Does your email delivery tool mask your links (generally to track the link click through), if so, you may come across the problem where your recipient’s email browser thinks its spam or a scam. Why? Because if you physically have http://www.mycompanyname.com/ in your email, AND link to it, there is a disconnect between the visable link, and the actual link, since its being masked. How do you get around this? Change your web address to ‘visit us now’, or some variation.
2. Watch what you say, and how you say it. Free, Limited Time Offer, Act Now, from $9.99, SAVE BIG!!! are all words that add to your spam score. Try re-wording or even eliminating anything that may sound spammy. Same goes for the subject line.
3. Send from a clean IP address. If you’re using some generic server to send email, or are on shared hosting, you may be taking the blame for other people’s poor judgment. Your own dedicated IP address means that YOU are in control of what goes out, and how clean your IP stays. As your email list size grows, it may prove beneficial to move over to your own private IP email server.
4. Don’t send spam! If its not relevant or anticipated, its not going to be accepted very well and the recipient might flag it as spam themselves. Keep your messages on point with what the recipient signed up for, as well as actually useful to them… and don’t flood their inboxes with every little idea the marketing department has each week. A consistent, relevant, and anticipated message will be far more likely to get through, and read, than one that isn’t.

By paying close attention to these four tips, you’ll begin to increase delivery. Its important to continue tracking and monitoring each of your email campaigns, as if you don’t know what your delivery rate was last week, how do you know it improved today?

Lets just do the math:
Low open rates = Low click through rate = Low conversions/responses/visits =

Most times, people write the subject line, as if they were either trying to sell something (This weekend: Save Big!), or writing an article headline (Local Committee Denies Claim). Do they work? Well, it depends. If you’re getting a response, than yes – but is your response the best you can achieve? The only way to truly know is through subject line testing.

Subject Line Testing:

Using A/B splits of your email are the most telling way of the success of your subject line. Quite simply, make two copies of your email, and change the subject line – send 50% with subject line A, and 50% with subject line B, while keeping everything else (time, day, email, content, copy, etc) the exact same.

After a week or two, pull the response numbers, and whichever garners higher conversions, is probably the better subject. (A week or two provides the most accurate measure, as more results will be in). Keep in mind, that just because Subject Line B pulls a higher open rate, doesn’t automatically mean its the best… Why not try out some more subject lines? You’re A/B split, can become an A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H split, if you think its justified – and in a lot of cases, it may just be.

Things to Consider:

Look at the style of your subject line, the phrasing, placement, and spam-ability. These all are factors to whether or not your email gets opened (or even seen) by the subscriber. Here are a couple examples below:

Example #1:

Subject Line A: BIG SAVINGS COMING SOON!
All caps starts raising red flags for spam filters, paired with an exclamation point, and the word ‘savings’, this one may SOUND great, but will it pull great? Not so much if it’s in your spam box.

Subject Line B: Save up to $50 This Friday
This may still come off as Spam because of the use of ‘Save’ and ‘Up to’, but is far more readable and offers a compelling offer (50$ off) and a deadline (Friday)

Example #2:

Subject Line A: Take a breathtaking hike in majestic Alaska this Summer from $48/person
This subject line sounds great, however, most email clients would begin to chop part of it off 5 or 6 words in. The reader may never see the subject line’s price, the season, or even the destination. While the subject line is actionable, it may get lost in the email clients.

Subject Line B: From $48/person, take a breathtaking Alaskan hike
This subject line offers the price right at the beginning, along with an action closely following. Assuming the recipient knows the sender (they did sign up to receive it, didn’t they?), the price may be a key factor in selecting an outdoor activity.

While these two examples don’t cover the broad spectrum of possibilities, it does show how you can test different lines to see how they respond. Some subject lines will pull better, some will convert better, and some will just fail. The ultimate way to tell is to try many different styles and phrasings, and see which one works best for you. While it does take a bit of time, be sure to keep track of the results and the subject lines, and eventually, you’ll find a pattern and style that works best for your email campaign.

