Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Slip-ups and oversights in email marketing

Email has become one of the most prominent marketing channels. However, marketers still ignore the basic email marketing etiquettes. The result is spam complaints and black listing. Given below are four 'you dare not miss this' email marketing practices.
Your email list has life, please handle it with care. Considering it as a spreadsheet with thousands of names is bad. Remember if you see them just as names and keep sending emails, your email recipient will see you as a spammer.
Just because you have their names you don't have the right to send emails to them. How will you feel when someone capture your email address through some means and start blasting emails to you. The very success of email marketing depends upon permission. Intruding someone's inbox and expecting them to buy is hope in disguise. Send permission email to all the contacts in the email list to subscribe for your email newsletters.
Make it easy. You cannot force people to stick to you if they don't want to. Hiding the 'unsubscribe' link in email clutter is a wrong habit. Keep a prominent, simple one-click 'unsubcribe' button and place it at the top/bottom right corner of your email.
Let them go if they want to. Respect their choice to 'opt-out' and immediately suppress their names from the email list. Sending emails to people who have unsubscribed is a big mistake in this social network fever.
Show them that you care. Your email marketing tricks will never work for long. At the end, the company who understands and cares for their clients and prospects will win the email marketing race.