Email marketing can be a difficult medium to master, but following a few guidelines can improve your results enormously just by helping you avoid bad practice.

Probably the best advice is to put yourself in your recipient’s position. Go to your email inbox and look at which messages you read, which ones you don’t even open because they make you think ‘spam’ and which ones go straight into your junk folder - then use that information to help you design your campaigns.

Don't do what spammers do

This is the golden rule, so it’s a good idea to find out a bit about their habits so you can avoid the common pitfalls. Many people delete most of their email unopened based solely on the subject line or sender if it looks like spam.

And keep your messages simple and short

Remember 15-20 seconds is the average time people spend reading an email they’ve opened, and the primary purpose of most emails is to drive people to a website, where you can put all the content you want them to read.

Tip 1 - Use permission based lists

The minimum permission you should acquire is your recipient checking a box to say they want emails from you- failing to tick a box marked ‘don’t spam me’ is not considered giving permission.

Double opt-in lists that are kept up to date are best because that ensures your recipients do want to receive your emails, which will maximize your results and minimize your opt-outs.

Old lists will often contain many dead addresses and more people who no longer want to receive messages from you, so the fresher the list the better.

Using a signup form on your website is an ideal way to combat list attrition and get voluntary sign ups and is automatically double opt in.

If you send to someone without their permission (e.g. harvesting their address off the internet) you are effectively spamming them and risk a £5000 fine.

Always include an unsubscribe link so people can easily opt-out of your list, which will help prevent them marking your message as spam. This is a legal requirement.

Tip 2 - Design your emails carefully

Include lots of links so you give people many opportunities to click through to your website, which will also give you more reporting information on recipient’s behaviour.

It’s common to create your email in a simple table format to avoid any formatting issues, which ensure your recipients receive an email that looks the way you want it to.

Include a clear call to action such as a button marked ‘Click here for more info’ or similar, to make it easy for people to click through with minimal reading.

Use your brand recognition to gain their trust e.g. your logo in the header and your company name.

Put the important stuff ‘above the fold’ as the top left is usually the first place people look and often the last, anything at the bottom of your mail is much less likely to get a response.

Never rely solely on images for important information as they will often not display immediately depending on your recipient’s preferences, always provide alternative image text.

Use concise simple language, don’t add attachments or embedded images, always include a plain text version and always spell check your copy!

Tip 3 - Target people with content relevant to them

Segmenting your list to target particular demographics helps make sure the right people get the right message that’s interesting to them, irrelevant messages are often perceived as spam.

Follow up click-throughs on targeted links, because those people are likely to be interested in the content of the link- otherwise they would not have clicked.

Targeted campaigns get 4-8 times the success of non-targeted campaigns.

Tip 4 - Check for spam warning and deliverability

Spam check your message before sending! If you're using PureResponse, the spam checker (in message testing) will highlight any potential spam problems (e.g. words like ‘free’ or ‘offers’, no plain text version, too many images etc..)

PureResponse also has a deliverability checker (the advanced spam checker). This will warn you of many formatting problems with your message code relevant to particular email clients (e.g. using CSS code or Microsoft tags) and help ensure your code is inbox-friendly html.

Tip 5 - Think about your subject line

The subject line is probably the most important part of your email because it is largely what people use to decide whether or not to open your message.

It should reflect who it is from and what it is about and grab your attention, without using words like ‘free’ or £ signs or other spammer habits.

Generally it is considered a good idea to include your brand name and personalisation in the subject (e.g. ‘{Yourcompany} July News for {Your-recipient’s-name}’) as it helps recognition, reinforces that the email is targeted to the recipient and thus is not spam.

Again, if you're using PureResponse, the Subject Line Selector feature can test several subject lines against each other and get feedback on what works for your recipients and what doesn’t. This is a great help to improve your subject line next time and get better open rates.

Tip 6 - Send at the right time

If your email is at the top of the inbox it is much more likely to be read and your recipient is likely to spend more time on it. Sending at the time most of your recipients read their email will get you better results.

Check your reports to see if people are reading your emails first thing, or at lunchtime, in the evening etc. then target your delivery for that period.

With Pure’s Enterprise system the reporting provides a timeline of activity, and if you enable the Intelligent Time Sending feature (in deliveries) it will automatically tailor delivery times to each recipient’s behaviour.

Tip 7 - Test your email

Run your message through the deliverability checker (see 4 above) to check the code is inbox friendly and there are no spam flags in your content.

Use the message testing facility (in messages) to check how your message appears in various different email clients (e.g. hotmail, outlook, yahoo).

Send test messages to several colleagues for feedback. In PureResponse you would do this using the multiple test addresses feature.

Send to a live seed list to check that all links work correctly and ensure there are no live send issues.

Tip 8 - Use trust earning text

In the header of your email it is a good idea to have some text explaining why someone is receiving the message, and troubleshooting any problems they might have.

For example some combination of these sorts of phrases is common:

• ‘This email has been sent to you by Yourcompany.com’
• ‘If you don’t want to receive messages from us simply click here to unsubscribe’
• ‘Please add us to your safe list’
• ‘If you cannot see the images in this email click here to view online’
• ‘To ensure our emails reach you every time, please add our email address to your address book’
• ‘Click here to send to a friend or colleague’

For more information on trust earning text, see this previous post.

Tip 9 - Provide value to the recipient

If your messages provide value to your recipients they will be more likely to open your next email, whether it’s winning a prize or an attractive offer, a product discount or simply entertaining content.

For example including industry news, useful information or advice costs you nothing, and will encourage people to read your emails. It will also create a positive impression of your organisation as providing expert advice which will help strengthen your brand’s reputation.

Tip 10 - Include your contact details and company registration number

Obviously, including your contact details will help people to phone you, send an email or visit you, and the more obvious the details are the better. For users of PureResponse, anybody hitting ‘reply’ to your mass email will send the reply to Pure, and we will automatically forward it to the forwarding address they set up.

Following The Companies (Registrar, Languages and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2006, every email marketing message should now include the company registration number, country of registration and registered office address.

For example in your footer as small print you might have something like ‘Yourcompany Ltd. Registered Office: 7 Any Road, Anytown, West Anyfield, Your Postcode 01234 567890. Registered in England No. 1234567’