As the CEO of Sendlane, having helped our customers deliver over 3.2 BILLION emails, I’ve learned a lot about email engagement and the best ways to keep customer interaction high with your list.
I want to share with you today, the 8 ways to help fine tune your email engagement with your email list.
1. Clarity over Creativity.
Yes, mysterious or “blind” emails will create bigger engagement.
But at the same time, they lose trust.
And as an email list owner, you need to “keep trust”.
Keep it relevant and obvious.
This will keep your list more engaged with you for a longer time.
2. Find the perfect time and stay consistent.
Experts say 8 – 9am EST and 3 – 4pm EST are the best times to email.
If your list is fresh, it would be wise to send a message at these times, using your autoresponder.
But here are facts: the BEST time to email them is based on the BEST time they listen to you.
That means it’s also the best time that YOU like to email for your business.
3. Avoid the Spam Filter.
- Prominent calls to actions – saying “CLICK HERE FOR SAVINGS” will get you in trouble.
- Bad HTML code – Most autoresponder and email service platforms won’t allow this. But if you are self emailing, or self coding your HTML form, make sure it has GOOD form.
- AVOID using Microsoft Word. This is a big no no. Do not copy and paste from Word. It carries over bad HTML that will encourage spam.
- Using “Re:” and “FWD” in your subject lines. Not only is this ILLEGAL but it’s also very misleading AND will cause a higher rate of spam.
- Avoid single image emails. Yes, they look fancy, but using 1 image as the entire email including all text, will get you in trouble. Try creating a template and fill it with raw text.
- Never purchase an email list, use a purchased or found email list, or trust anyone that “GIVES YOU” subscribers. First (and again), it’s ILLEGAL to buy an email list and email someone without their permission. Remember, you are running a business, nothing is ever truly done for you. Each subscriber should cost $1-2, if not more. If it’s less than that, it’s probably junk.
4. Personalize your sender name.
I’m much more likely to open an email from “Jimmy” than if I saw “IMPORTANT MESSAGE” or “MEMBERS ONLY”.
If you want, you can have it come from a company or brand, but don’t list it as the raw email either.
5. Avoid “Free, Help, Percent off, Reminder, Urgent”.
These are major spam trigger words…avoid them!
These 5 are the worst offenders.
Let’s stop using them and diluting the value of these words.
6. Beware of the same subject line blinds.
This is simple.
Stop sending the same email subject line over and over.
I get that it’s powerful.
It worked in the past.
But let’s face it: we all become blind to repetition.
7. Get to the point.
STOP with the super long emails.
I know you are trying to pre-sell, share a story, get a message across, etc. but let’s look at Twitter: 140 characters…there’s a reason for that.
People have short attention spans.
Take the first 50 characters or less and get your point across FAST.
People spend less than 51 seconds in their inbox when on a mobile phone.
50% of email users use mobile phones.
Hurry, get your message across ASAP!
8. HARD stop emails.
You’ve seen it before…
“Hey you there
Yes this is me.
You are about to learn
about taking better pictures”
The reason it was done in the past was to keep it “mobile friendly” but that was the past.
With most email marketing tools, it automatically now adjusts your email messages to fit the mobile screen perfectly.
Now, when you do that, it looks like this:
“Hey you there
Yes this is me.
You are about to
learn
about taking better
pictures.”
This looks terrible.
STOP IT!
That’s all for today.
I hope you can take these 8 tips and expand your email marketing!
Let me know what you think below and don’t forget to share with your friends!
Jimmy Kim
Latest posts by Jimmy Kim (see all)
- Traffic Academy: Get In the Driver’s Seat! (Part 2) - January 14, 2018
- Traffic Academy: Get In the Driver’s Seat! (Part 1) - January 7, 2018
- Start The Year Off Right: Clean Your List - December 31, 2017
Thanks for keeping us on track Jimmy. I am so grateful for all I have learned from you and your willingness to help so many. Am out applying that knowledge now with confidence from your training and classes. Confidence that I never had before meeting you!
Good advice. Thanks for the knowledge.