tom oddo design

Hi, my name is Tom, and I run two successful e-mail marketing newsletter campaigns for separate, non-competing retail websites. This is the first installment of an instructional mini-series about how to effectively create and maintain an e-mail marketing campaign. Besides having a functional and friendly website, having an outbound marking program is crucial to keep your clients and prospects interested in your business.

As a frequent online shopper and subscriber to all of my competitor’s e-mail newsletters, I have seen some really good examples:

And some really awful ones:

I like to think that my work falls somewhere between those two extremes (oh, I’m being too modest). A lot of the strategies that I employ are derived from a trial and error system that has taken over three years to sharpen. The marketing-minded aspects of newsletter creation were influenced by Mastering Online Marketing: 12 Keys to Transform Your Website into a Sales Powerhouse

Before we even talk about the actual newsletter itself, you, the business owner or marketing director, must first conceive the goal of the campaign (I always refer to an e-mail campaign as opposed to blast for a good reason, which we will touch on later.) In the case of my clients, this is usually to sell retail inventory. However, the purpose varies from “inviting prospects to a webinar,” or “promoting a series of self-help CD’s,” or “promoting a benefit dinner for homeless animals.” Whatever the case, you don’t want to bother your list of important contacts by just saying, “Hey! We’re still in business.” You need to have a clear “call to action” that you want the reader to engage in.

Newsletters aren’t mini versions of your catalog and should not include pictures of Mr. Fluffy and an essay about your thoughts on the economy. In the Web 2.0 age, you are lucky to capture any attention span for longer than 30 seconds (or two to three “scrolls”). Be to the point when crafting your message. If you are offering clearance merchandise to a preferred list of buyers, limit the list to 8 or 9 products. If it takes someone 3 scrolls (the motion of swiping down or scrolling down with a scroll wheel mouse) or more  to get to the high-margin merchandise, you can be assured that it will not sell as a result of the e-mail. If you are informing your buyers about the release of a new collection, you want to be as brief as an 8 1/2 x 11 sales sheet. All of the flowery detail and articles that inspired you can be nice content for the website or company blog, but not for an e-mail.

The contact list itself is almost as important as the message you are crafting. If you have a quality list made up of mostly qualified prospects and repeat customers, your success will be far greater than if you had a general list of people that you are unsure if they will even like what you have to offer. Have your own e-mail address as part of the list, along with the addresses of close family members and a few coworkers. When you gather personal addresses of your friends and family, keep a mental note of how they check their e-mail as well. Do they use their iPhone? Thunderbird? Hotmail? Yahoo? Gmail? The deliverable rate of an e-mail message varies from inbox to inbox. Your e-mail may show up in Gmail’s Spam folder, but may be sent to the inbox of someone using Hotmail.  There are techniques to implement that will help you avoid the spam filter, which we will go over in a later issue.

Now that you have your list of qualified individuals who you have selected as your audience, you need a delivery method to reach them all. Since choosing an e-mail marketing online service / software can be a topic by itself, I won’t go into great detail, but I will say that the most important aspects of choosing a service is the delivery rates, the metrics used to track sent messages and the ability to manage or segment the mailing list. iContact does a good job of delivery and click-thru analysis.

Recap:

1. Figure out how the e-mail newsletter will be used within your overall marketing plan. (the why)
2. Draft the content of your newsletter. (the what)
3. Organize your existing list of contacts into an e-mail newsletter list. Remember to ask permission! (the who)
4. Select a service or program that will manage your contacts, messages and analyzes the results of your campaign. (the how)

In part 2, we will discuss when your e-mail newsletters will be most effective. Thanks for reading. If you have any insights or questions, feel free to comment on this post.