Email marketing is an exciting prospect as it gives you new territory to target your product to. While it is very effective, there are some fundamental rules that you should stick by when going for email marketing. For example, it is not going to do you much good if you send the wrong category of emails or express the content in an offensive manner or worse, send out emails to people who haven’t permitted you to do so. If you follow the set of rules below, we are sure you will have a fruitful email marketing campaign and get the best results out of it.

Acquiring Permission

The first thing you should do before starting email marketing is to get the permission of all your recipients. While this might look like a tough job, it is quite the opposite; a lot of people will sign away permissions to learn more about products that might benefit them. It might be the case in a lot of situations that it is better to err on the positive, but here, you do not err at all. If you do not have permission, then it is best to not send out emails because even one spam complaint will destroy everything you have built. The service offered by Mailchimp automatically asks for permission from your customers and you just have to add a reminder to update it each time you add a new email to the list.

Learn the difference between transactional and promotional emails

When you are already running an e-commerce store and made sales, your customers will expect emails detailing their purchases and shipping notifications etc. These are known as transactional emails and customers should receive them directly from your server and not through a list manager such as us. However, you can use our API for transactional emails for better results.

When you send out coupons, newsletters, pamphlets detailing offers, you are effectively sending promotional and marketing emails. Just remember to send emails only to those who approve of them to avoid being legally labeled a spammer.

Take things slow

One of the most important pointers to remember is that you should take great care and work patiently with your content for the marketing campaign. Nothing is more putting off for a customer than to see a poorly designed, improperly coded marketing agenda in their inbox, especially if they haven’t asked for it. Make sure that your mailer list is up to date and that your marketing material is designed properly before embarking on a campaign.

Ensure people want your adverts

Never start off a marketing campaign with the assumption that people actually want to hear from you. There is a difference between sending personal emails and blasting out marketing materials. The first is fine if you are sending to a list of people in the industry whom you are familiar with. The latter, on the other hand, has to be done only with prior permission because if recipients find their inbox cluttered with it, they are very likely going to mark it as spam, which rings unwanted bells at the ISPs end. In short, bad news for you.

Thorough verification of mailing list

A lot of situations have been reported wherein the sender has been marked as a spammer because enough care wasn’t taken to check whether the recipients know whom they are receiving the email from. The ideal thing to do is to first double check the entire list for any duplicates and ensure that the list is compiled from a reliable source. Then, the best thing to do is to send a reminder email about your company or product and then go for the actual marketing material. Chances are that a lot of recipients would have forgotten that they had signed up for a list and this will inevitably lead to your email being marked as spam. Also, if you are purchasing a large mailing list, ensure that the delivery is made by them and not you; the recipients didn’t sign up directly for your marketing material, rather they signed up for third party promotional material from the seller.

Use email the right way

When you are going for email marketing, think of it as a platform to build a healthy relationship with potential customers. It is better to explain your product and await feedback rather than send a large number of emails in what is called a “blast”. The difference is that when customers permit you to send emails, they expect proper communication, not randomly designed and boisterous posters in their inbox.

One of the key features of email marketing is the spam filter. These tend to easily figure out marketing campaigns which are desperate to promote themselves and remove words in bright fonts and large letters. Avoid using a lot of exclamation marks and any wording that shows you are desperate to sell (SALE, GET IT NOW etc).

Another common error is to use a personal email for receiving replies. This is both unprofessional and juvenile and reduces the customers’ confidence in your product. You should be using the website’s email addresses and if you are not running a website that should be your priority over email marketing.

Appropriate Testing is Essential

Your customers will be using a variety of email clients and the appearance of your campaign material varies with each service. You should create several free email accounts across various platforms such as Windows, MacOS and then check how your marketing material looks.

Learn from Campaign Reports

With a mailing list service that communicates your product to customers, you will receive reports about the existing status. This will tell you about the number of clients who have blocked your emails and so forth. Before beginning a fresh campaign, you should read the report and make the necessary changes accordingly.

Following these simple rules will ensure that your email marketing campaign is effective. Keeping these in mind will definitely help you build a healthy relationship with your customers.