A marketing email message that is unreadable is completely useless. Nothing is going to be sold and an unreadable marketing message isnt going to cause one person to visit a website. An unreadable marketing email is simply an exercise in futility and worth nothing or maybe less than nothing if the recipient can find the unsubscribe option.
Auto responders give specific formatting instructions for mail that will be sent out. The reason that this formatting information is provided is because all email programs are not created equally. Some email programs deliver email in plain text only and even if the email program is capable of receiving email in an HTML format, recipients often have the option of choosing to receive email only in the plain text format.
Messages that are sent in the plain text format are readable in both plain text and HTML receptor email programs while those sent in the HTML format appear garbled and unreadable in a plain text receptor email program.
1. Compose your emails in the note pad program on your computer. This program uses only ASCII characters which plain text is made up of.
2. Your email needs to be formatted to no more than 65 characters per line. Plain text scrambles all characters greater than 65 making messages unreadable.
3. Do not use all capitals for long blocks of text. It is difficult to read. Using a single word for emphasis is alright occasionally but not in every sentence. All capital letters are considered shouting in the printed word.
4. Never use more than one exclamation point (!) at the end of a sentence. The use of multiple exclamation points like (!!!!!) at the end of sentences cheapens the statement rather than creating more emphasis as intended.
5. Never word-wrap links. Plain text email programs do not deliver word-wrapped links as clickable text.
How many ways are there to really mess up at email marketing? Let me count the ways. There are at least an equal number of ways to do things wrong as there are to do things right. There may even be more ways to do things wrong than right. There is usually only one right way but something there are multiple wrong ways.
1. A marketing email must be formatted so that it can be read in any email delivery system. All email delivery systems do not use HTML. Some only use plain text. Plain text is only ACSII characters. Those are the characters that you can see on your keyboard. The only program that comes on your computer that uses only ACSII characters is Note Pad. Use that program to write your email marketing messages. Not doing that is one of the primary ways to fail at email marketing.
2. Plain text email delivery systems will deliver messages that have lines longer than 65 characters but all of the characters greater than 65 will be scrambled. The email message will be a lot of gibberish. This is yet another way to fail at email marketing.
3. Marketing email messages should only promote one product or one service at a time. Multiple products and services advertised at the same time will lead to email marketing failure.
4. Links that are sent word-wrapped will not appear as clickable links in plain text email delivery systems. The recipient will only see the words. They wont see the link and they wont know what the link is. Not sending full website addresses is another way to guarantee email marketing failure.
5. Finally, marketing emails that are filled with misspelled words and poor grammar will cause the recipients to think that the sender is not all that bright or, maybe just uneducated. This is yet another way to fail at email marketing. I am sure these tips will definitely guide you through on your way to a successful email marketing.
For sure, you must make your opt-in mailing list grow. It will either grow or it will die. That is just the way that email marketing is. The customers that bought from you once will more than likely buy from you again and maybe they will buy several more times but they will not re-buy products that they have already purchased. In order to sell you first products again, you need new blood on your mailing list.
There are many ways to make your email list grow. You can even make it self-propagating by using viral marketing methods like including jokes, free games or utilities and quizzes in your newsletters. Those are proven viral marketing techniques that work and ones that
will cause your list to help grow your list by sharing with their friends, neighbors, families and coworkers. Its your job to give them a reason to share. Five proven list growing techniques are:
1) Write and market articles which are relevant to your products and services. These articles need to be no more than 300 to 400 words long. They need to have your key words included in an attention getting title. Your resource box needs to contain your name, contact information and a link to your website that is NOT word-wrapped.
2) Write and market e books. These e books need be no longer than 10 to 12 pages long. Titles need to contain your key words and be attention getting. A link to your website should be included on every page of your e book as well as in your resource box.
3) Post to blogs and forums that have topics that relate to the products and services that you sell. This is were those who are most likely to buy your products and service can be found gathered under one roof on the Internet. Do NOT use articles that you have written to market as blog posts and do not use blog posts as articles to market.
4) Find link exchange partners. Exchanging links with websites that sell products and services that are complimentary to but not identical to your products and services can increase your website traffic and help build your opt-in list.
5) Do what you need to do to get a well-established email marketer to do a joint venture with you even if that means giving them 100% of the profit from a product you own for the sole purpose of building your opt-in list. I do hope you have learned a lot from this topic.