1. Lay off of all those damned images. Sure, they look nice, but more and more people have images turned off (either by choice, or by default). Is your copy all images? If their images are off, the recipient isn’t ready anything. You can keep images, but use them as accents, and make sure they don’t contain critical information (like price… headlines… ‘click here’ call to actions…)
2. Think about your subject line. It’s easier for me to hit delete, than it is for me to open an email… its fun too! When writing a subject line, take into account your ultimate goal. To inform? To sell? To remind? Keep it short, keep it interesting, and keep it relevant. And while you’re at it, keep it from sounding like spam. ‘Save up to…’, ‘Act now…’ , ‘from only $9.99…’, ‘cheap generic Viag… d’oh!’… the list goes on.
3. Tell me who you are… really. The sender name often builds credibility. Having your generic company name ‘XYZ Corp’ wont entice me nearly as much as if I have a pre-existing relationship with an actual person there. If Jim, from ‘XYZ Corp’ is emailing me, I’m more likely to open the email. In reverse, if I stumble upon your site and sign up to your mailing list, maybe ‘XYZ Corp’ should be responding and not Jim… because as nice as Jim is, I don’t know who his is at this moment. Speaking of Jim, most email tools let you customize your sender name – some, can even do it on the fly using a database field. So Jim, Suzy, Sally, and Roberto can build their relationships, without ever lifting a finger.
4. Sometimes… enough is enough. Marketers tend to be their own worst enemy when it comes to email marketing. Just because we happen to have a promotion, does it really mean we HAVE to send it to the entire list. Over-mailing a list will start to erode your database. As much as we all love to know about the brand new widget, on sale now… You told me about another brand new gizmo yesterday, and that special on Monday, and that last minute deal on Friday. You’ve crossed the line from relevant, to Spam.
5. Click… click… click!!! Sometimes, a button that says ‘click here’ just doesn’t cut it. Customers will click anything it seems. Make your images clickable, your headlines clickable, and some text in your copy clickable. Recipients tend to like to click on something if it remotely appears clickable to them (people are weird that way…). And yes, make your logo clickable too!
6. Fine… now give me a reason to click. If you send me an email, telling me about your brand new product, you better have a link to more details, pricing, and contact information. Assuming I’m interested, I’ll probably want to click on the spot. I don’t want to have to phone, or wait for the next email to learn more. I’m impatient. Its even better if you give me an exclusive 10% off since I subscribe to your emails. The call to action needs to be strong, and enticing.
7. Don’t send yourself to my Spam folder. There’s lots of reasons why this happen, including your copy sounding spammy (free free free! Save up to 95%! Limited time offer!!!), bad linking, an untrusted IP address and way too many images. Before you send, test your email to a few accounts on Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Thunderbird, etc. Does it get through all of them? Great. No? Well… go back, and start sanitizing your email. Still not working? Try calling up your IP host, and get yourself white-listed on the popular email services, or asking your subscribers to add your email address to their address books.
8. Eight… ain’t it great? Maybe not so much on increasing your click-throughs, but good to know. Start tracking all your emails. Open rates, click through rates, unsubscribes and bounces. While these stats are not nearly as reliable as they were 5 years ago, they do provide a benchmark to see just how well each of your emails are doing. Keep in mind, that as image blocking continues to become more popular, open rates will go down (as the tracking won’t be on it). Though, if you want to try to spin it… With lower open rates recorded, but the same amount of links clicked, looks like a better click through ratio than before. (And since you’re going to follow steps 1-7, your click through rates will be going up anyways… riiiight?)
9. Its that time / day / month… Emails tend to change in their response, depending on the time of day, day of week, and month of year. Why? Because our interests change. If you email me at 9am on a Monday, I’m probably cleaning out my work inbox, and in a decision-making mode, and don’t have time for this email – Delete. How about 2pm on a Friday? Just finished my lunch, back in the office, counting down to the weekend… I’ve got time to kill, so why not learn more. Theres an easy way to figure all this out – Testing. Split up your list into X amount of random segments (maybe 10?), and trigger them to go off at different times. Maybe every day at 2pm to start… Then one day every hour from 9am to 8pm. Track it all, and put 2 and 2 together, and find your ideal launch time.
10. Know where I’m looking.. and be there. When opening in Outlook, with vertical panes, I’ll see the top left give or take. In hotmail, I just see the top few inches, before I have to scroll. By keeping the most important information over to the top left, your readers are more likely to see the important messages, and not just a pretty little picture. Even better… Add a quick links menu in that location, so I know the different sections of the email as soon as I open! And… even better than that, make them all links with anchor links jumping me down to that section. Now that’s convenience.

