We’re not talking here about whether someone has a fiancée – engaged means that the reader of any marketing email that you send needs to be engaged with its content immediately. A poor opening line or sentence can make the difference between a sale, an offhand delete, or worse still, a recipient clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link.
For a person to become engaged by your content, clearly that content has to be engaging! So let’s look at some tips for both the technical and creative aspects required to send bulk emails to the best effect.
Getting the tech bits right
Depending on how many marketing emails you might want to send, you could start off small at first by sending your emails from your own SMTP server. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Some internet service providers or web hosts include an SMTP facility from their own Internet Protocol address (IP address) with a hosting package or home broadband setup. But there will be a limit on the number of emails you are allowed to send per day. If you go over that limit, your service provider will almost certainly put a block on your SMTP server to cap the number of emails being sent.
Some ISPs charge the earth for SMTP facilities; all of them allow you to receive an email for free at your chosen domain, but not necessarily to send from it. As a result, many small businesses choose to pay for email marketing software. The advantages of these packages are various: list management tools, reporting dashboards and analytics, html email templates, and the like. Naturally, sending an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) email looks the most professional. It is really just like a stand-alone web page attached to the email but that appears graphically formatted within the receiving email client itself, with pictures and fonts varying in size and color, etc. Obviously, this looks a lot slicker than just a few lines of text.
There are also packages available from Email Service Providers (ESPs) – these specialize in high volumes of email sending – up to many thousands per day if required, but they don’t offer the analytics and reporting facilities, nor the one-click unsubscribe link that is required under certain countries’ privacy laws.
But whatever method you decide upon there are some golden email marketing rules that will see your IP address (the sending server address) banned by email service providers if you don’t adhere to them:
- Research and make sure you adhere to the USA’s CAN-SPAM act and also, if sending to Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Not only will flouting these regulations almost certainly stop your emails from being delivered, but they’ll also land you with a very hefty fine; even for small businesses these can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Bigger organizations can be fined millions.
- One of the most important regulations to follow is the ‘Double Opt-In” rule. Double opt-in works by a subscriber filling in a website form or even filling out an offline postal direct marketing leaflet, to ask to be included in marketing emails of potential interest to them. Once the subscriber registers their email address, they will receive a confirmation link. They must click this link to prove that their email is genuine and that they still definitely wish to receive marketing material. This is known as double opt-in because the subscriber sends their address first, then confirms their opt-in a second time.
- It is illegal to pre-check a web form box that opts a person in by default. The box must remain unchecked on any website form until the interested party proactively checks it to opt in.
- Ensure that the recipient can opt out of receiving emails (unsubscribe) with one click, by having a link at the footer of every email that will remove that person’s address from your email database the moment it is activated. Popular email marketing platforms all have this facility wired in by default.
Crafting a creative message
OK, so you’ve made sure you’re all street-legal with the regulations. Now your marketing email must wow your recipient in its first couple of opening lines. Obviously, that content depends on the Call to Action (CTA) of the email itself, and to whom it’s addressed in terms of demographic. The CTA is simply described as what you want the recipient to do when they receive the email. Maybe they can visit your online shop, call you, send a reply for more information, or whatever.
So if you’re trying to sell a stairlift installation to an 80-year-old couple in their house in the Hamptons, you’re unlikely to be successful with:
“Dude, we’ve got some dope deals on stairlifts this month, innit!! Head on over to our crib and see what’s happenin’…” The recipient would probably call the cops saying that they had received an email from someone trying to sell recreational herbs!
Instead, the email must foremost be relevant to the target audience, then concise – nobody wants to read an essay. The CTA should be very clear. Simple two or three-word lines should be used like: ‘Click here’ or ‘call this number’ or ‘fill out this form (link)’.
Super time-saving shortcodes
If possible, the person’s first name should be used. Not ‘Dear Customer’ but ‘Dear John’ – good email marketing platforms enable you to do this from the address database by simply typing shortcodes, for names and products or concepts – such as Dear [first_name]. Imagine typing out the names manually for 1000 emails! No thanks.
Your first engaging sentence might be something like a friendly question:
“Hi [first_name], have you ever found [products] like these to be of poor quality? Why not move up a level and check out our top-end [product] [image] here at [link].”
If you follow these common-sense pointers and if you can make sure that your marketing emails are legal, clear, engaging, and to the point, success awaits at the click of a mouse.
