Our copywriters here at Lure Creative love the book called Web Copy That Sells by Maria Veloso. They consistently say how much good information is in it, so we decided we wanted to share some of it with you (albeit in a condensed format). We are focusing specifically on Chapter Four: Email Marketing. Here are some of the best nuggets to remember and apply:
Tips to Make Sure Your Email Is Delivered
Many marketers think the most important objective of email is getting it opened. Actually, that’s the second objective. The number one objective should be getting your email delivered. As more and more email providers offer filters to keep spam out, getting your emails past them becomes more challenging.
Sending your email in bulk can trigger spam filters to block it. It’s better to break your email up into smaller chunks. If you want to send an email to 100 recipients or more, you should use a bulk email service like Constant Contact or MailChimp, for example. Internet service providers and servers that maintain blacklists are trained to recognize emails sent from bulk email services as legitimate, and you will not be blacklisted when sending through one.
Certain words also trigger blocking. Here is a list from Send Blaster of 200+ words to avoid in your email. According to MailChimp, you can expect 10-20% of your emails to get lost in cyberspace, mostly due to overzealous filters.
Make Sure Your Email Isn’t Testing Positive for Spam
Contactology is a free tool for checking the quality of your email messages. Just go to the Contactology website where you can upload your email and it will give you an MQS or Message Quality Score for deliverability on a scale of 0-100. If your score is low, it is an indication that your email strongly resembles spam and could be blocked or filtered by major email providers. If your score is high, you can be reasonably sure that your message will be delivered successfully.
How to Protect Your Email Reputation
Your email reputation has to do with your email sending practices and behavior. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use your online reputation score to decide whether or not to deliver the emails you send. There are two distinct parts to your online reputation – your recipient reputation and your ISP reputation.
Recipient reputation looks at your track record with the recipients of your email. It looks at factors like:
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- Having a readily identifiable sender in the form field
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- Appropriate frequency of emails
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- Relevant content
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- Sending only to those who have opted in or subscribed
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- Providing an easy way to unsubscribe
- Honoring unsubscribe requests on a timely basis
ISP (internet service provider) reputation looks at your track record with ISPs. It looks at factors like:
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- Accurate addresses
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- Live addresses
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- Consistency in the from address and IP address(es)
- Open and click rates
You can check your recipient reputation and your ISP reputation online.
Creating Emails That Sell
After making sure your emails actually get delivered, we need to focus on writing an effective email so it will be opened. Here are some of the tips from the book called 7 Elements of Emails That Sell:
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- Write a compelling subject line. Messages that sound personal are always more compelling than general messages. Good words to include: this, here, why, what, & how. Also, ellipses in subject lines create a sense of incompleteness which can encourage recipients to open.
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- Make the first sentence of your message an ice breaker. Small talk builds rapport.
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- Stay on point. Use the inverted pyramid style and get right to the point you want to make.
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- Focus on only one message per email so you can lead your prospect down the sales path.
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- Provide value like an offer of something free, a discount, or useful information.
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- Demonstrate how it will benefit them. Don’t just tell them what; tell them why.
- You’ve done all of this work, don’t forget to ask for the sale by providing them with a call to action. Tell them what to do next. Should they click, call, etc.?
We hope these tips will help your email messages avoid the spam box, be opened more frequently, and convert readers to customers! If you need help with your emails, call one of the email experts here at Lure Creative and we’ll be happy to answer all of your questions or help manage your email marketing. Call us at (913) 649-4040 to start building better emails that drive better sales.
