Email is fast, cheap, easily personalised, gives you flexibility to test different campaigns with different markets and is easy to track results.

However, if your customers and prospects are anything like me, then they could receive a couple of hundred emails a day. Accordingly, they will develop cognitive short cuts to quickly determine what’s important, what can be read later and what can be ignored.

Assisting this cognitive process are improvements with email packages like Outlook, which provide little red flags to indicate urgency, preview panes (so you get the gist of the email without wasting precious time clicking it open) and pop ups when a new email arrives.

Your target audience is now better equipped to make a split second decision on whether or not to hit the delete button. This is why you must fight for your right to be read!

Here are some pointers on how to increase your chances of being read:

1. From name
One of the first things people look at is who the email is from. If it’s from a friend or someone they are familiar with, they are less likely to file it in the SPAM category. Use a consistent “from name” and email address when you send your email campaigns so that your audience know it’s you. You may also find greater readership when the email is from an actual person rather than just sales@abccompany.com.au.

2. Create compelling subject lines
You only have a split second to capture the reader’s interest before you are erased forever, so write subject lines that are compelling, informative, relevant to the reader and upholds the value of your brand.
For example, “30% off move tickets – ends this Thursday”.

Because subject lines are important, it’s worthwhile spending some time developing these and testing them on friends and colleagues before sending your email.

3. Personalise your message
If you can, try to personalise your email like you would a letter. This is useful as it indicates to the recipient that the email was meant for them and not just a generic message.

4. Be aware of preview panes
Many people these days have their email client (ie. Outlook) set to preview panes which reveal the first paragraph of the email. As such, you should make your first paragraph compelling and get to the point quickly.

5. One message doesn’t fit all
When planning your email campaign, its good practice to think about which groups of people from your database you are trying to reach. Remember to speak their language and don’t be afraid to create a few versions of the campaign for different customer and prospect segments, tailoring your message for each.

6. Remember to keep it short, sharp and to the point
Don’t be afraid to use links to drive traffic back to your website for more detail if need be.

7. The rule of “value exchange”
You are taking someone’s precious time when they read your communications. To ensure they continue reading and won’t forever blacklist your emails, give them something of value for their time such as an exclusive offer, prize or valuable information. Because of this rule, relevance is far more important than frequency, particularly when it comes to communications with existing customers.

8. Call to action
What would you like your reader to do in response to your email? You need to make this very clear to the reader and give them a time frame. For instance, if your email contains an exclusive prize offer, then you may want to say something like “ To redeem your prize, please call 1800 123 123 today!”.

9. Unsubscribe link, permissions and privacy policies
Be sure you have permission to use the recipient’s email address and that your email contains easy to find “unsubscribe” and “our privacy policy” links so they can see what you use their contact details for or choose to stop receiving any future emails. This is important due to the SPAM Act and Privacy Act. Please check with the Australian Direct Marketing Association for full details on how to comply.

10. Measure your success!
Its always good practice to go back and measure how well your campaign has gone to identify areas for improvement or if it’s even worthwhile repeating it. Many email software solutions will enable you to track click throughs and open rates.

However, there are other means of gauging and this will depend on your call to action. Using the prize offer example from above, you could measure the increase in calls to the 1800 123 123 number or how many prizes were given out.

Other tips you may want to consider regarding email marketing include:

11. Make your email easy to scan
Format your email so that its clean and easy to look at. If you choose to use images, then use them sparingly and only small image file sizes please! Also, try to avoid using animated elements like flash as not everyone is capable of viewing these.

12. Let your customers do the promoting for you!
You may want to consider encouraging recipients to forward the email to their friends by offering incentives.

13. Welcome emails to new customers
Email can be a handy tool to increase your level of customer service. Why not try a friendly welcome email about what they have purchased, what they can expect from you and other offerings they may be interested in?

14. Follow up
Try using email as a quick and easy follow up for another marketing campaign to ensure maximum results. For instance, you send out a discount offer to prospects via post, and then a week later you email them a reminder that time is running out for the offer.

The rules for best emailing practices are changing as laws, technology and people’s behaviour change. However, I hope I have given you some useful tips today and if you have any others, please leave a comment!

This article is brought to you by Australian Business Marketing Services, giving you no nonsense, results driven marketing at a price that you can afford. Contact us today on 1800 505 529 or via email for assistance with your marketing needs.

By Vanessa Tsui