Don't Just Send Campaigns - Deliver!

Email marketing can be a waste of time and resources if you’re not getting the highest delivery rate and response rate possible. While we at Online Outbox take care of the geeky aspect to facilitate your goals, there are still a couple things you can do that might help to increase the delivery rate of your campaigns:

1. Schedule your email campaigns. Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday work great.

Although you are able to send out campaigns immediately or anytime you wish, strategically scheduling campaigns can produce better results. For instance, if you are using our newsletter subscription form on your web site, advise each and every subscriber exactly when to expect your newsletter. This is also a good practice if you plan on sending out a series of emails. Your recipients will come to expect your email to hit their inbox on regular intervals making them more receptive to any special offers or promotions you may include.

2. Make it easier for readers to recognize your emails.

Like we said on Avoiding the Spam Filters and Other Email Marketing Tips – Consistency is King. Functional email templates are made available to all of our customers. You are free to customize them as you see fit. Already have an HTML email template from your old email service provider? That’s perfectly fine. You can import the HTML template file and use it on your Online Outbox campaigns. Incorporate a logo or tagline. Whatever you do, remain consistent to reduce the chances of readers reporting your email as spam.

3. Include the current date in the content.

Adding a correct date indicates when the campaign was sent. Spam filters sometimes assign spam score points if the date is not mentioned or provided incorrectly.

4. Don’t forget to pull the Text content from the HTML editor.

Before sending out an HTML email, make sure that the plain text version is attached. Messages sent in “Multipart” are delivered in a way that subscribers without active HTML-Viewer still get a decent looking e-mail. Make sure that the HTML and text version have the same or very similar content otherwise you’ll get more spam points.

5. Avoid excessive graphics and complex HTML.

Several spam rules involve issues related to HTML. If the newsletter has too many graphic elements, it gets just as many spam score points. Most email clients and webmail services automatically blocks images so if users don’t understand what the mail is about, your email is most likely headed towards being reported as spam. Try to keep it simple – the percentage of text should be higher than the percentage of HTML or images for maximum readability.

6. (Nicely) Ask your recipients to whitelist you.

One smart way to increase deliverability especially for future messages is to ask your readers to add you to whitelists or their address book.

7. Links must be clean.

If there’s a need to include link/s in your email campaigns, ensure that none of those are blacklisted URLs. Exert a little extra effort to verify the sites you are linking to and save your campaign from getting some more spam points. You can use online tools like MXToolbox.com or BlackListAlert.org for this purpose.

8. The Test.

We’ve said it before but we will remind you again – test, test, test BUT avoid using the word “test” in the subject line when sending live trial message to yourself or a personal test list. At this point, you probably know the reason – spam filters, again. Generic test messages are viewed as spam so when conducting your diagnosis, test using the actual email subject and content.

Email Marketing Made Easy – Tips and Tricks You That Will Help You

Selling a product or service is possible only if you are able to get your message across to your target customer at the right time. Online marketers put a lot of effort into developing and maintaining their databases of email addresses because email marketing is one of the most effective methods that they use. If you have an internet business then you too can use this method to increase revenues without spending too much money on conventional methods of advertising and communication.

You should do all you can to increase your database so that you have a long list of people to send your emails to. This list should obviously have your potential clients and it makes no sense to include the contact details of people who are never going to use your product. At the same time, it should also include email addresses of your service providers and suppliers. This will ensure that your company will have top of the mind recall. Make it a point to invite people to connect to your website through various social media platforms since they are becoming extremely popular. You can even induce your existing customers to provide you with email addresses of others by providing them with referral bonuses.

The message you send out should be eye catching and apt. Remember that the people you send them to are very busy and that they will probably be getting messages from other companies that sell products identical or at least similar to yours.  Use an attractive template to create your messages and do not forget to proof read them for accuracy and simple spelling errors. This does not require too much effort to do but the consequences of not doing so are very serious.

You should always have your marketing plan clearly chalked out so that you can design the best campaigns around it. This gives you plenty of time to send out emails, and will also ensure that they are relevant to the needs of the customer at that time of the year. This will also help you target certain market segments at specific times of the year based upon their specific preferences and usage patterns.

Your email marketing messages will only work for you if they are not rejected by ISPs as spam. You should therefore ensure that you do all the right things when you send your messages. What most online marketers do, and this will benefit you as well, is make use of a really good email marketing service to ensure that their communication campaigns are managed well, especially in connection with ensuring that they are not categorized as spam.

It is important to have a lot of information about this subject even if you make use of email marketing services to get in touch with your customers because you need to monitor the company’s efforts. You need to be able to cut through any jargon in order to understand whether this company will actually be able to help your business.

Online marketers put a lot of effort into developing and maintaining their databases of email addresses because email marketing is one of the most effective methods that they use. It is important to have a lot of information about this subject even if you make use of email marketing services to get in touch with your customers because you need to monitor the company’s efforts.

Building Customer Relations with Email Newsletters

Email marketing is one of the best ways to establish and deepen relations with your customers. Why? First, the people who opt-in to your email newsletter are people who are genuinely interested in your products, services and expertise. They want more information. They are members of your targeted market. A prospect sold on your expertise will soon be sold on your products or services.

Secondly, email marketing is incredibly affordable. While traditional advertising requires a hefty budget for design, printing and production, media placement, and so many more, the cost for sending a mass email to many customers and prospective customers is extremely low per contact.

Third, Email newsletters are so easy to create and use on a regular basis, and can target customers with messages that are tailored specifically to them. Newsletters can also be formatted to maintain and reinforce a company's branding and corporate image.

Can't you just send out an email from your own email account? Sure, you can. But there are inherent risks in doing so, and even more benefits from using a paid service. First, when sending email from your own account to many recipients, you run the risk of being blacklisted by anti-spam measures. While getting blacklisted is not an irreversible obstacle, proving the validity of your emails to the offended anti-spam organization can be troublesome, and your emails, even your normal emails, may be undeliverable to many addresses until the situation is resolved.

On the other hand, using an email service lessens the likelihood of getting flagged by the spam cops. Email campaigns are "dripped" on a specific schedule to specific service providers to stay under the radar of the anti-spam measures.

Most paid services also provide powerful statistics for email campaigns that help measure effectiveness. Imagine being able to see who has read your email, who has clicked links in your mail, which ads were most effective. Imagine being able to track when someone forwards to a friend, and then add their friend to your subscriber list! With statistics like these, your campaigns can be adjusted regularly to return the best results.

Online Outbox will do all of this for you! Try it for free now!

Email newsletters are extremely effective in bringing in more visitors to your website, resulting in more sales. It is greatly effective in bringing return customers and picking up new customers as well. With a proven email newsletter system, your marking campaign will soar! Your email newsletter is an invaluable resource for your business. Get started today with Online Outbox!