Eliminate email metrics benchmark

This article contains many ideas designed to help you improve the quality of your email marketing. Use these suggestions to make an effective marketing tool.

You should try and build an email list the best that you can from networking in person as well as on the Internet. You should not buy or rent lists of names that you will email to drum up business. There is no guarantee that any of the people you contact will be interested and you may even end up getting reported to your email service provider.

Don't make sales pitches right away if you promised informational newsletters. You can use an informational newsletter to market a product, but only if you have the customers' attention first. Provide them with quality, useful information, and then market the product as an extension of that information. You'll see a much better conversion rate that way.

When you are developing the opening lines of your emails, ask yourself a few important questions. First, is the information in the opening line interesting? You want to attract the reader's attention immediately. Then, is it relevant? Make sure it reflects your subject matter and targets prospective customers. Finally, is your opening line useful? Make sure the opening line offers useful information to your readers.

Place important copy and call to action on the left-hand side of the images in your emails. Studies have shown that customers respond more strongly to copy that is written to the left of the images in an advertisement. Links to follow should be placed next to images, not below them, in order to grab best the customers' attention.

Make sure the return email address on your messages uses your name, instead of a generic "marketing@domain.com" address. People are more likely to read and respond to an email that seems to be coming from a real person. It also cuts down on the likelihood of your email being snagged by the spam filters of the email provider.

Personalize the Campaign, your emails should address their recipient by name. Software can personalize each email so that it is addressed individually to the recipient. Emails are much more likely to be opened and read when you use the actual name of the recipient rather than "Dear Valued Customer." So take the time to use your customer's name, so they don't just feel as though your letter is simply spam.

Make sure your customers have an "opt out" option available on your emails. For whatever reason, you may get a reader that no longer wants to receive emails from you. Provide your end of the bargain in your emailing policy by allowing them to choose to end their subscription.

A good suggestion for following up with prospects is to send out a follow-up email that has a receipt included in it. Attach a request on this email for them to research this receipt. The conclusion of the email should tell them that they can be the judge over whether it is good or bad.

When developing an email marketing campaign, you must make your material look professional. If it does not look professional, customers will pass over it without paying any attention at all. There are plenty of scams and junk emails going around, and your legitimate marketing campaign must stand out as something they want to look further into.