While these tips are all pretty straight forward, they’re often overlooked or sacrificed in the name of style. If you’re looking to increase click-through, all of these tactics have been tested, and work. It takes a bit of time, but that extra open or click through percentage is worth it – if 1% more of a list of 5,000 click through, that’s 50 more people. If 0.5% more clicked through on a list of 50,000… well, that’s 2500. Not to shabby for 10 simple ways to increase your email click-through.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the process of marketing via email… simple enough? It’s getting your relevant and anticipated message out in front of your customer/consumer/prospect in a timely fashion, with the hopes of causing an action.

Relevant: This one’s tricky. I have many interests, and have signed up to many newsletters… are they relevant? Well… when I signed up they were. Are they right now? Good question. To be relevant, it needs to continually be relevant. It can’t just be a few emails of relevancy, it needs to always be.

Anticipated: When someone gives you their email address, and says ‘yes, sign me up to your emails!’, the customer has just given you their permission to contact (and market to) them. Your messages are now anticipated, and will be seen with more accepting eyes than a message sent to someone without this explicit permission.

Timely: If you offer a weekly email, send it weekly… a quarterly email, send it quarterly. By sending out your emails on a regular schedule, you begin to build on the anticipation of the reader. No longer will the recipient have to guess when they’ll receive it… they’ll begin to KNOW when to expect and anticipate it. When it gets to this point, missing an issue isn’t an option – they’ll know… and you would have just passed up a valuable email marketing opportunity too.

Actionable: Every email sent needs some basic actions by the recipient before anything to happen. From first being recognized in the inbox, to physically being opened, it’s imperative to inspire the actions needed to have your message received. Recognizing it in your inbox can be as simple as having a familiar sender’s name, with the anticipation of receiving messages from that person or company. But that’s not enough… it also needs to also have a compelling enough subject line to open the email. Once they’ve gotten over that hurdle, the copy and design needs to speak to them, and encourage them to follow through with another action – read, call, click, visit, inquire, buy, browse… the list is endless.

Keeping your readers engaged is key, because once the engagement begins to deteriorate, the question of whether or not the email is relevant comes into play. If its no longer relevant, its going to be harder and harder to generate the actions you hope to invoke. In fact, the perception of the email may change all together from being completely relevant, to being considered outright spam.

Over the next year, we’ll cover all the tricks, techniques and proven strategies to build relevant, anticipated, timely and actionable emails, designed with the recipient in mind.

The goal of this blog is to help inform and inspire you to build the best email marketing program you can, through my first hand experience, and advice. Enjoy!

About Davis:

Hey – that’s me! Well, I live/work/play in Vancouver, British Columbia, and decided that after the past couple years of working in email marketing, I should start a blog about what works, and what doesn’t… and everything in-between. I’ve come to learn the ins and outs of email marketing development, strategy and design after working on hundreds of successful email marketing campaigns ranging from simple retail email marketing solutions, to complex, fully integrated email marketing initiatives.

I’ve worked with a wide variety of client types including:

• banks & financial institutions
• clothing and retail stores
• not-for-profit and non-profit organizations
• travel agencies
• auto dealerships
• tourism organizations
• … and everything in-between!

On top of working with these different areas, I’ve also executed email campaigns from every perspective including strategy, design, coding, testing and post-campaign reporting and analysis. This broad range allows me to link together the cause & effect aspects of email marketing and hopefully give an insightful understanding of what makes an email campaign work. Plus, I’ve picked up a few tips and tricks along the way, that’s hard to figure out, unless you’ve been in the trenches.